Sony’s GM models or G Master line of lenses are known in the market for their extraordinary resolution and bokeh effect producing capacities. This time Sony is back with another Prime full frame wide angle lens in the same series that will be called FE 24 F1.4 GM (SEL24F14GM). This is surely going to attract the attention of professional photographers who pay a lot of attention to detailing and expect higher optical capabilities out of a premier lens. This will be a mirrorless lens that the alpha series is known for and will be compatible with full frame alpha cameras – considered among some of the best mirrorless cameras in the world.
This lightweight lens has dimensions of around 3X 3.64 inches and weighs around 15.7 ounces; the diameter of the filter is 67mm. This will be advantageous for photographers who deal in the landscape, adventure shots over hiking, traveling, climbing, and so on-a, a feature typical of the mirrorless range of cameras in general. The lens design has come out of the newly innovated high-power Direct Drive SSM that betters the accuracy, focus, response time, high positioning accuracy, and quiet operations for motion and still photography.
The camera also boasts of a very real and natural (soft textured) Bokeh effect in a close-up mode (performance of 0.24 meters) that is typical of the GM series of lenses. The spherical, axial and lateral aberrations in these lenses are very well controlled; hence the effects in the lenses speak of the manufacturing excellence and designing skills.
There has been an addition of an aperture ring that controls the aperture directly and a focus ring that makes the manual focus better with its Linear Response Manual focus function. The focus hold button is customizable and can continuously shift between manual and auto to keep up with the changing shooting conditions, thereby giving a much better user response.
There will be a new optical design that has 10 groups and 13 elements. The 2 extremely aspherical elements bogs down sagittal flare, which means unnatural spreading of point light source, especially in a lens with large apertures that may make the point source of light look like a bird expanding its wings. Thus distant astral photography can be done beautifully using this. There is also an Extra-low dispersion element in the lens besides the use of AR Nano coating that gives clarity to the lens and makes landscape photography easier, especially because in landscape photography, the position of the sun is problematic with a normal lens.
Neal Manowitz, VP of imaging solutions at Sony Electronics said that “We are continuing to evolve our lens lineup to maximize the power of our innovative α camera lineup,” hence they have made their innovation beneficial for photography enthusiasts, multimedia content creators, as well as videographers and, have given them one of the best products in recent times.
This lens is compatible with a7 and a9 lenses from alpha which enhances the picture qualities to manifold times besides Sony’s APS-C sensor mirrorless cameras such as α6500 and α6300. Thus it is compatible with around 48 cameras for now.
The expected pricing of this Prime lens is approximately US$1400 and CA$1900.
