Welcome to another episode of “One Lens Dairy.” Today we will review my newest lens and the new traveling member in my kit, 55mm f1.8, and the gear I am checking on is the “Sony FE 55mm F1.8 ZA.” You probably think why I am getting this lens instead of the more quality 50mm f1.4? Well, it’s because of the budget and size of it. Let me tell you more about that later! If you are new here reading the “One Lens Dairy,” I always break down from portrait, scenery, low light performance, and more little features I thought are worth mentioning to give you what a lens can bring.

Sony FE 55mm F1.8 ZA. One of the ZEISS series lens from Sony full-frame camera.

55mm and 50mm are the most natural focal length of portrait photography. The focal length in between 35mm to 55mm we called it "normal lens," which means what you will capture on these lenses are the same look as we saw in our eyes. I love how this lens can compress the background more front to our subject and blur the background to give more separation from the subject.

I never thought I would come in to play with the normal lens in my life because the wide-angle lenses is how I see the world. I love to document my traveling experiences, and the lens for me should be the wide-angle lenses and the telephoto lenses (such as 24-70mm, and 70-200mm.) After the pandemic, it's hard for us to travel abroad or even in our own country. My passion for traveling photography has been a force to take a break, I have to change my content to my second favorite, lifestyle/menswear, and I notice if I want to achieve the look I love, the normal lens is the best for it for sure.

Small, light, and all-metal build with robust image quality. It is such an effortless lens to bring with.

Portrait

Normal lenses come in nature with portrait photography, especially 50mm and 55mm. What we see in our eyes is the look we will capture. It doesn't give you the distortion from wild angles or the flattened faces in the telephoto lenses. I personally love to shoot portraits on 55mm than 35mm because the background information is not as busy as 35mm. Also, I don't have to come closer to the subject or person while taking photos. It is such a wonderful lens to do the portrait, especially for outdoor portraits, in my opinion.

*For Sony full-frame users, I sometimes use the APSC mode on my a7r3 to reach 82mm. There are other popular lenses for portrait photography, the 85mm f1.4. It's also a very common focal length for doing outdoor portraits where you get even more background compress and blur. Without having the 85mm f1.4 but still have similar results, it's the other reason I choose 55mm than 50mm f1.4!

Products/Detail Shots

The other feature of this lens is that being good on portrait also makes it a good lens for shooting products and details. I really think this lens is made for commercial purposes, because like I mentioned earlier in portrait review, this lens can really make attention from the sense. It just comes naturally whatever you want to emphasize the subject or person you are shooting for. What I like to describe the role of it is the storytelling. If you're going to showcase what they have in the park, what you have in your hotel room, or the close up shoot for the objects or the outfits textures of the outfits you are wearing for the day, this lens can bring more storytelling and more arty abilities for your photography.

Scenery

I don’t do a lot of scenery on this lens but it's an interesting lens for doing it. 55mm provides a very narrow frame, and that is why it's good at portraits or emphasizing the subject. But sometimes 55mm comes in handy if you only have the longer focal length than wide-angles. It can be used as a telephoto lens if you want to. Because 55mm can compress the background fronter, sometimes it gives an arty look for the scenery, such as the effect of the huge mountain (the result cannot compare to the telephoto lens). But since this lens is very tight, you either have to stand much farther to the subject if you want to capture the whole or do the panorama to fit the subject. As I said, this lens gives good attention to the subject. What I like to do on this lens when shooting scenery is I shoot the part of it, such as the part of the wheel in the playground or a part of the building. This can bring a more fine art style for a photo. It's different but fun to try! I don’t have any good examples to display here, but I hope you get the point.

Low Light

Since this version of 55mm has an f1.8 aperture, the low light ability is not a disappointment for sure. I haven't done that much of the low light photography on it, especially at night, but f1.8 sometimes just comes in handy in the cloudy day indoors shooting, especially when I was doing the interior shots or the products shots. Even though the f1.8 provides a good low light ability, some people think its not enough to smooth out the background, but I think it is enough for the majority of the people to use! I have nothing too critical to say about the low light ability on this lens, f1.8 is enough and beautiful.

*If you are a Sony full-frame user, the bokeh on this lens looks beautiful and sharps. Sometimes it gets a bit too sharps, some people don't like that because it looks a bit busy in the background, but in my opinion, it is a beautiful bokeh look! Let's take a look!

Worth Mention

Being a photographer on the go has many considerations to think about. The size is why I purchase it in the first place. I was going for the 50mm f1.4 instead of 55mm f1.8, but the image results, build quality, and the sharpness on the 55mm I thought were equally good as 50mm! We only have limited space for our equipment, and I am still unsure whether I would like a normal lens before I purchase. Since the image quality on the 55mm is equally good as the 50mm, why not buy the smaller one as the tryout. I’m happy with the decision on 55mm, it is just effortlessly for me to use, and my shoulder is thankful for that too. Lol!

Conclusion

I am thrilled to have this lens to stay in my kits. I was surprised how a tiny lens can make the quality image like a big lens! Most of the time I do on this lens are portraits, lifestyle/menswear photography, and products photography, especially shooting flowers. These are the categories 55mm are good at. To be honest, since I have this lens, 24mm is no longer the most used lens, especially for lifestyle/ menswear photography unless I want to do more a creative way of them! I also understand why the 55mm and 50mm are the most popular lenses in the prime lenses line. But I have to say if you are just starting photography, this lens is probably not a good choice for you! The versatility is not what this lens can offer because it has such a tight focal length to fit everything inside or long enough to capture the objects far away. For beginners, it might be hard to get familiar with unless you already niche down what you want to shoot for. If you like to make your photo looks like the magazine, then this lens is for you. Overall, a great lens if your niche is doing portraits, products, and lifestyle photography!

55mm f1.8 | One Lens Dairy