Let’s talk about this trending Sony FE 24mm F1.4 GM ( SEL24F14GM ) today. I’ve managed to loan this lens over the weekend to have a try with my Sony A7III.
Being a recent Sony adopter, I know nothing much about the G Master lenses, all I know Sony fanboys fetish on these lenses, it is the best Sony range of lenses just like how Canon fanboys praise on their L lenses. All I know that premium full frame lenses are heavy for a casual street photographer like me, but this Sony FE 24mm F1.4 GM could change my perception.
First Impression
The first impression is the weight of this premium glass, I felt like holding a half pint of beer in my hand. I love the overall weight distribution after morphing the lens onto my A7III. It fits nicely into my Peak Design 10L sling bag with one-third space allowance for my other necessities.
Like any other G Master lenses, this lens equips with button and switches. The Autofocus and Manual focus switch, the Focus Hold Button; that you can customise to a secondary function button, and also the Aperture Click switch. All in all to speed up the camera operation, well you know, sometimes I feel laggy while going thru all the customised buttons and menus on the camera.
The AF was fast and quiet; Sony says it the DDSSM – Direct Drive Super Sonic wave Motor, big word, it worked remarkably well.
Test Drive
It was a drizzling wet weekend; however, it didn’t affect my operation. With the wide angle and large aperture, I went around shooting interior shots, poor lited environment. I didn’t take any intentional portrait shots because my wife (model) was busy our little rascal and I prefer taking portraits with focal length 50mm and above.
The 1.4 aperture was useful while taking low light places, I cranked up the aperture to 1.8, set my shutter speed at 1/100 (all of my shots were handheld), so I can set the ISO as low as 100 to 200 to keep the noise low. And recover the shadows from the RAW files, the result was satisfying.
And oh yeah, the 11 aperture blades were able to produce “bokehlicious” light orbs.
My final thoughts
I have no second thought of the Sony FE 24mm F1.4 GM construction and image quality. This piece of glass is an appropriate tool for you to bring for travel, it allows you to capture wide angles, and the aperture is wide enough to capture low lighting places like cathedrals, temples, caves etc.
On a few occasions, while doing street, my unalerted street models got intimidated because I was holding a bulky camera aiming right on their face. But it was an intentional street portrait; it should be fine.
In my opinion, I will prefer topping up more cash for the FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM lens, it has a more versatile focal coverage (though it weighs almost one and a half pint of beer).
Bonus Images
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