Introduction

Ease of Use

The Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens

Weighing in at 518grams, the alloy-bodied Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM is a very substantial A-Mount lens. It complements a full-frame body like the Sony A99 body that we tested it with, as shown in the photos below.

The Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens mounted on a Sony A99

The Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens mounted on a Sony A99

Top of the Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens

Side of the Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens

Build quality is excellent, but you'd expect that given the high price of the lens. The Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM has a sealed dust and drip-proof design and is is a natural partner for the weatherproof SLT-A99 and SLT-A77 cameras.

Side of the Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens

The Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens with the lens hood fitted, mounted on a Sony A99

The wide and ridged manual focus ring is the main external control of note, along with a useful distance scale in feet and meters, plus a depth-of-field scale too.

Front of the Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens, isometric view

The lens utilizes an SSM (Super Sonic wave Motor) to produce quiet and smooth focusing, making it well-suited to shooting video. Manual focusing is possible when set on the specific camera body, with a focus hold button and DMF (Direct Manual Focus) functions on hand too for critical focusing.

Front of the Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens

Front of the Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens

Rear of the Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens

The Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens has a metal lens mount. The lens ships with a good quality case and a durable circular-shaped lens hood which attaches outside the lens barrel. It accepts 72mm filters via plastic threads.

Front of the Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens

Rear of the Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens

The Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens in-hand

Focal Range

At the 50mm focal length the angle of view is 47 degrees.

  Field of view at 50mm

Focusing

The Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens has quite a wide focus ring. There are hard stops at both ends of the range, making it easier to set focus at infinity. Polariser users should be pleased that the 72mm filter thread doesn't rotate on focus.

When it comes to auto-focusing, the Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM zoom is a quiet and quick performer, taking about 0.2 seconds to lock onto the subject when mounted on the Sony A99 that we tested it with.

We didn't experience much "hunting", either in good or bad light, with the lens accurately focusing almost all of the time, and it's also a quiet performer thanks to its in-lens Super Sonic Wave Motor, ideal for movie shooting.

Chromatic Aberrations

Chromatic aberrations, typically seen as purple or blue fringes along contrasty edges, are only notable by their complete absence from our test shots.

Light Fall-off

With the lens set to its maximum aperture, there is some light fall-off in the extreme corners, but it won't affect your real-world shots.

Light fall-off

Macro

The Sony Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM isn't claimed to be a macro lens, offering a minimum focusing distance of 45cm and a maximum magnification of 0.14x. The following example demonstrates how close you can get to your subject, in this case a Compact Flash memory card.

Close-up performance

Bokeh

Bokeh is a word used for the out-of-focus areas of a photograph, and is usually described in qualitative terms, such as smooth / creamy / harsh etc. In the Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm F1.4 ZA SSM lens, Sony employed an iris diaphragm with nine rounded blades, which has resulted in very appealing bokeh in our view. We do realise, however, that bokeh evaluation is subjective, so we've included several 100% crops for your perusal.

Sharpness

In order to show you how sharp this lens is, we are providing 100% crops on the following page.