Sony FE 35mm f/1.8 Review

April 6, 2020 | Mark Goldstein | Rating star Rating star Rating star Rating star Half rating star

Conclusion

The Sony FE 35mm f/1.8 is a very welcome addition to Sony's full-frame mirrorless camera lens range, offering a moderately wide-angle, fast prime lens for the first time.

This compact, lightweight yet well-built optic delivers excellent sharpness in the centre of the frame almost throughout its aperture range, even performing well wide-open at f/1.8, although you'll need to stop down somewhat to get similar quality at the edges of the frame.

Despite the wide-angle 35mm focal length, the 9-bladed aperture, f/1.8 maximum aperture and 22cm minimum focusing distance combine to produce some lovely bokeh effects.

The Sony FE 35mm f/1.8 lens does suffer from some obvious distortion and vignetting when shooting in the RAW format, although the camera body automatically corrects this for JPEG files.

The Sony FE 35mm f/1.8 offered fast and reliable auto-focusing on the A7 III camera that we tested it with, intuitive manual focusing and a good level of build quality, plus it's usefully dust and moisture resistant too.

All in all, we'd definitely recommend adding the Sony FE 35mm f/1.8 to your camera bag if you're looking for a classic 35mm auto-focus lens.

4.5 stars

Ratings (out of 5)
Design 4.5
Features 4.5
Ease-of-use 4.5
Image quality 4.5
Value for money 4