Sony FE 50 mm f/1.4 GM review - Summary

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Sony FE 50 mm f/1.4 GM

21 February 2023

Maciej Latałło

11. Summary

Pros:

solid, weather-sealed mechanical construction,
sensational image quality in the frame centre up from the maximum relative aperture,
very good image quality on the edge of the APS-C sensor,
good image quality on the edge of full frame,
very good correction of longitudinal chromatic aberration,
negligible lateral chromatic aberration,
lack of any serious problems with distortion,
moderate coma,
very low astigmatism,
out-of-focus areas pleasing to the eye,
moderate vignetting on the APS-C sensor,
fast, silent, and accurate autofocus.

Cons:

significant vignetting on full frame,
high price.

The Sony FE 50 mm f/1.4 GM was a surprise for me personally and for more than one reason. First, I didn't expect such a launch, especially as less than two years ago the system got two other 50 mm devices. Second, I didn't expect that a new 50 mm lens might be optically more complex than its faster brother, the FE 50 mm f/1.2 GM. Thirdly, I didn't expect such a high price tag, amounting to 1700 Euro.

If you forget about these surprises for a while and focus on the most important thing, you can only praise the new Sony FE 50 mm f/1.4 GM as it is virtually without any flaws. Its physical dimensions are smaller than these of many direct rivals and yet its optical system is able to correct properly chromatic aberration, distortion, coma, and astigmatism. At the same time it is so exceedingly sharp in the frame centre that it is able to beat all resolution records with a healthy margin and, additionally, it offers excellent image quality on the edge of both types of detectors.

Significant vignetting is something we expected up to a point; as a kind of consolation we should add that the Sony still can outperform some of its rivals in this category.

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It's a pity the price is so high. Of course you should remember that the Panasonic Lumix S Pro 50 mm f/1.4 is offered for a similar amount of money and Leica, traditionally a law unto itself, asks three times as much for the Summilux SL 50 mm f/1.4 ASPH as you have to pay for the Sony or the Panasonic.

Overall, we have no doubts that the Sony FE 50 mm f/1.4 GM completely deserves our 'Editor's Choice' badge.