Sony FE 24mm F1.4 GM
Sony’s fast wideangle prime sets new standards for its class, as Andy Westlake finds out
Andy Westlake finds out about Sony’s fast wideangle prime
In the run-up to this year’s Photokina trade show, full-frame mirrorless cameras dominated the photo industry news. Canon and Nikon both announced brand new systems while Panasonic, Sigma and Leica joined together to form the L-Mount Alliance. In contrast, Sony released just a single new lens in the shape of the FE 24mm F1.4 GM large-aperture wideangle prime, despite essentially inventing this sector of the market.
However with its latest optic, it’s clear that Sony wants to recapture at least some of the limelight. For a start, it’s making a big deal of the fact that this is the 30th in its full-frame FE range ( just as long as you’re happy to count wide and tele- converters). It’ll be a long time before those other companies have the luxury of introducing this kind of lens, rather than building up the essentials of their line- ups.
Sony is also making great promises regarding the optics. As a member of its premium G Master range, it claims the lens offers spectacular resolution even at f/1.4, coupled with attractive rendition of defocused backgrounds. This should make the 24mm ideal for subjects as diverse as landscapes, environmental portraiture and interiors. As a bonus, and unlike Sony’s previous f/1.4 primes, it’s also substantially smaller and lighter than its equivalents for full-frame DSLRs.
Features
As a member of Sony’s top- end lens range, the 24mm f/1.4 certainly doesn’t skimp on features. The newly developed optical formula employs 13 elements in 10 groups, including two extreme aspheric (XA) elements along with three crafted from extra-low dispersion (ED) glass to combat distortion and chromatic aberration. According to Sony the lens suffers from barely any coma flare of point light sources at the corner of the frame, making it highly suitable for astrophotography. Nano-AR coating suppresses flare and ghosting, while fluorine coating on the front element shrugs off water and grease.
Like Sony’s other f/1.4 primes, the barrel sports an aperture ring that clicks at one-third stop intervals down to its minimum setting of f/16. Rotating it further engages