Sony SEL55F18Z.AE 55mm f/1.8 ZA Lens - Black

Product Information

Measuring just 64.4mmx70.5mm, the FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA is a very small and lightweight lens which perfectly captures the original intent of compactness of Sony’s mirrorless camera system. In use, the lens makes for a perfect companion to the Sony A7 series of cameras and is a joy to use during extended shooting sessions as you rarely feel you’re even carrying a camera with you. At the front of the lens is a non-rotating 49mm filter thread, surrounded by a bayonet mount for the lens hood supplied with the lens. The petal shaped hood is well made and attaches firmly. It’s quite large and nearly doubles the overall length of the lens but does a great job of protecting the front element. The 55mm f/1.8 has three aspherical elements, but its internal design is otherwise quite simple, helping to make for such a small lens. Seeking the best printer for your business? Hit your productivity targets with inkjet and laser printers that are a perfect fit for any workspace – including home offices. For those who are more budget conscious there is a direct competitor in the Sony FE 50mm f/1.8 lens. The FE 50mm f/1.8 costs just one-fourth of the FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA and shares the same max aperture. While they are both f/1.8 lenses, the Zeiss branded lens is considerably sharper than the Sony FE 50 f/1.8 when they are both used wide open. This is especially noticeable in the periphery of the frame where the FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA is much better. The gap between the two closes at f/2.8 but the edge clearly remains with the more expensive lens. The FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA is also much better built and features a much better focusing system. Overall, the two lenses aren’t genuinely comparable, with the Sony FE 50mm f/1.8 providing a solid budget-oriented performance while the FE 55mm f/1.8 remains a professional grade option. ILCE-7M3 + Zeiss Sonnar T* FE 55mm F1.8 ZA @ 55mm, ISO 250, 1/2000, f/1.8 Focusing is usefully internal and manual focusing is possible when set via the camera body. Full-time manual focus override is available at any time simply by rotating the focus ring, if specified in the menu system, or you can set the focusing switch on the camera body to M, C or S. With a standard focal length of 44mm (35mm equivalent), we wouldn't expect this lens to have too many problems with distortion.

Light fall-off is quite noticeable wide open at f/1.7, though this can easily be corrected in Photoshop. Stop down to f/4 and the vignetting is already much less prominent, but it is still visible when shooting pale scenes that fill the frame. Distortion

The focusing ring is very wide, buttery smooth and beautifully well-damped in action without being loose, and it has a ridged, rubberised grip band. There are no “hard stops” at either end of the 50cm-infinity focus range though.

Thanks to the inclusion of In-body stabilization or IBIS in Sony’s mirrorless camera bodies, their lenses don’t need to have built-in image stabilization to be stabilized. As such, the Sony FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA isn’t optically stabilized but it does benefit from the IBIS system of the Sony camera it’s mounted on and I found that I could achieve consistently sharp shots at shutter speeds of around 1/10 of a second while hand-holding the lens. This number dramatically drops at lower shutter speeds. Still, having image stabilization in such a small lens is a fantastic feature and one of the main selling points of the Sony system. 6) Bokeh Vignetting is kept pretty well under control, at 1.6 stops wide open, which is perfectly respectable for a fast prime. The falloff profile is rather gradual too, which tends to make any vignetting less visually objectionable. Chromatic aberration is pretty low. There'll be some green/magenta fringing visible towards the extreme corners of the frame if you look closely, but it's unlikely to be hugely objectionable. It will be automatically corrected in the camera's JPEGs, too.The FE 55mm F1.8 can also be used on Sony's APS-C E-mount bodies, on which it will behave like a classic short telephoto 'portrait' lens. However most users of these cameras will probably find the Sony E 50mm F1.8 OSS to be a better choice, as it's much cheaper and includes optical image stabilisation, while offering decent optical quality too. Headline features When it comes to handling chromatic aberrations the Sony FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA turns in a mixed result. On one hand, lateral chromatic aberration is very well controlled with very little of it showing at f/1.8 and almost none showing two stops down. Unfortunately, the lens exhibits a significant amount of bokeh fringing (color fringing in front of and behind the focused area) with this especially prominent with the lens used wide open at f/1.8. The fringing remains quite noticeable until the lens is stopped down to f/4 where things improve markedly. By f/5.6 the lens exhibits only a small amount of fringing. This is certainly one of the FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA’s biggest optical weaknesses though it isn’t all that difficult to correct in post-processing. ILCE-7M3 + Zeiss Sonnar T* FE 55mm F1.8 ZA @ 55mm, ISO 125, 1/320, f/1.8 10) Comparisons Introduced alongside Sony’s first full-frame mirrorless cameras in 2013, the Sony Sonnar T* FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA lens was the first fast-aperture, “standard” focal length prime lens available for the FE mount. The 50mm prime lens has seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years, with many new lenses in this focal range introduced by lens manufacturers over the last half-decade. Sony themselves now offer four different 50mm prime lens options for the FE mount. Beyond the FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA lens, there is the entry-level Sony FE 50mm f/1.8, the premium Sony FE 50mm f/1.4 ZA and the Sony FE 50mm f/2.8 Macro lens. The 55mm focal length gives an angle of view of 52.9° degrees, which is equivalent to a focal length of 44mm on a 35mm full-frame sensor camera. Chromatic Aberrations

Sharpness is simply spectacular. At F1.8 the 55mm is impressively sharp, outperforming the 50mm F1.8s for Canon and Nikon SLRs by a substantial margin (and the 50mm F1.4s for that matter, too). It just gets better on stopping down; at F4 and F5.6, central sharpness is literally off the charts (helped here by being tested on the 36MP, AA filterless A7R). Diffraction takes the edge off sharpness at F22, as usual, but this setting should still be perfectly usable when depth of field is a priority. Having four different options isn’t surprising given the broad appeal of the 50mm focal length across a range of different photographic disciplines including portraiture, fashion, documentary, architectural and travel photography. The Sony FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA lens is situated in the middle of the lineup, sitting above the entry-level FE 50mm f/1.8 and below the faster, bigger and more expensive FE 50mm f/1.4 ZA lens.

Lens test data

The FE 55mm F1.8 ZA Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* is one of the first three lenses available for Sony's full-frame E-mount system, having been announced alongside the Alpha 7 and 7R camera bodies. It's a slightly long 'normal' prime designed for everyday photography, and its relatively fast F1.8 aperture makes it a good choice for selective focus work or shooting in low light. Its 7-element, 5-group optical design includes three aspherical elements to minimise aberrations, which is unusual for this type of lens. It doesn't feel particularly unwieldy when mounted on the equally new Fuji GFX 100 II camera that we tested it with, with even one-handed use not completely out of the question! Given the popularity of this focal length, users of the FE mount have some options available to them that compete directly with the Sony FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA lens. Here is the kind of sharpness you can expect at f/1.8: ILCE-7M3 + Zeiss Sonnar T* FE 55mm F1.8 ZA (SEL55F18Z) @ 55mm, ISO 250, 1/1600, f/2.2 f/1.8, center crop f/1.8, corner crop Chromatic aberrations, typically seen as purple or blue fringes along contrasty edges, are apparent in very high-contrast images, particularly when shooting wide-open at f/1.7. Light Fall-off