Our Recommendation
The Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM is an amazing lens with great image quality and, remarkably, no coma. It excels at its main purpose of Milky Way photography in every way. It does all this without weighing too much or taking up a lot of space, unlike some competing lenses. It’s a truly fantastic ultra-wide prime.
The price is also very good for what you get. Though $1600 is hardly pocket change, it’s worth it for what is arguably the best Milky Way lens ever made. And it’s not just Milky Way – even during the day, the Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM makes for a compelling ultra-wide lens. It’s nice and portable compared to a bulky zoom, and it’s optically strong from corner to corner as you stop down.
Pros:
- Very small and light for a lens of this type
- Excellent build quality with tight tolerances and no external moving parts
- High-end weather sealing that should survive anything other than a dunking
- Advanced handling features, including a function button and de-clickable aperture ring
- Relatively low distortion for a 14mm lens
- Very good sharpness – best-in-class center, with strong midframes and corners from f/4 onward
- Best-in-class coma performance
- Strong value at the MSRP of $1600
Cons:
- Some flare and ghosting issues, especially with the sun outside of the frame
- Moderate vignetting – though unsurprising for a 14mm lens
- Midframes and corners take some stopping down to reach very good sharpness (with f/8 being optimal)
- No filter threads
Conclusion
The Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM is one of the best wide-angle lenses on the market today, especially for Milky Way photography. It’s small, light, sharp, and a fantastic performer overall. The biggest highlight is the complete lack of coma even at f/1.8. Sony clearly designed this lens to photograph the night sky, and that’s where it shines the most – though it’s still a great general-purpose 14mm lens.
The biggest optical flaw with the Sony 14mm f/1.8 GM is the flare performance when the sun is out of the frame. Although many 14mm lenses have a similar problem, it’s still a bit of a concern. Be on the lookout for stray dots of flare when using this lens under the sun, or even under a full moon.
To improve the flare performance, perhaps Sony should have been more aggressive with the lens hood’s profile. Then again, that could have resulted in more vignetting at certain focusing distances and apertures. Without being in the room when Sony designed this lens, it’s hard to say whether they made the right tradeoff. In any case, it’s a small drawback of an otherwise stellar (or interstellar?) lens.
I can say without reservation that the Sony FE 14mm f/1.8 GM absolutely nails its intended purpose of Milky Way photography. If the 14mm perspective appeals to you, this is the best Milky Way lens that we have ever tested at Photography Life. Even for daytime landscapes, it has an unusually good balance of portability and image quality. The lens easily earns my top recommendation for Sony E photographers.
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The next page of this review has some more sample photos, followed by reader comments on the final page. Use the Table of Contents below the star rating to jump to the section you want.
Sony FE 14mm f/1.8 GM
- Build Quality and Handling
- Size and Weight
- Sharpness and Coma
- Other Image Quality
- Value
Photography Life Overall Rating
Table of Contents