Sony FE 20mm f/1.8 G: A Wide Wonderland

The Sony FE 20mm f/1.8 G is nothing like what the company has so far offered in its prime lens lineup. Nilofer Khan puts it on BP’s test bench.

Since its establishment in 1946, Sony has been at the forefront of manufacturing innovative products. When the mirrorless camera system was introduced over a decade ago, the company dedicated a copious amount of time and resources to advancing its development. Today, they offer a choice of more than two dozen dedicated full frame E-Mount lenses and more than a dozen lenses to go along with its APS-C format. Last year, they announced the highly anticipated full frame ultra wide angle lens in their growing lineup, the Sony FE 20mm f/1.8 G. This is the first ultra wide prime lens in the G series, which can be used for various genres.

Features

Designed using 14 elements in 12 groups, including two advanced aspherical (AA) and three extra-low dispersion (ED) elements, the lens comes with a Nano AR Coating to eliminate flare and ghosting. It has a 9 blade circular aperture that contributes to smooth, creamy bokeh, as well as a 67mm filter diameter. The lens has a minimum focusing distance of 0.19m when used in AF mode, and 0.18m when focusing manually. The maximum magnification ratio is 0.20x when using autofocus, and 0.22x when using MF. It features a dual XD Linear Motor system for quick and quiet focusing, and is dust and moisture resistant. The lens is available for both full frame and APS-C cameras Sony cameras. On the 35mm sensor, it has a 94° angle of view, while on the APS-C, it is a 70° angle of view. It comes with a petal-shaped hood.

Handling

Weighing merely 373g, and measuring 73.5mm × 84.7mm, the lens is compact and lightweight. It also fits perfectly on the Alpha 7R III. It is well designed and sturdy too, enabling photographers to shoot in difficult environments.

On the lens, there are two well-designed rings—a large, rubberised finished focusing right at the front, and a small de-clickable aperture ring located towards the mount. The focusing ring has a linear response MF, with focus-by-wire design. It enables a large degree of rotation between minimum focusing distance and infinity.

Apart from that, it features a customisable focus hold button, which not only offers easy focus hold control, but can be assigned to a variety of other functions. There is also the focus mode switch, and an aperture ring click stop switch. The latter is useful for seamless, silent control when shooting video.

At f/1.8, there is minimal vignetting. However, this can be used to create an artistic effect. Exposure: 1/320sec at f/1.8 (ISO 200). Photograph/Nilofer Khan

Performance

The AF system of the lens is very good, both in dimly lit environments and crowded places. There is no sound while focusing, which is excellent for videography. The overall image quality of the lens is great, with exceptional sharpness, colour and contrast rendition, as well as shallow depth of field. At f/1.8, the corner’s of the images are a little soft, but if you stop down to f/4, the 20mm provides an impeccable centre-to-edge sharpness. Vignetting is minimal but visible at f/1.8, but completely disappears by f/4.

Lateral chromatic aberration is controlled incredibly. Even at f/1.8, there is no visible fringing at the edges of the frame. Longitudinal chromatic aberration is well controlled too. There is minimal distortion, which can easily be corrected when you enable distortion correction in the camera setting. You can easily fix it in post-processing as well. The lens is also able to control coma and flaring extremely well.

The lens also shows some degree of focus breathing, which will be an issue for videographers. It means that there is a change in the size of the subject or the scene in the frame when you change the focus from the closest distance to farthest.

Conclusion

Priced at Rs. 89,490, the 20mm is an excellent choice for those who wish to have the best quality and optical performance. The lens is in close competition with Sigma’s 20mm f/1.4 Art, which is available at Rs. 77,890. However, Sigma’s 20mm is far bulkier than Sony’s. The Sony FE 20mm f/1.8 G has incredible sharpness at its widest aperture, and is capable of capturing fantastic, vibrant images, even in dimly-lit conditions. Apart from photographing landscapes, architecture, interiors, I also found the lens to be very useful for environmental portraits, street photography, or shooting in narrow spaces like the lanes of Worli Village. At this price, Sony is certainly veering towards the more expensive price-to-performance bracket, making it a choice for the well-heeled high-end professional user, with a very specific level of image and video quality in mind. If you fall into this category, the Sony FE 20mm f/1.8 G is a very worthy investment indeed.

This article originally appeared in the March 2021 issue of Better Photography.