Sony 35mm F/1.4 Review

Sony 35mm f/1.4 ZA Zeiss Distagon T* SEL35F14Z Real world images

Sony Zeiss 35mm f/1.4 lens review:

35mm, wide-normal, is a classic focal length.  It is standard gear for many enthusiast and professional photographers.   With the introduction of the A7 lineup, Sony introduced a petite 35mm F/2.8 as a small walk-about lens, but a 2.8 aperture is too small for demanding professionals.  Within a year, Sony introduced their Sony 35mm F/1.4 lens.  The lens bears the “Zeiss” designation, meaning that the lens is manufactured by Sony but Zeiss may have collaborated a bit in the design.  (In truth, it may be little more than naming rights, which Sony uses for some of their more upscale lenses).

Back before Sony went mirrorless, the A-mount Sony 35mm F/1.4 G was one of Sony’s most disappointing lenses.   Priced at $1,499, we can hope this modern version nicely matches the current 42mp sensor found on the Sony A7riii.

Body and Handling:

Build quality is solid.  Doesn’t feel overly heavy on the A7riii body, weighing in at 630 grams.  It’s not a light-weight lens, weighing about the same as the Canon and Nikon versions.   A short bayonet hood is included.

It has an aperture ring with a switch which allows it to be a “clickless” aperture.  Clickless aperture allows video shooting to change the aperture in total silence.  Otherwise, the Sony 35mm F/1.4 lacks any other switches.  There is no focus hold button.  Manual/Auto focus must be switched from the camera.  There is a hard rib focus ring, manual focus works smoothy but it is “by wire.”

Optical stabilization is not included in the Sony 35mm F/1.4, but the lens benefits from IBIS on the Sony A7riii and similar bodies.   The in-body stabilization works well.  It will depend on each individual’s technique, but personally I got sharp images pretty consistently at 1/10 and sometimes slower.  Even at 1/4th of a second, I get some sharp images but less than half the images are keepers. Below are 100% crops, click for larger.

Autofocus is fast and silent in my experience.

Image Quality

I recently tested the Sony Zeiss 50mm F/1.4 (review here) and was blown away by the image quality, which made me excited to test the Sony 35mm F/1.4.

Vignetting

Not surprisingly, there is significant vignette wide open but I’ve seen much worse.   Even at F1.8, it improved significantly and vignetting just isn’t much of an issue when stopped down to F2.8.

Flare – Chromatic Aberration/Purple Fringing – Sunstars

For starters, the Sony 35mm F/1.4 exhibits pretty strong purple fringing at wider apertures.  This is correctable to a degree with a simple click in lightroom, but there are some cases where it is difficult to correct entirely.

Second, we see beautiful sunstars produced by the Sony 35mm F/1.4 when stopped down all the way to F16.

Flare is very much a mixed bag.   At the wider aperture images below, flare ism’t an issue.   At F16, the above image shows multi-colored flaring, red, green and blue all together.

Occasionally, when there is a strong light at the very edge of the frame, the Sony 35mm F/1.4 exhibited an ugly extreme flare that I’ve never seen before:

Bokeh

With 1.4 aperture, some will want to use the Sony 35mm F/1.4 for it’s bokeh capabilities.   It does generate nicely rounded bokeh balls, but they are a bit busy with onion rings within the circles.

Distortion:

As one would expect, distortion is minimal with vignette being the bigger issue for lens correction:

Sharpness

Most of the above-issues are correctable but you really can’t fix sharpness issues.  The Sony 50mm F/1.4 is probably the sharpest lens I have ever tested, so I was excited to try it’s cousin,  the Sony 35mm F/1.4.

Starting with center crops (click for large):

As an added bonus, let’s compare a couple of the center crops to crops from the Sony 50mm F/1.4:

Before commenting, Center crops from closer focus distance:

Compared to most lenses, these are not bad center results but they also aren’t record setting.  Even the center is a bit soft at 1.4, but acceptable.  Stopped down to just F1.8, it becomes tack sharp.    Things get more challenging at the borders:

And borders from closer focus:

Let’s do a couple comparisons to the 50mm f/1.4 at F2.8:

I admit to a bit of disappointment, just a bit.  The borders of the frame on the Sony 35mm F/1.4 are soft wide open.  They become acceptable upon stopping down but you need to stop all the way down to F4 for tack sharp results.

Turning to the more extreme corners:

And close focus:

The most extreme corners are pretty ugly at wide aperture on the Sony 35mm F/1.4 at 1.4 and 1.8.  By f2.8, the corners start to get acceptable and they are tack sharp at F4.

One more comparison to the 50mm F/1.4 at f2.8:

The Sony 35mm F/1.4 is not an unsharp lens but it consistently remains a hair behind the Sony 50mm F/1.4, which I would consider the benchmark for the potential sharpness of a Sony lens on the Sony A7riii.

Overall:

At a current price of $1499, the Sony 35mm F/1.4 is actually a bit cheaper than the Nikon 35mm F/1.4G and the Canon 35mm F/1.4 L ii.  Thus, one can’t really complain about the pricing.  Yet, at nearly $1,500 for a prime lens, I want to be blown away by spectacular image quality.  While the Sony Zeiss 35mm F/1.4 produces overall very solid image quality, it doesn’t blow me away.

It has a long list of less-than-perfect flaws.   Bokeh has significant onion rings, in some situations there is a severe light leak/flare.   Purple fringing can be rather severe at wide aperture.   Sharpness is very good but less than spectacular.  You need to stop down to 2.8 for images truly completely acceptable across the frame but at F4 you can get tack sharp images from edge to edge.

Ultimately, the Sony Zeiss 35mm/F1.4 is a very very good lens.   Any Sony shooter should be able to get excellent images using it.  There is no need to consider third party options though one could look at the Sigma ART 35mm F/1.4 (coming soon) and the Samyang 35mm F/1.4 (on Amazon)as cheaper alternatives.   It’s a very good lens, just not one of Sony’s very best.

Rating (1-10):  Score: 7

(About my scoring:  9-10 is a superb lens which could have a place in the bag of almost every photographer.   6-8:  recommended with caveats.   3-5:  A compromised lens that may still be suitable for some shooters and situations.  1-2:  Just stick to your phone camera)

As of April 2018, the Sony 35mm F/1.4 lens is on sale for $100 off. If you’re interested in purchasing this lens from Amazon.com, please consider using this link to help support this site.  You won’t pay any extra, but this site will earn a small commission to go towards the upkeep of the site.

Purchase the Sony 35mm F/1.4 from Amazon here.

Recommended UV filter – B+W 72mm filter