SONY FE 85mm f/1.4 GM Review (EN)

(This is my first review in English. Please understand some awkward expression and grammar skills)

Ultimate Portrait Lens by SONY

FE 1.4/85 G-MASTER

SEL85F14GM

"High resolution with beautiful bokeh and background rendering"

This lens is a only prime lens in SONY G-master lineup. SONY's G-master line goes on to claim "outstanding sharpness dissolving to magnificent bokeh". The former GM lens FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM is known to definitely made it owing to adoption of special lens elements such as XA lens. How about FE 85mm f/1.4 GM? I'd expected superior performance before writing the review. Let's find out.

Specifications

First Let's see detail of the lens. First notable thing is XA lens as well as other GM lens. XA means Extra Aspherical elements. Conventional aspherical lens is used to improve image quality, but fine polishing of its surface is very difficult. However, SONY claimed that XA lens has 0.01 micon surface precision so that it prevents onion-ring bokeh and refines the boundary of bokeh. Anyway see the following table for specifications.

Product Name	FE 85mm F1.4 GM (SEL85F14GM)
Mount	E-mount
Focal Length	85mm (127.5mm for APS-C)
Lens Group	11 elements 8 groups
Special Elements	1 XA, 3 ED
Coating	Nano AR
Aperture	f/1.4 - 16 (circular aperture with 11 blades)
Minimum Distance	0.8m (MF), 0.85m (AF)
Maximum Magnification	0.12x
AF	SSM (Super Sonic wave Motor)
Diameter and Length	89.5mm / 107.5mm
Filter	77mm
Weight	820g

It is strange that SSM (not DDSSM) is used. I can see little wobbling (on A7R II) and noise during AF although it is uncertain whether this is due to SSM. This makes the lens less suitable for shooting video. Other specifications are common in its class.

Appearance

Let's see the lens' exterior and combinations with my A7R II body.

It looks a bit larger than other 85mm f/1.4 lens. Filter diameter is 77mm (same to nikon's old 85mm f/1.4D). AF Lock botton is under a orange G-Master logo. Aperture ring is 1/3-stop clicks (switchable to non-click) and supports A mode. Overall appearance is similar to other GM lens.

We can see a solid steel lens mount (There are no plastic mount FE lens so far). Weather sealing is black rubber. AF/MF switch to toggle between AF and MF is near AFL button. Aperture click switch can be found on the underside of the lens. In addition, there is a little plastic protrusion part right behind aperture ring to prevent scratch and abrasion from the bottom.

Mounted on A7R II body. Due to its short flange back and special elements, the lens seems to be quite big. However, a balance with A7R II is quite good. Also, G-Master logo and mount ring on the body shows consistency in color.

We can see a diaphragm with 11 circular blades. Even for small aperture, iris maintains circular bokeh. A object lens is quite large, then it shows a kind of clear feeling(?). Lens coating is slightly green.

Plastic round hood of the lens (ALC-SH142) has a button to lock/unlock. Build quality is good and inner side of the hood is finished with velvet materials to prevent reflections. Well-built and its design is also not bad. 

Resolution

See few samples to check the lens' resolution. Body used throughout the review is A7R II.

Sharpness at f/1.4 is already quite good. It delivers enough information with 42M pixels even at wide open. From f/2.0, the lens shows outstanding sharpness (i.e., it fully covers all the pixels of A7R II). I recommend f/1.4 for portrait if you don't like much detail in skin texture. The below is a resolution test versus from f/1.4 to f/16 at one-stop wise.

The above is a resized TEST sample. Shaded region (by red) is shown in the frame.

Left and right side are 100% original crop of center and edge respectively. Samples are taken on tripod with self timer. Sensitivity is also fixed ISO100. Image quality is JPG FINE, all lens corrections in the body is active. At f/1.4, image is relatively softer than those of the other aperture, but sharpness is enough and not bad. From f/2.0 to f/11, sharpness is excellent. Maximum sharpness on the range of f/2.8 to f/8. In spite of diffraction, sharpness at f/16 is quite good. Sharpness at the edge is similar to center. I can confirm that evenness across filed is very amazing.

Vignetting

Vignetting of the lens is not significant. It is observable at f/1.4 to f/2, but not too much and moderate. This degree of vignetting can be well dealt with by in-body corrections. From f/2.8, there's no worry about it.

Distortion

There is very small degree of pin-cushion distortion at center. According to imaging-resource, the maximum distortion is around 0.1% so that it is nothing. 

Bokeh

In consequence of a circular aperture with 11 blades, bokeh remains close to circle when stopping down. Onion ring is also not visible due to XA lens.

Starburst

In spite of circular aperture and odd number of blades, starburst (sunstar) effect is more certain than I expected. Of course, 22-star is far from something neat, but I satisfied it for long-exposure at night. Personally, from f/8.0, it is enough. I think that SONY had done much effort to refine starburst for GM line. FE 24-70 f/2.8 GM will be discussed and it also shows clear starburst (much better than FE 85mm f/1.4 GM).

Conclusions

FE 85mm f/1.4 shows solid performance in terms of image quality. Sharpness for all aperture and beautiful bokeh and background rendering is its main strengths. It is also ideal for many types of photography as well as portraits. However, there are few drawbacks in AF. The lens is pretty noisy during AF. AF Wobbling for static objects is another problem. I am going to summarize pros and cons.

Pros

+ Outstanding sharpness

+ Beautiful bokeh

+ Creamy background rendering

+ Clear starburst than expected

+ Low distortion

+ Good build quality and hood

Cons

- Not fast AF speed

- Little noise during AF

- Low light AF performance is degraded when aperture is stopped down.

- Quiet expensive

Click to see more samples