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Which is the Best 50mm Lens for Sony?

Chris Gampat
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04/11/2023
4 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Sony 50mm f1.4 G Master vs 55mm f1.8 Product images 41-60s160 1

Despite the fact that there are so many Sony 50mm lenses, none of them are clones of one another. In fact, they all serve completely different purposes. And then there are tons of 3rd party options too for the Sony E mount. But some of us only care about what the best 50mm lens for Sony is. That can be a complicated question to answer. However, we’re going to give you our answer based on reviewing every single one of these lenses. Here’s our thoughts on what the best 50mm lens for Sony is.

How We Chose the Best 50mm Lens for Sony

Here’s some insight into how to use this guide to the best 50mm lens for Sony:

  • 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 in these roundups.
  • 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.
  • Sony E mount has a ton of 50mm lenses. And so, we’re choosing the best 50mm lens for Sony from the ones that we’ve reviewed. Luckily, we’ve reviewed the vast majority of lenses for Sony E Mount. You can find them in this guide here.
  • So what makes a lens the best 50mm lens for Sony? A few things: at the top of it all is portability. I mean, what’s the point of using a lens if you never want to handhold it or carry it for a long time? Then there’s image quality. Sony’s image quality tends to be very clean and clinical. But some have a bit of variety. We also value weather resistance because it helps prolong the shelf-life of your product.
  • If you’re using a Sony lens, then the autofocus will undoubtedly be quick.
  • Be sure to also look at our guide to Sony 50mm lenses.

The Best 50mm Lens for Sony: Sony 55mm f1.8

Technically, it’s not a 50mm lens. But it’s often lumped in with a lot of decisions around choosing a 50mm lens. The Sony 55mm f1.8 is the best balance of image quality, portability, durability, and autofocus speed. It’s around a decade old, and yet it still performs admirably. It still ranks as one of Sony’s sharpest lenses and has a metal body. Most of all, it’s super lightweight. Why wouldn’t you want to bring it everywhere with you?

PROS

  • Sharp images
  • Creamy bokeh
  • Weather-sealed
  • Smooth & large focusing ring

CONS

  • Lens hood adds a good amount of length to the front
  • No depth of field scale

This lens is available for $998. In our review conclusions, we said:

The Sony 55mm f1.8, like its shorter brother, has earned our Editor’s Choice Award for sheer performance. If this lens is any indication, the future is bright and creamy…

3 Other Great Options

Here are three other great options that photographers will enjoy. These lenses are all larger and have a faster aperture than our choice. But for some photographers, these might be the best 50mm lens for Sony because of image quality, balance, or affordability.

Sony 50mm f1.4 G Master

This lens is available for around $1,299.99. Our review concluded by saying:

In terms of image quality, the Sony 50mm f1.4 G Master is sharper than the 55mm f1.8 up until f4 and beyond, where the two lenses are indistinguishable when looking at the images at 100%. We don’t encourage pixel-peeping here, and that’s where this gets even more fascinating. When you’re looking at the photos as a whole, the Sony 50mm f1.4 G Master and the Sony 55mm f1.8 look pretty much exactly the same. And so, photographers that want to walk the line between the classic 55mm and the 50mm f1.2 might want to reach for this.

Sony 50mm f1.2 G Master

This lens is available for around $1,999. Our review concluded by saying:

The Sony 50mm f1.2 G Master is a fantastic lens overall. The autofocus performance is quick and accurate in lots of cases. It will serve street photographers, portrait photographers, and any other professional or passionate photographer well. As we saw, it’s going to also stand up to the elements pretty well. Within the FE lens lineup, it’s the fastest aperture lens. It also has incredibly smooth bokeh, sharp optics, and decent color.

Rokinon 50mm f1.4

rokinon lenses

This lens is available for around $599. Our review concluded by saying:

I’m in love with the Rokinon 50mm f1.4 AF FE, and that’s hard to do because I have an ongoing hatred of the 50mm focal length. Rokinon truly nailed it here. Want better build quality? You’ve got it, this lens has a metal exterior. Not only that, but it feels uniquely like a Rokinon lens and not like a Sigma, Tamron, or Zeiss. There is no weather sealing, but I’ll excuse that. Rokinon’s optics have always been top notch and this is no exception. The colors are bold, the contrast is there, the images are sharp, and the bokeh is gorgeous. All of this is thanks to the very good autofocus capabilities.

50mm prime lenses rokinon
autofocus best 50mm lens best 50mm lens for sony build quality image quality review rokinon 50mm f1.4 sony Sony 50mm sony 50mm f1.2 sony 50mm f1.4 Sony 55mm f1.8
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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.