Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II Lens Review

I started the Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN Art Lens review with interesting statistics, and the Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II Lens increments the shared numbers by 1. This is the 17th 85mm prime lens I've fully reviewed, and we tested ten additional 85mm lenses in the lab. Of those twenty-seven 85mm lenses, only three had an aperture narrower than f/1.8.

Driving the extraordinary popularity of these blur-inducing, low-light-capable, wide aperture, medium telephoto focal length lenses are bokeh-loving wedding and portrait photographers whose lens kits would be incomplete without a high quality, wide-aperture 85mm prime lens, and photographers prize these lenses for a variety of other purposes.

Notable is that the Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II Lens delivers impressive image quality that encourages its use.

The reviewed lens is a version II, and that means there was a version I. Sony already had a high-performing 85mm f/1.4 lens in the line-up, the only-8-year-older FE 85mm f/1.4 GM Lens, so why was a replacement model introduced?

Most photographers primarily shoot their 85mm lenses wide open, meaning that wide-open image quality is what matters, and the version II lens's f/1.4 image quality is significantly improved. The II's f/1.4 images are extremely sharp across the entire full-frame image circle, and the image quality improvement alone is worth the upgrade from the version I lens.

The II also gets an upgraded AF system, featuring Dual XD Linear vs. SSM, and a moderate weight reduction makes it even more pleasant to carry and use.

The Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II Lens is an impressive lens, ready to take your portrait images to the highest level.

Focal Length

Back to Top

With a prime lens, you get one focal length, and that focal length provides a specific angle of view. That angle of view drives focus distance decisions for desired subject framing, and that resulting distance provides the perspective. While there are many uses for an 85mm lens, a standout use is, as already mentioned, portrait photography.

Primarily for perspective reasons, the classic portrait focal length range is from 85mm through 135mm. An 85mm lens hits the bottom classic range figure on a full-frame camera, and if used on a camera with an APS-C format imaging sensor, the 127.5mm full-frame angle of view equivalent lands close to the top of this ideal range. An APS-C format camera requires a longer working distance to get the same framing as a full-frame camera and, therefore, will create more depth of field and a less strongly blurred background at the same aperture and subject framing.

The "portrait photography" designation is a broad one that covers a wide variety of potential still and video uses ranging from moderately tight headshots to full body portraits, with a wide variety of potential venues, including both indoors and outdoors.

Portrait subjects can range from infants to seniors, from individuals to large groups. Engagements, weddings, parties, events, theater, stage performances including concerts and recitals, families, small groups, senior adults, fashion, documentary, lifestyle, etc. are great uses for the 85mm focal length. There is often adequate space in even a small studio for portraiture with an 85mm-provided angle of view. Entire senior sessions can be captured with an 85mm lens, and subjects always love the results produced by this focal length.

Portrait photography is one of the best revenue-producing genres, helping to justify this lens's acquisition cost. Photos of most people are not available in stock libraries, and I argue that people are the most important subject.

People in action are easily within this lens's capabilities. Some sports, such as basketball and volleyball, can be captured with an 85mm lens, and thanks to the wide aperture, this lens can capture such action in poorly lit venues, including gymnasiums.

This focal length is well-suited for photographing products of all sizes, including food, and it can work well for commercial uses, general studio photography applications, and a wide range of other subjects. This angle of view is inviting for architecture, street photography, and simply walking around, getting creative with whatever subjects you find.

Regardless of the camera format in use and like most focal lengths, 85mm can be useful for landscape photography. The short telephoto focal length will keep distant subjects relatively large in the frame.

To visualize where 85mm fits among other common focal lengths, I'll borrow a focal length range example from the Canon EF 24-105mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM Lens review.

Load Comparison Images

The 85mm focal length is modestly longer than the 70mm focal length found on the long end of many standard 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom lenses and is at the short end of the range covered by the common 70-200mm zoom lenses.

Max Aperture

Back to Top

The front view of large-diameter glass is always sweet, and 85mm f/1.4 lenses get that look.

With limited exceptions, the f/1.4 max aperture made available by this lens is as wide as MILC lenses get. The wider the aperture, the more light can reach the imaging sensor. Allowing more light to reach the sensor permits freezing action, handholding the camera at lower light levels and using of a lower (less noisy) ISO setting.

Increasing the opening also permits a more substantial subject-isolating background blur. The shallow f/1.4 depth of field must be acceptable to the scenario, but a shallow depth of field is a highly desired lens capability, perfect for making the subject pop from a blurred background. I love the shallow DOF look that draws the viewer's attention to the subject by eliminating background distractions. This capability adds artistic-style imaging to this 85mm lens's capabilities list.

Here is an example of the beautiful blur this lens can produce.

The details are gone, leaving a non-distracting backdrop for your subject to stand out within.

Notable drawbacks to lenses that feature wide maximum apertures are increased size and weight, directly reflecting the use of larger and heavier lens elements. Those larger elements are not only evidenced by the increased weight but also by the increased price of the lens. For most photographers, the benefits of a wide max aperture prime lens far outweigh the drawbacks, and fortunately, the penalty is mild with this lens.

Note that, especially under full sun conditions, you might find even 1/8000 second shutter speeds not fast enough to avoid blown highlights in f/1.4 images. Optimal is to use a camera with substantially faster shutter speeds available, and using neutral density filter is another option to keep images dark enough at f/1.4 under such conditions. Shooting with a narrower aperture always remains an option.

Videographers will especially appreciate this lens's iris ring, which permits a manually selected aperture. The camera controls the aperture setting with the ring in the A (Auto) position, while all other settings electronically force the aperture to the chosen opening. A 2-position switch on the lower right side of the lens toggles the aperture ring between 1/3 stop clicks and smooth, quiet, non-clicked adjustments, ideal for video recording.

Aside from a slightly more complicated design, inadvertent aperture changes are the primary disadvantage of an aperture ring (especially when photographing in the dark). The Iris Lock switch eliminates that problem, holding the ring in the A position or within the manual range.

Image Stabilization

Back to Top

The 85mm and f/1.4 combination is often handholdable without resorting to ultra-high ISO settings, and the Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II Lens does not feature optical image stabilization. Omitting the optical stabilization system reduces the size, weight, complexity, and cost. However, image stabilization is a very useful feature.

Sony addresses that omission with Steady Shot IBIS (In-Body Image Stabilization) in their Alpha cameras. In addition to reducing camera shake, the stabilized imaging sensor provides a still viewfinder image, enabling careful composition. Furthermore, sensor-based AF takes advantage of the stabilized view for improved accuracy.

With no IS switch on the lens, the camera menu must be used to enable or disable IBIS or check the current settings. This extra step is a slight impediment to working quickly, from tripod mounted to handholding, for example.

Image Quality

Back to Top

Traditionally, ultra-wide-aperture lenses produced soft wide-open image quality. That expectation is gone, and today's beat lenses perform at a far higher level than those designed even a short number of years ago. The Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II is one of those game-changing lenses.

You buy an f/1.4 lens to use at f/1.4, and this lens creates no hesitation to use it at f/1.4, where it produces beautifully sharp image quality throughout the entire image circle. There is no need to stop down from an image quality perspective, but a slight improvement in contrast and resolution at f/2 results in razor-sharp details.

Moving out to the periphery of the image circle, where light rays are refracted to a stronger angle than in the center, lenses typically produce decreased sharpness. This one shows only a minor decline from the center to the corner. Again, there is no need to stop down from an image quality perspective, but a modest reduction in peripheral shading results in improved contrast and resolution at f/2.

The resolution chart is merciless on image quality, so let's take the testing outdoors, next looking at a series of center-of-the-frame 100% resolution crop examples. These images were captured in RAW format using a Sony Alpha 1 and processed in Capture One using the Natural Clarity method. The sharpening amount was set to only "30" on a 0-1000 scale. Note that images from most cameras require a level of sharpening, but too-high sharpness settings are destructive to image details and hide the deficiencies of a lens.

Load Comparison Images

Be sure to find details in the plane of sharp focus for your evaluations. The bottom line? These results are impressive.

Next, we'll look at a series of comparisons showing 100% resolution extreme top left corner crops captured and processed identically to the above center-of-the-frame images. The lens was manually focused in the corner of the frame to capture these images.

Load Comparison Images

Expect samples taken from the outer extreme of the image circle, full-frame corners, to show a lens's weakest performance. Only the best of the best lenses produce corner image quality this good.

While corner sharpness does not always matter, and wide-aperture portraiture often desires blurred corners, it is nice to have the feature for other needs, including flat subject reproduction.

This lens does not exhibit focus shift, the plane of sharp focus moving forward or backward as the aperture is narrowed (residual spherical aberration or RSA). Many modern lenses automatically correct for focus shift, though focus breathing (more later) can create slight angle of view changes.

When used on a camera that utilizes its full image circle, a lens is expected to show peripheral shading at the widest aperture settings, and this one has about 2.5 stops of corner shading at f/1.4. That amount is mild for an f/1.4 lens, and just over 1.5 stops of corner shading remain at f/2. The shading essentially disappears at narrow apertures.

APS-C format cameras using lenses projecting a full-frame-sized image circle avoid most vignetting problems. In this case, the about one-stop of corner shading showing at f/1.4 may be visible in select images, primarily those with a solid color (such as a blue sky) in the corners.

One-stop of shading is often considered the number of visibility, though subject details provide a widely varying amount of vignetting discernibility. Vignetting is correctable during post-processing, with increased noise in the brightened areas the penalty, or it can be embraced, using the effect to draw the viewer's eye to the center of the frame. Study the pattern shown in our vignetting test tool to determine how your images will be affected.

Lateral (or transverse) CA (Chromatic Aberration) refers to the unequal magnification of all colors in the spectrum. Lateral CA shows as color fringing along lines of strong contrast running tangential (meridional, right angles to radii), with the mid and especially the periphery of the image circle showing the most significant amount as this is where the most significant difference in the magnification of wavelengths typically exists.

With the right lens profile and software, lateral CA is often easily correctable (often in the camera) by radially shifting the colors to coincide. However, it is always better to avoid this aberration in the first place.

Color misalignment can be seen in the site's image quality tool, but let's also look at a worst-case example. The image below is a 100% crop from the extreme top left corner of a Sony a1 frame showing diagonal black and white lines.

This image should only contain black and white colors, and it shows this lens performing superbly in this regard.

A relatively common lens aberration is axial (longitudinal, bokeh) CA, which causes non-coinciding focal planes of the various wavelengths of light. More simply, different colors of light are focused to different depths. Spherical aberration, along with spherochromatism, or a change in the amount of spherical aberration with respect to color (looks quite similar to axial chromatic aberration but is hazier) are other common lens aberrations to observe. Axial CA remains somewhat persistent when stopping down, with the color misalignment effect increasing with defocusing. The spherical aberration color halo shows little size change as the lens is defocused, and stopping down one to two stops generally removes this aberration.

In the real world, lens defects do not exist in isolation, with spherical aberration and spherochromatism generally found, at least to some degree, along with axial CA. These combine to create a less sharp, hazy-appearing image quality at the widest apertures. The examples below compare the fringing colors of the defocused specular highlights in the foreground to the background. The lens has introduced any differences from the neutrally colored subjects.

Load Comparison Images

I see modest color separation at f/1.4 which is mostly cleared by f/4.

Bright light reflecting off lens elements' surfaces may cause flare and ghosting, resulting in reduced contrast and sometimes interesting, usually objectionable visual artifacts. The shape, intensity, and position of the flare and ghosting effects in an image are variable, dependent on the position and nature of the light source (or sources), selected aperture, shape of the aperture blades, and quantity and quality of the lens elements and their coatings. Additionally, flare and ghosting can impact AF performance.

Sony's Nano AR Coating II suppresses flare and ghosting, and the low 14-element count decreases that challenge. This lens produced practically no flare effects even at wide apertures and only minor effects at narrow apertures in our standard sun in the corner of the frame flare test.

Flare effects can be embraced or avoided, or removal can be attempted, though removal is sometimes challenging. So, this lens's high flare resistance is a welcomed trait.

Two lens aberrations are particularly evident in images of stars, mainly because bright points of light against a dark background make them easier to see. Coma occurs when light rays from a point of light spread out from that point instead of being refocused as a point on the sensor. Coma is absent in the center of the frame, gets worse toward the edges/corners, and generally appears as a comet-like or triangular tail of light that can be oriented either away from the center of the frame (external coma) or toward the center of the frame (internal coma). The coma clears as the aperture is narrowed. Astigmatism is seen as points of light spreading into a line, either sagittal (radiating from the center of the image) or meridional (tangential, perpendicular to sagittal). This aberration can produce stars appearing to have wings. Remember that Lateral CA is another aberration that is apparent in the corners.

The image below is a 100% crop taken from the top-left corner of a Sony a1 image captured at f/1.4.

While the stars are small and crisply rendered, they show obvious stretching.

This lens has slight pincushion distortion. You'll not likely notice it.

As seen earlier in the review, it is easy to illustrate the strongest blur a lens can create, and telephoto lenses are inherently advantaged in this regard. Due to the infinite number of variables present among available scenes, assessing the blur quality, bokeh, is considerably more challenging. Here are some f/11 (for diaphragm blade interaction) examples.

Load Comparison Images

The first example shows defocused highlights filled smoothly and shaped relatively round for the number of stops the aperture is closed. The second example shows a full image reduced in size and looking normal.

Except for a small number of specialty lenses, the wide aperture bokeh in the frame's corner does not show round defocused highlights, instead showing cat's eye shapes due to a form of mechanical vignetting. If you look through a tube at an angle, similar to the light reaching the frame's corner, the shape is not round. That is the shape we're looking at here.

Load Comparison Images

The f/1.4 shape truncation is mild and isolated to the deep corners. As the aperture narrows, the entrance pupil size is reduced, and the mechanical vignetting diminishes, making the corner shapes rounder. By f/4, even the extreme corner shapes are circular.

An 11-blade diaphragm will create 22-point sunstars (diffraction spikes) from point light sources captured with a narrow aperture. Generally, the more a lens diaphragm is stopped down, the larger and better shaped the sunstars tend to be. Wide aperture lenses tend to have an advantage in this regard, and this lens can produce nice stars, as illustrated below.

The example above was captured at f/16.

The design of this lens is illustrated below.

"2 XA (extreme aspherical) elements achieve eye-opening resolution right out to the image edges, while 2 ED (extra-low dispersion) glass elements minimize chromatic aberration." [Sony]

Overall, the Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II Lens produces outstanding image quality. I love reviewing lenses like this one, in part because I don't have to go down a time-consuming series of rabbit trails to determine what is causing abberations, and in part because the images created with the review lens are of such high quality.

Focusing

Back to Top

Accurate focus is critical for most images and especially for ultra-wide aperture models, and most of us rely on autofocus for that task. The FE 85mm F1.4 GM II gets a high-performing Dual XD Linear AF system.

This lens locks focus quickly, especially for short and mid-distance changes. A quiet shuffling is slightly audible during AF. Focusing is internal, as usual, for lenses of this grade.

This lens is an outstanding choice for shooting in dark environments as it can lock focus on contrast in extreme low-light environments. As usual, focusing becomes slow in low light, but my eyes can barely detect the subjects this lens can focus on.

Two customizable AF hold buttons are provided in optimal locations for horizontal and vertical shooting. With the camera set to continuous focus mode, press a button to lock focus at the currently selected focus distance, permitting a focus and recompose technique. These buttons also act as custom buttons and can be programmed to another function using the camera's menu.

FTM (Full Time Manual) focusing is supported via Sony's DMF (Direct Manual Focus) AF mode. This lens has an AF/MF switch, allowing this frequently used camera setting to be changed without accessing the menu system.

The rubber-ribbed focus ring is modest but adequate in size. The rotational resistance is light, but the ring turns smoothly.

The focus distance is linearly adjusted, with 150° of ring rotation providing a full-extent focus distance adjustment. This rate facilitates precise focusing even at close distances.

It is usual for the scene to change size in the frame (sometimes significantly) as the focus is pulled from one extent to the other. This effect is focus breathing, a change in focal length resulting from a change in focus distance. Focus breathing impacts photographers intending to use focus stacking techniques, videographers pulling focus (without movement to camouflage the effect), and anyone critically framing while adjusting focus.

This lens produces a moderate change in subject size through a full-extent focus distance adjustment.

Load Comparison Images

With a minimum focus distance of 31.5" (800mm), this lens has a meager 0.11x maximum magnification spec. Few will buy this lens for its close-focusing feature, but this number does not stray far from its classmates, and it enables tight portraits, as illustrated earlier. On the positive side, the relatively low maximum magnification avoids unflattering too-close portrait perspectives.

Model	Min Focus Distance		Max Magnification
Canon RF 85mm F1.2 L USM Lens	33.5"	(850mm)	0.12x
Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN Art Lens	33.5"	(850mm)	0.12x
Sony FE 50mm F1.2 GM Lens	15.7"	(400mm)	0.17x
Sony FE 50mm F1.4 GM Lens	16.1"	(410mm)	0.16x
Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II Lens	31.5"	(800mm)	0.11x
Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM Lens	31.5"	(800mm)	0.12x
Sony FE 85mm F1.8 Lens	31.5"	(800mm)	0.13x
Sony FE 135mm F1.8 GM Lens	27.6"	(700mm)	0.25x

At this lens's minimum MF distance, a subject measuring approximately 11.2" (284mm) fills a full-frame imaging sensor.

The individual USPS love stamps measure 1.19 x 0.91" (30 x 23mm).

While this lens produces sharp center-of-the-frame details at minimum focus distance with a wide-open aperture, expect the image periphery to be slightly soft due to field curvature. F/4 brings on increased depth of field that provides sharp corners.

An extension tube moderately decreases this lens's minimum focus distance, which increases the magnification. As of review time, Sony does not publish extension tube specs or manufacture these items, but third-party Sony-compatible extension tubes are available.

This lens is not compatible with Sony teleconverters.

Design & Features

Back to Top

The G Master ("GM") lens series represents Sony's best available professional-grade lenses, and this lens has that membership.

Load Comparison Images

Sony FE lenses have a relatively narrow mount with an obvious diameter increase occurring not far in from the mount end. Once the wider diameter is reached, this lens has a series of slight diameter increases, including at both rings, with the rubber-covered focus ring being easy to find tactilely.

Overall, this lens's build quality is high, with all rings and switches having a precision feel to them. The AF/MF switch is recessed, making it hard to change inadvertently and requiring a bit more effort to change intentionally, especially with gloves on. The outer lens barrel construction is engineering plastic.

This lens features a dust and moisture-resistant design, including a gasketed mount, that can save the day.

The front lens element has a fluorine coating that repels fingerprints, dust, water, oil, etc. This coating makes a significant difference in ease of cleaning, and that advantage is especially welcomed in outdoor use.

The FE 85mm F1.4 GM II lens is relatively compact and lightweight for a high-quality lens in this class, and it is noticeably lighter than its predecessor.

Model	Weight oz(g)		Dimensions w/o Hood "(mm)		Filter	Year
Canon RF 85mm F1.2 L USM Lens	42.2	(1196.3)	4.1 x 4.6	(104.14 x 116.84)	82	2019
Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN Art Lens	22.2	(630)	3.3 x 3.7	(82.8 x 94.1)	77	2020
Sony FE 50mm F1.2 GM Lens	27.5	(778)	3.4 x 4.3	(87.0 x 108.0)	72	2021
Sony FE 50mm F1.4 GM Lens	18.2	(516)	3.2 x 3.8	(80.6 x 96.0)	67	2023
Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II Lens	22.7	(642)	3.3 x 4.2	(84.7 x 107.3)	77	2024
Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM Lens	28.9	(820)	3.5 x 4.2	(89.5 x 107.5)	77	2016
Sony FE 135mm F1.8 GM Lens	33.5	(950)	3.5 x 5.0	(89.5 x 127.0)	82	2019

View the complete Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II Lens Specifications using the site's lens specifications tool for many more comparisons.

Here is a visual comparison:

Positioned above from left to right are the following lenses:

Sony FE 50mm F1.4 GM Lens
Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN Art Lens
Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II Lens
Sony FE 135mm F1.8 GM Lens

The same lenses are shown below with their hoods in place.

Use the site's product image comparison tool to visually compare the Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II Lens to other lenses.

This lens uses 77mm threaded filters. While these filters are rather large and expensive, the size is common, increasing the sharing potential, including lens caps.

The Sony ALC-SH180 Lens Hood is included in the box.

While the round hood shape is not as easy to visually align for installation as a petal-style hood, the round hood better enables the lens to stand on its hood. A matte interior avoids reflections, and the release button makes hood installation and removal easy.

Sony provides my favorite packing material, a nice zippered, padded nylon case, in the box.

Price, Value, Compatibility

Back to Top

The Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II Lens's price is high enough to push into the serious amateur and professional range, but especially portrait photographers will find this lens a requirement for their kits and easily worth the cost.

As an "FE" lens, the Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II Lens is compatible with all Sony E-mount cameras, including full-frame and APS-C sensor format models. Sony provides a 1-year limited warranty.

The reviewed Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II Lens was retail sourced.

Alternatives

Back to Top

There is a "II" in the model name, and that inclusion usually makes the version "I" the first choice comparable lens, and the Sony FE 85mm f/1.4 GM, shown below on the left, is that lens.

Especially for the lenses in this class, the f/1.4 image quality comparison is a big deal, and the version II lens clearly shows itself as the sharper lens. The II produces less color blur.

The Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II vs. FE 85mm f/1.4 GM Lens comparison shows the version II lens dropping a noticeable amount of weight and slimming down a bit. The II has Dual XD Linear AF vs. Direct Drive SSM (Super Sonic wave Motor), two AFL buttons vs. 1, and an iris lock switch. I highly recommend getting the version II lens, though it costs more.

The Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN Art Lens is an interesting alternative. In the image quality comparison, the Sony lens is slightly sharper and has less pincushion distortion.

The Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II vs. Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN Art Lens comparison shows the Sigma lens is slightly shorter. Otherwise, these two lenses align closely. The Sony lens has two AFL buttons vs. 1, and the Sigma lens is considerably less expensive.

Let's jump over to the Canon platform for the next comparison. Here, the RF 85mm F1.2 L USM Lens is the primary choice. The Canon lens's f/1.2 aperture is an obvious and considerable difference, and we are left to wonder why Sony didn't match that (early hint: size, weight, and price are substantial factors).

In the wide-open (f/1.4 vs. f/1.2) image quality comparison, the Canon matches the Sony's sharpness — both are impressive performers. The Canon lens shows modestly more flare effects (the larger diameter glass does not help in this regard), less color blur, and less geometric distortion.

The Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II vs. Canon RF 85mm F1.2 L USM Lens comparison shows the Sony lens weighing just over half as much and measuring much smaller. The Sony lens has 11 aperture blades vs. 9 for rounder out of focus highlights, uses smaller 77mm filters vs. 82mm, and has a much lower price.

Use the site's tools to create additional comparisons.

Summary

Back to Top

Blur-inducing, low-light-capable, wide aperture, medium telephoto focal length lenses are especially popular with bokeh-loving wedding, portrait, and event photographers whose lens kits would be incomplete without a high quality, wide-aperture 85mm prime lens, and the FE 85mm F1.4 GM II, Sony's best-ever lens in this class, is certain to make your most important subjects look incredible.

While not inexpensive, this lens delivers outstanding f/1.4 image quality. Serious photographers, including parents, with portraits, weddings, and events on their to-photograph list should have this lens on their cameras.