REVIEWS | WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY WITH THE SONY FE 50mm F1.2 GM LENS
In this blog post, I discuss using the stunning Sony FE 50mm F1.2 GM lens on a wedding day.
In March 2021 Sony announced the Sony FE 50mm f1.2 GM Lens, at the time Sony already had the Planar T* FE 50mm F1.4 ZA lens and the Sony FE 55mm f1.8 ZA Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* Lens.
I had owned both the Planar F1.4 lens and the Sony FE 55 lens in my time as a Sony wedding photographer, but both of the lenses had issues that I couldn't get past; both the lenses suffered from purple fringing when the subject you are photographing was in front of a bright light source and on a wedding day; so many wedding speeches are done in front of big windows which is the perfect scenario for these two lenses to show their purple fringing weakness.
The Sony FE 55mm f1.8 ZA Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* Lens is a popular lens for Sony Wedding Photographers as it is small, light and for the price is an excellent lens. The Planar T* FE 50mm F1.4 was the lens you went for if you wanted a native 50mm lens with an aperture of 1.4, but it was big, heavy and not the quickest to focus.
There are now other 50mm options for Sony, from the likes of Sigma, Tamron, Rokinon etc.. none of these I have owned and since the release of the Sony FE 50mm F1.2 GM and TBH, the Sony FE F1.2 GM is all the 50mm I will ever need!
My copy of the Sony 50mm GM arrived in early May 2021 after a delay due to COVID and the global chip shortage. The first wedding with the lens was in early June 2021, and since then, I have photographed a further 35 weddings, all with my trusted trio of the Sony 20mm F1.8, the Sony 35 F1.4 GM and the Sony FE 50mm F1.2 GM.
I can say that the combo of the Sony A1 and the Sony 50mm GM is a dream combo. The speed of the A1, the tracking of the A1 the new, improved colours being generated from the A1's 50mpx sensor really do bring out the very best of the Sony FE 50mm F1.2 GM.
SONY FE 50MM F1.2 G MASTER LENS IMAGES
HOW I USE A 50MM LENS ON A WEDDING DAY
The Sony FE 50mm F1.2 GM never comes off my second Sony A1; it's always there and always on my left-hand side. There isn't a situation where the 50mm lens can't be used, there are some lenses that are better suited for different parts of the wedding day, but the 50mm can be used from venue shots in the morning, the getting ready, the ceremony, the formals, speeches and works amazingly well on the dancefloor.
For a lot of wedding photographers, the 50mm falls in the gap between their 35mm and 85mm lens combo, and so for them, it's a nothing lens, neither wide enough to be used as the main lens for most of the day and not long enough to be their telefocal lens on a wedding day.
For me, it's become the one lens that I will never sell, the F1.2 aperture gives a look and feel to an image that I haven't seen before, and when you factor in the tech of the A1, you can shoot F1.2 all day and every picture taken will be tack sharp.
The 50mm is my long lens for a wedding day, and the secret trick for me is the Sony A1 is c. 50mpx in full-frame mode, but jump into APSC mode and the 50mm lens now becomes a 75mm ish lens and still produces a 22 mpx file - more than enough for weddings. So let me repeat, the combo of the A1 and the 50mm GM, gives me a 50mm focal length in full-frame mode and a 75mm lens in APSC mode - which is perfect for reaching that little bit longer when you need to.
The 85mm lens was, for many years, my long lens, the one I used to pick people out during the ceremony or the speeches, but I found it to be too isolating; I found myself just taking headshots and the image missing the context of what is happening at the time I pressed the shutter button.
If you look a the speeches images taken using the Sony 50mm F1.2 GM lens, you can see the focal length allows you to be close to people, isolate the subject but still show enough of what is going on to allow you to tell it was taken during the speeches.
I get a lot of questions from people asking why I use a 35mm lens and a 50mm lens - are they not too close in terms of focal length? Yes, they are on paper but I think the results and look of the images are different enough but they are close enough that you don't get a jarring viewing experience like I get when I see someone showing 35mm images, then 85mm images, back to 35mm images - it's wide then tight, wide then tight and for me that doesn't work.
How nice is it at 1.2? Well, it's epic, it's so shallow when you work your distance to the subject. I don't shoot everything at a wedding at F1.2, but I do shoot it a lot wide open, especially when I want to draw the eye to a certain person or item within the frame.
Right, enough of me waffling on; let's look at some images!