Sony FE 50mm F/2.8 Macro Review

The Sony FE 50mm F/2.8 Macro is an early FE lens and one of the first Full-Frame Macro for E-mount. This prime lens is extremely light and truly shows the potential of mirrorless systems. Weighing just 236g, this is lightest macro lens with infinity focus for FE mount and it is even weatherproof! In fact, the FE 50mm F/2.8 Macro is one of the lightest weatherproof lenses across systems.

A 50mm focal-length gives this prime a 47° field-of-view which is considered a normal lens for Full-Frame. This results in a natural-looking perspective which is why 50mm is hugely popular focal-length among prime lenses for Full-Frame cameras. Additionally, F/2.8 is by far the most frequent maximum aperture for macro lenses. This moderately bright aperture allows a good amount of light and really thin depth-of-field when focusing at close range. The 50mm and F/2.8 combination is suitable to capture most macro subjects that do not require much working distance.

The Sony FE 50mm F/2.8 delivers a maximum 1X magnification at its 16cm minimum focus-distance. Starting at 71mm in length, it extends to 94mm when acheiving life-size magnification. Considering an additional 18mm for the flange-distance of the E-mount, it barely leaves 5cm of working distance. This can make it difficult to light subjects, if they do not run away first! A filter-thread at the front supports standard 55mm filters. There is no bayonet to attach a lens hood though, as this would make it nearly impossible to light subjects.

Construction

The barrel of the FE 50mm F/2.8 Macro is made of an outer tube that is 71cmm in diameter for most of its length. The rear 1cm narrows slightly to match the width of the Sony E-mount. An inner barrel 56mm wide extends when focusing beyond 0.25X magnigication. Focus and magnification are written on the top of the inner barrel for reference.

A fly-by-wire focus ring near the front of the lens rotates with a mild resistance. It turns indefinitely without stops. Since this is a fly-by-wire ring, it controls focus only when the camera expects it. There are three conditions which allow manual-focus:

• The switch on the barrel that selects between AF and MF mode is in the MF position.
• The camera itself is set to Manual Focus mode.
• After autofocus locks while the camera in in DMF mode. As a consequence, if the camera is unable to lock focus, DMF mode will not hand over control to the focus-ring.

Just below the AF/MF switch, a round customizable button can be configured in-camera to perform some function. The choice depends on the camera but most allow at least focus-related features such as Focus-Hold and Manual-Focus Assist. Right below, a 3-position slider selects the allowable focus-range: Full, 30cm+ or 16-30cm. Restricting the focus-range allows the camera to perform autofocus more effectively.

A really smooth finish is applied to the outer barrel which is made of metal. Even though this lens is very light, its weight its center-of-gravity leans towards the front element. The FE 50mm F/2.8 Macro feels generally sturdy with a tiny amount of wiggle from the internal lens barrel.

Sony FE 50mm F/2.8 Macro Sharpness

Macro lenses are designed to capture the finest details and are expected to be completely sharp. Although this is an inexpensive and lightweight lens, the Sony FE 50mm F/2.8 Macro exceeds expectations. It renders details with crisp sharpness everywhere in the frame. The extreme corners are barely less sharp than the center which is only noticeable upon close inspection of the largest prints.

By stopping down just a half-stop to F/3.5, this macro lenses acheives peak sharpness. The entire image area gets sharper with the central portion becoming perfectly sharp and corners just a little less. Closing down the aperture gradually improves corners until they become absolutely sharp at F/6.7. Diffraction brings back subtle softness from F/13 to F/16, the minimum aperture for this lens. Typical macro lenses reach F/22, so it is unexpected that the 50mm F/2.8 Macro stops at F/16 which is a more common limit for ultra-bright lenses.

Shown below are 5 crops taken from a photograph, repeatedly captured for each combination of focal-length and aperture. Smaller pieces are cropped from extreme corners of the images, while the middle wide crop is taken from the center of images. Select an aperture in a row for a desired focal-length to see the crops from the corresponding image. When judging image quality, understand that these are crops from a 61 MP image which is normally used to print images up to 45x30". On a computer display, these may appear much larger which magnifies image defects.

Performance

The optical performance of the FE 50mm F/2.8 Macro is outstanding and even surprising considering this is one of the cheapest lens in the Sony FE lineup! As shown directly above, sharpness is truly excellent with remarkable consistence across the frame. Any image captured at F/3.5 can stand being printed at maximum size.

Distortion is zero. There is no measurable geometric distortion without applying any correction to the output from this lens. Close focusing renders crisp details with a very smooth transition away from the focus-plane. A slight amount of purple-fringing occurs along edges of high contrast which cen be entirely eliminated in-camera.

As established by nearly every other Sony lens reviewed, there is strong vignetting with the lens wide open at F/2.8. While it starts at just over 2-stops wide-open, the situation steady improved by stopping down. By F/4, there is still over 1 EV of corner shading which is noticeable. Reaching F/5.6, vignetting diminishes to around 1/2 EV which is mostly visible for subjects captured against a uniform background. Note that vignetting is easily correctable in software without detriment to image-quality.

Where the FE 50mm F/2.8 truly shows its age is in terms of autofocus. Its internal focus motor is slow and rather loud. One can see it move to the focus position and pull back and forth before locking. Although not terribly slow with high-contrast subjects, it does often take between 1/4s and 1/2s. When focusing in dim light, autofocus often takes over a second while making a a medium-pitch motor-noise. Expect slow AF when focusing stopped down, which is the default on Sony mirrorless cameras.

Conclusion

The compact and lightweight Sony FE 50mm F/2.8 Macro is a sure way to add macro-capability to a Sony photography system. This lens delivers on image-quality with superb resolution, fantastic contrast and perfect geometry. Its image-quality is slightly tainted by high vignetting but that is easily corrected.

With a true 1:1 magnification ratio, this 50mm F/2.8 lens can capture miniscule subjects with excellent edge-to-edge detail. As such, it is suitable for nearly any macro subjects except live insects for two reasons. The first is a very tight working distance of just 5cm and the second is an unsually loud autofocus motor. Sony makes a longer Sony FE 90mm F/2.8G Macro OSS
Sony FE 90mm F/2.8G Macro OSS which weighs 2.5X more and costs twice the price! That is a great lens for macro photographers but, for occasional macro photography, the FE 50mm F/2.8 Macro is a great choice.