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Features

The Best Sony Lenses for Beginners Under $500 for Full Frame Cameras

Chris Gampat
No Comments
08/23/2022
3 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Sony 28-70mm f3.5-5.6 product images (3 of 6)ISO 1001-180 sec at f - 4.0

If you’re brand new to photography and have picked up a Sony camera, then congratulations. You’re getting into arugably one of the best camera systems on the market. And to help you in your journey, we’re rounding up the best Sony lenses for beginners. You don’t have to spend a whole lot of money. And you can have faith in us that we’ve actually tested these. Dive in with us.

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How We Chose the Best Sony Lenses for Beginners Under $500

Here’s some insight into how we chose the best Sony lenses for beginners:

  • Our Editorial Policies don’t allow us to talk about products that we haven’t tested. And thankfully, we’ve reviewed pretty much every lens Sony makes. You can see all that in our giant Sony FE lens guide if you’re curious.
  • Thankfully, all of these lenses are very lightweight. It’s one of the reasons why we’re so amazed at the best Sony lenses for beginners and all that they offer to photographers.
  • Don’t hate on the kit lens. Looking back in our review, we’re quite surprised at how good it performed. 
  • The best Sony lenses for beginners are all chosen for different reasons. The 50mm is a nice short portrait lens. Then there’s the kit zoom. And the 28mm f2 is a wonderful lens for landscape photography. You can see more in our reviews within each section.
  • We shot all these images ourselves. So you can trust that we’ve used these products.
  • Sony FE monikers refer to full-frame 35mm sensor cameras. Sony E typically refers to APS-C cameras. But they’re all the same mount, which is Sony E mount.

Sony 50mm f1.8 FE

Pros

  • Pretty decent image quality
  • Affordable
  • Small
  • Fast to focus in good lighting

Cons

  • Autofocus is very slow in low lighting even with the a7r II
  • Autofocus is a bit louder than we’d personally like, though it’s still pretty quite in real life use

In our review, we state:

“Generally speaking in terms of nifty 50 lenses, you can’t really get much better here. Sony’s 50mm f1.8 is right up there with the Canon 50mm f1.8 in terms of image quality. It’s got great color output, is very sharp, very little chromatic aberration (and even then you’ve really got to look for it) and bokeh that isn’t bad overall.”

Buy Now

Sony 28-70mm f3.5-5.6 OSS

Pros

  • Surprisingly great performance for a kit lens.
  • Fast focusing even with older cameras.
  • Pretty compact size and doesn’t get much larger when fully zoomed in or out

Cons

  • Honestly, not much considering I had low expectations to begin with due to this being a kit lens. While I understand that kit lenses have improved over the years, I just never know what to expect these days.

In our review, we state:

“During the review process, I was absolutely amazed at this kit lens. Many times I didn’t think that I was using one but instead something targeted at a middle of the road user. Indeed, there is very little to complain about with this lens and if you’re using it for general shooting purposes, then you’ll be very satisfied. But at the same time, expect it to be a jack of all trades but master of none.”

Buy Now

Sony 28mm f2 FE

e mount lenses

Pros

  • Very sharp at any aperture
  • Beautiful bokeh
  • Nice, small size
  • Lightweight
  • Weather Resistance
  • Pretty affordable

Cons

  • Metal build on the exterior, though almost hollow feeling because ti’s so light weight.

In our review, we state:

“In the right situations, the bokeh really shines here. For what it’s worth though it still seems like every other Sony FE prime lens outshines this one and for good reason–they’re all longer focal lengths. However, we really do like the bokeh for a 28mm lens as those nine aperture blades really do help a lot.”

Buy Now

The Phoblographer’s various product round-up features are done in-house. Our philosophy is simple: you wouldn’t get a Wagyu beef steak review from a lifelong vegetarian. And you wouldn’t get photography advice from someone who doesn’t touch the product. We only recommend gear we’ve fully reviewed. If you’re wondering why your favorite product didn’t make the cut, there’s a chance it’s on another list. If we haven’t reviewed it, we won’t recommend it. This method keeps our lists packed with industry-leading knowledge. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.

beginners image quality kit lens landscapes portrait review sony sony 28-70mm Sony 28-70mm f3.5-5.6 OSS Sony 28mm F2 Sony 50mm f1.8 Sony E Sony FE Sony Lenses sony lenses for beginners
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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