Best Sony Lens for Videography of 2023

A well-crafted video can easily reach millions of people in a matter of days. However, it takes quite a few factors to produce a good video – one of which is the ideal camera lens. Sony has a history of releasing camera lenses that are smaller and lighter than its predecessors while still maintaining or even improving upon their performance and subject clarity. Even more so, they have zeroed in on developing cutting-edge lenses with sizable image sensors, which result in high-definition videos.

From my experience with wide-angle lenses, zoom lenses, macro lenses, and combination lenses, I can say with confidence that Sony Lenses produce amazing videos thanks to their wide range of special features.

In this post, we’ll introduce you to a few of Sony’s most impressive lenses for high-end videography. But, before we get to the heart of the article, here are some tips for selecting the best Sony lenses for videography.

Also Read: Best Canon Lens for Video

Factors to Consider When Choosing a Sony Lens

When it comes to choosing a Sony video lens, there are many factors to consider. You want a camera lens that fits your needs, offers good image quality, and won’t break the bank. To help you find exactly what you’re looking for, we’ve put together some tips on how to choose the best video lens for your DSLR.

Zoom requirements

The first thing to do is decide whether you want a fixed focal length lens or a zoom lens. A fixed focal length lens allows you to shoot videos without zooming in and out of the frame. This makes it easier to capture a wide variety of shots because you don’t have to change lenses.

However, a fixed focal length lens doesn’t provide much flexibility. If you want to use different types of subjects, such as landscapes, people, architecture, or pets, you’ll need to switch to a zoom lens.

Maximum aperture

Next, look at the maximum aperture of the lens. The larger the number, the better the lens’s depth of field. Depth of field refers to the distance between two captured subjects at which both will still appear sharp. For example, if you take a photo of someone standing in front of a flower bed and the flower bed looks blurry, this is due to a shallow depth of field. On the other hand, if you take a picture of a person standing next to a mountain range, the entire scene appears sharply focused, this is because the depth of field is deep.

If you plan to record videos outdoors, check the weather conditions. In inclement weather like rain, snow, fog, sleet, or high winds, the best video lenses tend to be those with large maximum apertures. These lenses allow you to maintain a wider angle of view while still capturing a clear image.

Lens type

Finally, make sure you buy a lens that matches your specific needs. Some cameras come with multiple lenses, including macro lenses, ultra-wide angle lenses, and even fish-eye lenses. Each lens provides its own set of benefits. For example, a macro lens lets you shoot close-up images of flowers, insects, and small objects, an ultra-wide angle lens gives you a wide view of a landscape, and a fish-eye lens creates a distorted effect, making it easy to fit more people into a shot.

QUICK OVERVIEW

Top Sony Lens For Video

Products	Features
EDITOR’S PICK 4.7 700+ 700+ Sony 24-70 mm F2.8 G LensSony 24-70 mm F2.8 G Lens	Angle of View — 84° to 34° Maximum Aperture — F/2.8 PRICE RANGE: Under $2000 Angle of View — 84° to 34° Maximum Aperture — F/2.8 PRICE RANGE: Under $2000 Check price at Amazon
MOST REVIEWED 4.7 700+ 700+ Sony FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM LensSony FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM Lens	Angle of View — 107° to 63° Maximum Aperture — F/2.8 PRICE RANGE: Under $2200 Angle of View — 107° to 63° Maximum Aperture — F/2.8 PRICE RANGE: Under $2200 Check price at Amazon
BUDGET PICK 4.7 70+ 70+ Sony FE 40mm F2.5 G LensSony FE 40mm F2.5 G Lens	Angle of View — 57° Maximum Aperture — F/2.5 PRICE RANGE: Under $550 Angle of View — 57° Maximum Aperture — F/2.5 PRICE RANGE: Under $550 Check price at Amazon

The Best Sony Lenses

Sony 24-70 mm F2.8 G Lens

If you’re looking for the best optical performance across the board—for portraits, travel, and event videos, or even just general purpose shooting—the Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM Zoom Lens is your best bet.  With its compact lightweight body, the G Master lens fits easily into any bag.

Its versatile focal length allows users to take advantage of various shooting environments. It has been designed to provide excellent resolution across its entire range of focal lengths and with a constant f/4 maximum aperture across the zoom range, the lens delivers superbly sharp images at every focus setting.

It’s constructed with three aspherical elements, one of which is a newly developed, extremely precise XA (extreme aspherical) element that minimizes aberration and provides the highest resolution throughout the entire zoom range.

With optical elements made of extra-low-dispersion (ED) and super ED glass, it reduces the appearance of chromatic aberration, allowing for sharper images with more realistic coloration. The lens has a minimum focusing distance of only 1.25 ft, which means it’s easy to achieve close-up shots when working around tight corners or over long distances.

Additionally, ED and Super ED glass elements capture natural and lifelike imagery with breathtaking texture and details.

Whereas the Sony 24-70mm F4 OSS  at f/4 yields edges that show just 1068 lines, Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM at 24mm and f/2.8 scores 2514 lines per picture height on a center-weight. Still, it is stronger at the edges than the 24-70mm F4 OSS is at f/4 which just shows 1068 lines.

For maximum usability, this lens also features a dust/moisture resistant design, AF/MF switch, circular aperture, and Nano AR coating that allows for accurate light transmission to improve clarity, contrast, and quality. This lens’s compact design and super smooth ad quiet direct drive SSM (supersonic wave motor) focusing system) make it an ideal choice for shooting both still images and movies.

Read More: Best Portrait Lens for Sony A7III

Sony FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS Lens

The Sony FE 24-105 mm is easy to use for both beginners and advanced videographers. It’s a wide-angle lens ideal for capturing landscapes, architecture, and group photos. Its high performance is accredited to its optics which deliver razor-sharp images with rich color and contrast.

With its 9-blade circular aperture, this camera creates stunningly blurred backgrounds. For the 35mm full-frame format, the numbers of lens groups/elements range from 14 to 17. With a minimum focusing distance of about 1.25 feet, it allows for a wide variety of close-up expressions. Sony’s exclusive DDSM internal focusing system, along with a quick and precise manual focusing ring, ensures that your shots will always come out just right.

Its fast, silent autofocus allows you to take action shots during live sports events, concerts, and other activities with ease.

With a fluorine coating on the front element, pollutants like oils, grime, and water are less likely to stick to the lens and are easier to wipe away if they do. The focus hold button is also modifiable, and the design is resistant to dust and moisture, both of which add to its usability and dependability in a professional setting.

Additionally, the maximum aperture remains fixed at a brilliant f/4 across the whole zoom range, ensuring that the image remains adequately illuminated regardless of the setting of the focal length. Focus breathing is greatly reduced because of the precise optical design. These features combine to make the FE 24-105mm F4 G OSS a fantastic option for both stills and videos.

Sony FE 40mm F2.5 G Lens

The FE 40mm is one of the new lenses from Sony with a fairly basic outward appearance. It sits in-between the FE 24mm F2.8 G and FE 50mm F2.5 G in focal length. It is an especially small prime, built for travel and packing light, with an angle of view that is a bit narrower than a 35 mm lens.

The FE 40mm F2.5 G incorporates a 7-blade circular aperture mechanism to maximize the beauty of your videos, while conventional aperture blades have flat sides that create unappealing, polygonal-shaped defocused points of light.

The wide f/2.5 aperture and circular aperture blades contribute to impressive images in which the subject stands out against a smoothly defocused foreground and background. Three aspherical lens elements achieve exceptional image quality and adjust for various aberrations, offering high-resolution performance from corner to corner.

Internal seals protect against dust and spills, while also giving it some travel appeal. The autofocus system is quick and silent. In a fraction of a second, the lens moves from its closest focus to infinity. The manual focus is superb, with a linear response.

The optical design of the high-quality G lens contains three aspherical lens elements for fine detail and superb corner-to-corner resolution. Furthermore, the cutting-edge optical design makes the most of the mirrorless camera’s short flange back.

Whether you’re using a full-frame or an APS-C body, taking stills or videos, portability is a top priority, and that’s why the E-mount system is so well-designed. The FE 40mm F2.5focal G’s length distinguishes it from a dozen rival 35mm primes, and its aluminum build and aperture control ring make it seem like a traditional lens—with the comfort of modern technology inside.

Sony Planar T FE 50mm F/1.4 ZA Lens

Most videographers like that the standard 50mm prime lens offers an optimum focal length for their work. The brilliant maximum aperture of f/1.4 gives exceptional performance in low-light conditions as well as control over backgrounds that are out of focus. 

It has a cutting-edge optical design comprising 12 elements in 9 groups with advanced aspheric and ED glass. This helps to minimize spherical aberration and distortion to an extent that is consistent with the moniker “planar,” which refers to a flat image plane. Spherical aberration is a slight misalignment of the light rays projected on the image plane. This is caused by differences in refraction at different points on conventional spherical lenses which degrade image quality in large-aperture lenses. Specially shaped ‘aspherical’ elements near the diaphragm restore the alignment of light rays at the image plane, maintaining high sharpness and contrast even at maximum aperture.

It captures more light when shot at its maximum aperture compared to its predecessor. Again, image quality is strong right up to the edges of the frame, which show nearly as much detail as the center.

Compared to the FE 55mm F1.8, the T FE 50mm F1.4 ZA has exceptional sharpness, is well constructed, and allows for both photography in dim lighting conditions and the capturing of photos with a shallow depth of field.

The circular aperture blades that are included in this lens can further enhance the bokeh effect of the blurred background. Traditional aperture blades have flat edges, resulting in unattractive polygonal-shaped light sources being blurred out of focus. This issue is circumvented by lenses with a distinctive design that maintains the aperture in a nearly perfectly circular shape regardless of whether it is fully open or stopped by two stops. Because of this, one can achieve a defocusing effect that is silkier and more natural.

Sony FE 14mm F1.8 G Lens

The FE 14mm F1.8 GM delivers incredible G Master quality and performance with a new perspective from an ultra-wide-angle field of view and bright f/1.8 aperture – all in a compact and lightweight design. Ideal for astrophotography, architecture, landscape, and even portraits and movie shooting, it delivers extraordinary resolution and gorgeous bokeh with precision focus performance.

Compared to zoom lenses, FE 14mm F1.8 GM is smaller and lighter, making it a better fit for use on a gimbal or drone, and a lot easier to carry than the Sigma 14mm F1.8 DG HSM Art.

Two XA (extreme aspherical) elements, one aspherical element, ED (extra-low dispersion) glass, and one Super ED element coupled with Nano AR coating II all contribute to high-contrast, high-resolution results with corner-to-corner sharpness and dramatically reduced chromatic aberration, flare, and ghosting.

The FE14 mm F1.8 GM Full-Frame has clear advantages for movie making for all types of content creators with the ultra-wide 14mm angle of view, two XD (extreme dynamic) linear motors for fast, precise autofocus and tracking, a bright f/1.8 maximum aperture for beautifully defocused background bokeh, excellent close-up performance, and a class-leading compact and lightweight design.

In addition to the small size and light weight, its internal focus design makes it convenient for use on compact gimbals or grips for vlogging and other applications.

The f/1.8 max 9-blade circular aperture maximizes the beauty of this large-aperture prime lens, contributing to impressive images in which the subject stands out against a smoothly defocused foreground and background and perfectly round points of defocused light. Resolution and bokeh are maximized while leaving precisely rendered edges with no fringing or unnatural coloration.

One Super ED (extra-low dispersion) and two ED glass elements significantly reduce flare and ghosting by eliminating axial chromatic aberration and chromatic aberration (due to differences in magnification) from the picture.

Sony FE 35mm F1.8 Lens

The compact and lightweight large-aperture prime lens is ideal for full-frame and APS-C cameras and provides mobility and convenience for shooting a wide range of subjects from everyday snapshots, to food photography, landscapes, night scenes, and more.

It provides outstanding corner-to-corner image quality and beautiful bokeh, while its quiet autofocus and tenacious tracking performance make it a great choice for both stills and movie shooting.

The refined optical design includes an aspheric glass element which dramatically reduces spherical aberration while also reducing lens size and weight. Field curvature is carefully corrected by this specially shaped aspherical lens to restore the alignment of light rays at the image plane. Superior contrast is maintained across the entire image, even at large aperture settings, resulting in full image sharpness.

The 9-blade circular aperture maximizes the beauty captured by this large-aperture prime lens, contributing to impressive images in which the subject stands out against a smoothly defocused background bokeh as well as naturally rendered points of defocused light.

You can get close-ups with a minimum 8.66-inch focus distance and a maximum 0.24x magnification for macro and other interesting shots.

The focus hold button not only performs its primary function to lock focus when recomposing but can also be customized to several other functions depending on your needs. In addition to Focus Hold, these custom functions include Eye AF, AF On, Aperture Preview, Shot Result Preview, and Bright Monitoring among others.

An f/1.8 lens captures more than twice the light of an F/2.8 lens when shot at maximum aperture. It is a cost-and weight-saving choice when compared with even brighter options like Sony’s FE 35mm F 1.4 ZA (1.4 pounds) and the Sigma 35mm F 1.2 DG DN Art (2.4 pounds).

In summary, wider or larger aperture lenses easily help to isolate needful subjects from any other.

Sony FE 35mm F/1.4 Lens

The f/1.4 max aperture of this lens provides extraordinary brightness and depth of field, allowing you to isolate your subject from the foreground and background with amazing light-gathering capabilities when shooting wide open. The unique combination of wide f/1.4 aperture with 11 circular aperture blades and two XA (extreme aspherical) lens elements delivers on the G Master promise of ultra-sharp in-focus areas with beautiful soft defocused bokeh.

The fast f/1.4 aperture is good for a shallow depth of field and ideal for situations requiring more advanced light-gathering capabilities like indoor, night, and astral photography, making this lens perfect for any occasion.

The FE 35mm F1.4 GM incorporates two extremely precise XA (extreme aspherical) elements – manufactured to 0.01-micron surface precision – in an innovative optical design that achieves stunning G Master resolution throughout the image area while delivering smooth, creamy bokeh in out-of-focus areas.

Two XA elements compensate for coma, field curvature, and astigmatism, which can be problems with wide-angle large-aperture optics. These elements also enable closer focusing distances and contribute to the compact and lightweight design.

While the two XA elements effectively suppress onion ring bokeh, the 11-blade circular aperture maximizes the beauty of this large-aperture prime lens, contributing to impressive images in which the subject stands out against a smoothly defocused foreground and background, as well as perfectly round points of defocused light.

Conventional aperture blades have flat sides that create unappealing, polygonal-shaped defocused points of light. This lens overcomes this problem through a unique design that keeps the aperture almost perfectly circular from its wide-open setting to when it is closed by 2 stops. Smoother, more natural defocusing can be seen as a result.

The FE 35 mm F1.GM is incredibly sharp, quick to focus, and delivers an image with pleasingly blurred backgrounds compared to the Sony Zeiss 35mm F1.4 ZA.

Sony FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM Lens

Explore the world in creative new ways with exceptional G Master performance in a 16-35mm f/2.8 wide-angle zoom. This lens delivers consistently superb resolution from corner to corner, no matter what zoom setting or focus distance you shoot at. It produces stunning background bokeh that can add depth and artistic impact to your images when required.

A compact, lightweight design makes the FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM a great choice for active shooting. The angle of view (35 mm), 07°–63°, provides an excellent result for astrophotography. It is so crisp and sharp edge-to-edge, with no crazy coma or chromatic aberrations to deal with, even at the extreme 12mm, which allows you to get much of the Milky Way in a frame.

The f/2.8 aperture is part of the G Master series. It is Sony’s designation for its most premium lenses, which are designed to deliver the sharpest possible images and pleasingly blurred backgrounds. The GM has a solid close focus capability and can certainly deliver decent bokeh when zoomed in.

Two XA (extreme aspherical) elements, a minimum focusing distance of 0.28 m (0.92 ft), and a maximum magnification ratio of -0.19 enhance surface precision when shooting both still and moving objects.

The FE 16-35mm F2.8 MG delivers strong resolution wide open and when shot at f/4 and narrower. Event photographers will appreciate its wide, bright design, as it can be used to work in tight spaces, like the hotel rooms where the bridal party gets ready, as well as in cathedrals where dim light is a challenge and flash photography is verboten.

The primes capture far more light, which means sharper pictures because you can use lower ISOs and faster shutter speeds.

Sony Distagon T FE 35mm F/1.4 ZA Lens

The 35mm focal length makes the Distagon T* FE 35mm F1.4 ZA an excellent choice for a wide range of photography, from snapshots and landscapes to indoor portraits and night scenes – producing beautiful bokeh through its bright 9- blade f/1.4 aperture. The advanced optical design – including aspherical and “AA” (advanced spherical) lens elements combined with the renowned ZEISS T* coating – delivers outstanding image resolution and suppresses reflections for superior contrast clarity.

The unmatched ZEISS T* Coated optics is a superb lens that virtually eliminates lens flare, internal reflection, and light scattering that can otherwise occur at glass-to-air surfaces. The T* coating contributes to outstanding image quality, with high contrast and uniformly excellent resolution right out to the image edges.

Not simply applied to any lens – the T* symbol only appears on multi-element lenses in which the required performance has been achieved throughout the entire optical path, therefore guaranteeing the highest quality.

When changing your aperture to defocus the background, the light sources appear blurred. This ‘bokeh’ effect of the blurred background can be enhanced with the circular aperture blades used in this lens.

Sony Sonnar T FE 55mm F/1.8 ZA Lens

The renowned Carl Zeiss contrast and resolution bring out the best in α7 series full-frame E-mount bodies. The T* coating works with an innovative optical design to suppress internal reflections, for sublime contrast from highlights to deep blacks.

In keeping with the Sonnar concept, a large f/1.8 maximum aperture can produce beautiful full-frame background bokeh, but you also have the option of stopping down for extended depth-of-field. A bright lens like this is also an advantage when shooting indoors or outdoors in low light. Linear motor-driven internal focusing is smooth and quiet, and a dust and moisture-resistant design ensures consistently reliable performance.

When changing your aperture to defocus the background, the light sources appear blurred. This ‘bokeh’ effect of the blurred background can be enhanced with the circular aperture blades used in this lens. α lenses have a unique design that keeps the aperture almost perfectly circular from its wide-open setting to when it is closed by 2 stops.

Specially shaped “aspherical” elements near the diaphragm restore the alignment of light rays at the image plane, maintaining high sharpness and contrast even at maximum aperture and being used at other optical points path to reduce distortion.

Conclusion

It is not always simple to decide which lens would serve your purposes the best. There are a lot of different things to think about, depending on what you’re filming. There are specialized lenses for all sorts of videography, including landscapes, portraiture, macros, and even sports.

The most important thing to remember is to do your research and know exactly what you want out of your kit. In the same way you wouldn’t buy a car without first learning how it operates, you shouldn’t pick a lens without first familiarizing yourself with its capabilities and features.