Sony FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* SEL55F18Z

Name: Sony FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* SEL55F18Z
Brand: Sony
Rating: 9.3 (9 reviews)

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Lens Review
Specifications
Description

55mm	$898 average price

Blur
Chromatic Aberration
Vignetting
Geometric Distortion

Blur
Chromatic Aberration
Vignetting
Geometric Distortion

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Buy the Sony FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* SEL55F18Z

SLRgear Review
November 21, 2013
by William Brawley

The Sony FE 55mm ƒ/1.8 ZA Zeiss Sonnar T* lens is a new fast prime lens released alongside Sony's Alpha A7R and A7 full-frame mirrorless cameras. The E-mount lens, which Sony has placed into a sub-category called "FE-mount" -- denoting their full-frame E-mount lenses -- is one of a set of new FE lenses; the others being the Sony FE 35mm ƒ/2.8 ZA Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* and the Sony 28-70mm ƒ/3.5-5.6G OSS lenses. Sony also plans to launch a couple more FE lens, the FE 24-70mm ƒ/4 ZA OSS Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* and an FE 70-200mm ƒ/4 ZA OSS, in January 2014.

The new Sony Zeiss 55mm ƒ/1.8 lens, as the name indicates, features classic Zeiss design with a smooth, black metal construction, a buttery smooth focus ring, high-end optical construction plus a rugged, dust- and weather-resistant build. It also features Zeiss's T* coating for increased contrast and reduced glare as well as a 9-bladed rounded aperture for great background blur.

This fast, rugged and relatively-compact prime lens ships with front and rear caps, a metal and plastic lens hood and a soft case, and is available currently for pre-order at around $1000 with an estimated shipping date of Dec. 22, 2013, according to Sony.

Sharpness
Overall, the Sony 55mm ƒ/1.8 is an extremely sharp lens. Wide open on a full-frame camera -- the Sony A7R in this case -- there's a little softness at ƒ/1.8, but the center is still quite sharp. As expected, on sub-frame cameras, we saw a little more sharpness wide open, particularly in the center. After dialing down to ƒ/2.8, we saw a dramatic increase in sharpness with only minor corner softness. On a sub-frame camera, especially, ƒ/2.8 looked amazingly sharp.

We find the sweet spot for this lens -- on both full- and sub-frame cameras -- by stopping down between ƒ/4-ƒ/8, with the maximum amount of sharpness across the frame. Having extremely sharp images around ƒ/5.6-ƒ/8 should make this a great compact portrait lens.

At the smaller apertures, we saw diffraction-limiting softness come into play, although ƒ/11 was still quite sharp. It's only at the smallest of apertures, around ƒ/16-ƒ/22, that softness becomes more noticeable.

Chromatic Aberration
CA? What CA? The Sony FE 55mm lens shows very little to almost zero chromatic aberration on both full-frame and APS-C cameras. On the Sony A7R full-frame camera, we saw very little CA across all apertures, even wide open. On a sub-frame camera, we saw a little more CA at the wider apertures on average, between ƒ/1.8-ƒ/4, but it was still a very insignificant amount. Past ƒ/5.6 and beyond, CA control was excellent.

Shading (''Vignetting'')
No lens is perfect, however, as there's pretty significant vignetting on full-frame cameras, especially at the wider apertures. At ƒ/1.8, light falloff is just shy of 1.5 EV and is still around 0.75 by ƒ/2.8. At the smaller apertures, like ƒ/11 and beyond, there's still about a quarter of a stop of light loss in the corners.

As expected, things are better on a sub-frame camera. Wide open, we saw a little over 0.5 EV of light loss and quickly reducing to around 0.25 EV at ƒ/2.8. Vignetting is reduced ever so slightly to under 0.25 EV by stopping down to ƒ/4 and holds basically at that level for the rest of the aperture values.

Distortion
Similar to what we saw with chromatic aberration: distortion? What distortion? The Sony 55mm is displays extremely low distortion on a full-frame camera (and even less on a APS-C camera). On average, with both sensor sizes, the average barrel distortion is just a small bit above zero. Out in the corners, we saw only around 0.2% barrel distortion on the full-frame camera but actually a small bit of pincushion distortion on our sub-frame camera. Overall, however, the distortion is very minimal and would not be visible in real-world images.

Focusing
The electrical, linear motor autofocusing system of the Sony Zeiss FE 55mm ƒ/1.8 lens is very fast and very quiet, allowing for near-silent AF that takes under a second to rack from its minimum focus distance to infinity. Autofocus feels speedy, accurate and locks onto subjects easily.

Of course, there's also manual focus on this lens via a focus-by-wire system. As with other focus-by-wire lenses, there's no mechanical adjustment when turning the focus ring on the lens alone; it's only when coupled with a camera with manual focusing enabled that the ring adjusts focus. The focus ring on the new Sony FE 55mm lens is buttery smooth, and allows for both coarse and very fine adjustments to focus depending on how fast you rotate the ring.

Macro
The Sony Zeiss FE 55mm ƒ/1.8 has a close focusing distance of 1.64ft (50cm) with a maximum magnification 0.14x (1:7.1 ratio), and as such, doesn't provide very good macro performance.

Build Quality and Handling
As expected based on other Carl Zeiss and Sony Zeiss lenses, the new Sony FE 55mm ƒ/1.8 ZA Zeiss Sonnar T* lens is a very well-built, solid lens with an all-metal barrel, metal lens mount and a sturdy, part-metal-part-plastic lens hood. Inside the barrel sits a lens configuration of 7 elements in 5 groups with 3 aspheric elements with a 9-bladed circular aperture (for great background blur). The lens also includes Carl Zeiss's T* coating for reduced glare and enhanced contrast.

The lens features a similar matte black finish as the new Sony A7R and A7 cameras and matches nicely with these cameras both aesthetically as well as being similarly dust and moisture resistant. Note: there is no rubber gasket around the lens mount like there are on some Canon L-series and Nikon lenses, for example -- so the lens doesn't appear to be fully weather sealed.

When it comes to buttons, rings or other exterior features, prime lenses are generally quite sparse and the Sony 55mm lens is no exception. In fact, it's a very minimalist design with single 1-inch wide focus ring and not much else. Since manual focusing is electronic, there's no focus distance window built-in to the lens, nor is there a manual AF/MF toggle switch either -- that's controlled via the camera as well.

The new Sony 55mm lens is relatively compact, with the diameter of the barrel being only slightly larger than the lens mount itself. The lens, in fact, accepts 49mm filters, which are much smaller than the usual 67-82mm filters seen on larger APS-C and full-frame DSLR lenses. However, unlike other full-frame ~50mm prime lenses like the Canon 50mm ƒ/1.4 and the Nikon counterpart, the Sony FE 55mm is proportionally a bit on the long side. Especially when you factor in the longer, wider petal-shaped lens hood, the Sony lens is just shy of 6-inches long. Regardless of this length, the Sony 55mm lens still feels comfortable, compact and overall a very lightweight yet solid-feeling lens.

Alternatives

As this is a brand new lens category with a brand new type of camera, there aren't any direct alternatives to this lens yet. However, Sony does make the FE 28-70mm ƒ/3.5-5.6 OSS and the upcoming FE 24-70mm f/4 ZA OSS Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* zoom lenses that will give you the capability of a 55mm focal length, but you sacrifice a lot of stops on the aperture with both options, though both have optical image stabilization -- all in all, however, not really direct competitors to a 55mm ƒ/1.8 prime lens.

If you're a fan of adapters, the smaller flange distance of the Sony A7R and A7 makes using adapters with a wide variety of third party lenses quite simple, as the A7R/A7 use a standard Sony E-mount. Using Sony's own LA-EA3 A-mount to E-mount adapter (no AF) or Sony's LA-EA4 adapter (adds Sony's Translucent Mirror technology and autofocus), you could use the Sony 50mm ƒ/1.4 ZA SSM Carl Zeiss Planar T* lens, which also has great Zeiss optics, a slightly faster aperture and a typical 50mm focal length. However, this is quite an expensive alternative, as you'll have to buy not only an adapter, but also the $1500 lens, whereas the new FE 55mm ƒ/1.8 is only around $1000.

There's other adapters out there allowing users to mount Canon EF lenses and Nikon F-mount glass to E-mount cameras, and the resulting combinations would be too much to list here. It's still worth knowing though; the Sony A7R and A7 provide a very flexible full-frame camera platform for fans of lenses from a variety of manufacturers.

Conclusion
The new Sony FE 55mm ƒ/1.8 ZA Zeiss Sonnar T* lens is a fantastic fast prime lens for the Sony A7R and A7 full-frame mirrorless E-mount cameras and gives shooters a "normal" focal length perspective that's great for portraits and street photography as well as low-light shooting. Optically, this lens is a stellar performer, as many Zeiss lenses are, with very sharp images on both the new full-frame cameras as well as sub-frame Sony cameras. Other factors like chromatic aberration and distortion are practically nonexistent with this lens, but there is noticeable vignetting, particularly on full-frame cameras at wider apertures -- a pretty small price to pay for outstanding performance otherwise.

On the physical side of things, this lens is very well built with an all-metal construction that's still lightweight but solid-feeling. The lens is also dust and moisture resistant to match the ruggedness of the Sony A7R and A7 cameras, but there isn't a rubbery gasket around the lens mount, so the lens doesn't appear to be fully weather-sealed.

Sony's new full-frame mirrorless cameras seem to be quite groundbreaking with excellent image quality, and it looks like Sony's pairing them nicely with a series of excellent lenses. This is the first Sony FE lens we've tested and so far, we're very impressed (an initial peek at the FE 35mm Zeiss lens looks very promising as well). If you're a full-frame fan looking to downsize their gear from a big, bulky DSLR to Sony's new full-frame E-mount cameras, the new Sony FE 55mm ƒ/1.8 ZA Zeiss Sonnar T* lens is a definite winner for these new cameras.

Product Photos

Sample Photos

NOTE: We've only recieved a single Sony A7R, and it's quickly being sent through our camera review process. As such, we have not had the opportunity to shoot our full array of test images for this lens. The link below shows only our Still Life shot at f/8 and our VFA sample at f/5.6 with the Sony A7R. Stay tuned as we will, of course, update this review with the full set of sample images ASAP! - Thanks! UPDATE: All Sample Photos have now been added.

Check out some sample gallery photos taken by Rob, our lens technician, with the lens mounted on the Sony A7R, plus download the full-resolution files, over at our Flickr page.

The VFA target should give you a good idea of sharpness in the center and corners, as well as some idea of the extent of barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, while the Still Life subject may help in judging contrast and color. We shoot both images using the default JPEG settings and manual white balance of our test bodies, so the images should be quite consistent from lens to lens.

Still Life shot

VFA target

As appropriate, we shoot these with both full-frame and sub-frame bodies, at a range of focal lengths, and at both maximum aperture and ƒ/8. For the ''VFA'' target (the viewfinder accuracy target from Imaging Resource), we also provide sample crops from the center and upper-left corner of each shot, so you can quickly get a sense of relative sharpness, without having to download and inspect the full-res images. To avoid space limitations with the layout of our review pages, indexes to the test shots launch in separate windows.