I’m writing this review thinking about how silly I have been when I decided to sell it!!! And I actually did it!
Ok, let’s start from the beginning. I bought the Sony A7rII and this lens at the same time.
I was so exited by all those fantastic reviews I read about both items and I couldn’t resist when I found them at an amazing price in a Sony shop in Phnom Penh! Please, don’t get me wrong, the Sony FE 85mm f1.4 GM is an AMAZING lens! Period!!! Probably the best bokeh I have ever had among my photography tools since when I started. Its blurry back ground (in the photos it makes) is one of the most poetic and most fascinating I have ever seen.
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As I said, in some other reviews, I’m not a long lenses guy and I really don’t like the “flat” effect that close portraits get when using long lenses. That’s why I bought this Sony FE 85mm f1.4 GM for my street photography and not specifically for classic portraits. Now I know some of you will think “how can you perform street with a 85mm!?!?”. Here is my answer “EASILY!!”.
I strongly believe that street photography can be performed with many different focal lengths and something longer than a 50mm can really help in some cases.
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Of course I don’t say that I don’t like to take portraits with a long lens but I always try to make them less “flat” as possible. With no doubts we can say that the result (talking about bokeh) you can get with a 85mm f1.4 is usually really interesting and this was (plus all the above) the reason I decided to get this amazing Sony FE 85mm f1.4 GM. But then I have faced the downsides of this kind of lenses. The size and the weight! Since I choose the mirrorless system (back in 2012) I really like to have highly performing small and light lenses and cameras.
So I sold this 85mm GM and I bought the 55mm f1.8 instead. According to my point of view, those two lenses, aren’t comparable at all. The 85mm GM is a way better in everything but the 55mm f1.8 is quite good, small and light. This is the only reason because I sold the marvelous Sony FE 85mm f1.4 GM. Anyway, before to sell it, I had the possibility to get some interesting photos.
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Conclusions
The Sony FE 85mm f1.4 GM is an amazing lens which will be the right tool for you to get some magic shoots. Period. It isn’t the sharpest 85mm out there but it is sharp enough for what it is meant. If you prefer poetic rendering to extreme sharpness (actually it is what I do) and you don’t mind the size and its 820g than go for it. You won’t regret.