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Features

What’s the Best 85mm Lens for Sony?

Chris Gampat
No Comments
05/03/2023
4 Mins read
E Mount Lenses

Because they’re one of the oldest mirrorless autofocusing camera mount, the Sony E Mount has a ton of great lenses available to it. And if you’re a portrait photographer, then we’ve got something special for you today. We’re talking about what the best 85mm lens for Sony E Mount is. After years of real-world testing more than any other outlet, we’re helping budding portrait photographers decide which one is the one to rule them all!

How We Chose the Best 85mm Lens for Sony

Here’s some insight into how to use this guide to the best 85mm 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 85mm lenses available. And so, we’re choosing the best 85mm 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 85mm 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.
  • If you’re curious, we’ve done a pretty big comparison of some key 85mm lenses for Sony. Take a look here.

The Best 85mm Lens for Sony: Sony 85mm f1.8

There are a lot of great reasons why we’re choosing the Sony 85mm f1.8 as the best 85mm lens for Sony E Mount. Quite honestly, you’re not going to see the difference between this and so many others. Even when we’ve talked to Sony Artisans, most of them reach for the 85mm f1.8 instead of the G Master because it’s got comparable image quality in a smaller package. Plus, it’s lightweight, fast to focus, and weather resistant.

It’s also much less prone to problems compared to the Sigma 85mm f1.4 DG DN Art lens. They even told us that they made compromises to get the lens down to that size.

Pros

  • Great image quality
  • Fast focusing with the Sony a7r II and in good lighting it will focus quickly with the Sony a7
  • Nice feel; though not as great as the G Master 85mm f1.4 lens.
  • Weather resistance built in
  • Compact size

Cons

  • Honestly, not a darn thing.

This lens is available for $837.50. In our review conclusions, we said:

This is in many ways, the absolute most perfect portrait lens for most Sony camera users. If you don’t need or can afford the 85mm f1.4 G Master lens, then the Sony 85mm f1.8 FE lens is a fantastic option. It’s sharp, has less saturated colors (only the Loxia is less saturated that this), focuses pretty well with most cameras (the Batis is fastest) and it has weather resistance. But it’s also small and offered at a pretty affordable price point.

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 85mm lens for Sony because of image quality, balance, or affordability.

Zeiss 85mm f1.8 Batis

This lens is available for around $1,249. Our review concluded by saying:

Still though, this isn’t a terrible lens. In fact, it’s far from it. There isn’t a single major problem with this lens and it shares characteristics with many others out there with the exception of the Zeiss 135mm f2–which has Micro Contrast. You won’t be as excited about the images straight out of the camera, but this lens will help set you up for beautiful photos that your clients will really fall for.

Sony 85mm f1.4 G Master

This lens is available for around $1,798. Our review concluded by saying:

If you own an 85mm lens manufactured within the last five years or so, you probably don’t need to upgrade to this lens. They’ll all give you great bokeh, great sharpness that can be enhanced in Lightroom, and some are even better built. What you’re paying for here is native mount use and autofocusing abilities. If you have an older lens and portraiture don’t bring in most of your money then don’t consider this lens. If portraiture puts food on the table, then consider your purchase carefully because this lens is very expensive.

Sigma 85mm f1.4 DG DN Art

This lens is available for around $1,199. Our review concluded by saying:

The Sigma 85mm f1.4 DG DN Art offers tremendous value for just $1,199. It retains the excellent image quality of its predecessor while addressing many of its shortcomings: It’s smaller, lighter, and features markedly improved autofocus performance. In fact, this lens performs on par with the highly-rated Sony 85mm G Master. Talk about punching above its weight. Be sure to check out our upcoming direct comparison between these two lenses. Unfortunately, the Sigma falls just short of perfection due to its severe pincushion distortion. Otherwise, it would have been a shoo-in for the Phoblographer’s Editor’s Choice Award.

autofocus build quality ergonomics image quality review Sigma 85mm f1.4 sony Sony 85mm sony 85mm f1.4 sony 85mm f1.8 Zeiss 85mm f1.8 Batis
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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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