bsi-cmos's reviews

  • Sony E 15mm f/1.4 G SEL15F14G

    10 out of 10 points and recommended
    Outstanding sharpness even wide open. Fast, lightweight and fairly compact. Great color rendering. Mechanical aperture ring feels and works great.
    No IS, for handheld shots in low light and low ISOs, better use a camera body with sensor shift image stabilisation.

    Comparing this lens with many, many others on a Sony Alpha 6500 body and this is one of the very few lenses that are already strong wide open and at low f numbers. Stopping down to more than f4.5 doesn't really improve sharpness in center and edges and f4.0 is about the sweet spot, while f2.0 is already sharper than many other lenses at f5.6. Against bright sunlight, I need to stop down further to avoid overexposure, an ND filter might make sense in such situations.
    It's a fast, no-brainer lens that allows me to capture close shots that would have been impossible with longer focal lengths.
    AF speed is not lightning fast but OK.
    It's my first real wide-angle lens that I purchased recently and I didn't expect that it would become one of my favorite lenses. My full-frame A7RII with various FF lenses is only better with a few exceptional lenses, but I need to stop these down to f11 to f14 in order to get comparable sharpness. At twice the weight.

    reviewed September 5th, 2025 (purchased for $450)