It does cost more than the original, though, and the difference will depend on where you are.
Optically, physically and operationally, though, the Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II is simply spectacular.
Its also extremely difficult to remove in software.
The dual linear AF in the FE 85mm F1.4 GM II is much faster than before, making it much easier to capture animal portraits, not just human ones
The new lens is not quite perfect for bokeh rendering and focus breathing.
Focus breathing is still visible too, even though Sony says its optically suppressed.
Most modern Sony bodies support in-camera focus breathing compensation, though, so this may not prove an issue.
The dual linear AF in the FE 85mm F1.4 GM II is much faster than before, making it much easier to capture animal portraits, not just human ones
The Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II is equally impressive physically.
There will be a price difference compared to the original version, however.
Thats probably to be expected, but it does make Sonys premium portrait lens even more expensive to buy.
The FE 85mm F1.4 GM II delivers beautiful bokeh wide-open, as long as you don’t mind a bit of cats-eye bokeh near the edges
You have to figure out how many more bucks you want to spend for all this excellence.
The new lens is the same length but a few millimetres slimmer and a whole 20% lighter.
This might make it easier to find with your fingertips without looking, but the location hasnt changed.
Are you the sort of person who likes function buttons on lenses?
If you are, youll love this lens, because there are two of them.
Theres really nothing to fault in the Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM IIs design.
The other aspect of performance to talk about is this lenss AF.
Should I buy the Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II?
It weighs in at a manageable 642g, which is impressive given all that exotic glassware.
This new lens is pretty exceptional, but the old one is extremely good too.
The first version of this lens used a Ring SSM system.
Lastly, I wanted to try out this lenss focus breathing.
The aperture ring has 1/3-step click stops and feels extremely precise and positive
On the underside of the barrel is a Click switch for click-less iris control while filming.
There’s also an Iris Lock to prevent accidental aperture changes
Other physical controls include an AF/MF switch and two customizable function buttons
Here’s an outdoor shot taken wide open at f/1.4, and you can see from the magnified loupe display on the left just how sharp this lens is, even right at the edges.
We saw no bokeh fringing, or longitudinal chromatic aberration, in any of our test shots, even when we tried to provoke it with shots like this
The faster AF makes it easier to nail perfect eye focus with fast-moving or erratic subjects like this treat-obsessed pup
The Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II is also useful as a longer-range ‘street’ lens, allowing much stronger background separation
The bokeh rendering is beautifully soft with a nice focus fall-off. This was shot through the hoop of an iron railing
This pair of shots shows the effects of focus breathing. In this first image the lens is focused on the front camera.(Image credit: Rod Lawton)
When focus is switched to the back camera, you can see the out-of-focus background changes scale slightly.(Image credit: Rod Lawton)
F/2(Image credit: Rod Lawton)
F/2.8(Image credit: Rod Lawton)
F/4(Image credit: Rod Lawton)
F/5.6(Image credit: Rod Lawton)
F/8(Image credit: Rod Lawton)
F/11(Image credit: Rod Lawton)
F/16(Image credit: Rod Lawton)
