Sony SEL FE 85mm f/1.8 Lens

A fine mid-telephoto portrait prime

The new 85mm F1.8 mid-telephoto prime lens offers an extremely versatile, lightweight and compact telephoto prime lens solution for a variety of Sony camera owners ranging from working professionals to emerging enthusiasts that have stepped up to full-frame or APS-C cameras for the first time.  With its wide F1.8 aperture, it can produce impressive, exceptionally sharp portraits with soft background defocus that take advantage of its 85mm focal length and wide F1.8 maximum aperture.

The new prime lens features a 9-bladed circular aperture mechanism that ensures smooth, natural looking bokeh, and a double linear motor system to allow for fast, precise and quiet focusing.  It also has a focus hold button that can be customized and assigned together with functions in the camera body like the popular Eye AF feature.  There is a smooth, responsive focus ring and AF/MF switch as well, and the lens is also dust and moisture resistant 3.  

Key Features:

• Wide F1.8 maximum aperture enables beautiful defocusing effects
• 9-blade circular aperture creates beautiful round defocused bokeh
• ED glass element for corner-to-corner sharpness
• Double linear motor system for fast, quiet and precise focusing
• Direct control w/ customizable focus hold button and AF/MF switch 
• Compact and lightweight ideal for full-frame and APS C cameras
• Robust and reliable dust and moisture resistant design
• Internal focus, maintains lens dimensions while focusing

Large F1.8 maximum aperture 

The 85mm focal length is a perfect choice for portrait photography as the maximum F1.8 aperture opens up a world of beautiful prime-lens bokeh. The large F1.8 maximum aperture enables beautiful defocusing effects and enables massive amount of light for low-light or dimly lit shooting scenarios.

9-blade circular aperture

The 9-blade circular aperture maximizes the beauty captured by this large-aperture prime-lens, contributing to impressive images in which the subject stands out against a smoothly defocused background bokeh as well as naturally rendered points of defocused light.

Double linear motor system for fast and precise focusing

A double linear motor system is used to allow fast, precise focusing, even at challenging maximum F1.8 aperture where the depth of field is very shallow. Operation is responsive and quiet whether you’re focusing manually or using autofocus. This, with its rapid response ability for fine focus adjustment, make it ideal for movie recording as well. 

Customizable focus hold button

The focus hold button not only performs its primary function to lock focus when recomposing, but can be customized to a number of other functions depending on your needs. In addition to Focus Hold, these custom functions include: Eye AF, AF On, Aperture Preview, Shot Result Preview or Bright Monitoring.

Refined optical performance

The refined optical design includes an ED (Extra-low Dispersion) glass element which dramatically reduces chromatic aberration and provides superior contrast across the entire image, even at large aperture settings, resulting in corner-to-corner sharpness.

AF /MF switch

A direct AF/MF switch on the lens barrel conveniently allows for fast selection between autofocus or manual focus without having to access any menus.

Dust and moisture resistant for robust reliability 

The dust and moisture resistant design makes this lens appropriate for heavy-duty outdoor use, especially when combined with a camera that employs weather resistant measures.

Internal focusing

Only the middle groups of the optical system move to achieve focus, so the overall length of the lens does not change when focusing. This is especially important when using for video recording. Other important benefits include fast autofocusing and a short minimum focusing distance. Also, the filter thread at the front of the lens does not rotate, which is convenient when using a polarizing filter.