I’ve seen lots of YouTubers making incorrect and incoherent statements about what “G” means on the Sony lenses. They guess it’s “great” or whatever. No.

“G” is designation of Minolta autofocus lenses for the Dynax/Maxxum/Alpha series in the film era, and it means “Gold”. It had the same function as the red ring on the Canon L lenses – here, the “L” is equally nonsensical and originally meant “Luxury” but everybody forgot it and it’s just “L”. Similarly, it’s just “G”.

Minolta G lens; AF APO 80-200mm f2.8 G

What it actually means is that Sony bought Minolta and “G” essentially means that the lens is rooted in Minolta legacy, and, more precisely, it’s their high grade lens lineup. They also have a regular lineup without any particular designation, a Zeiss lineup with the Zeiss logo and naming scheme, and the ultra high grade lineup, the G Master series, which has the G logo in an orange rectangle. Essentially, the G Master, or GM, is a sub-series of particularly fancy lenses within the G lineup, and you can read them all as something based on the Minolta legacy of excellence.

Sony GM lineup

So, that’s what it means. Canon had a similar way of grading EF lenses; they had the ordinary series, the USM series with the golden ring on the lens, and the L series of lenses that were also USM, but had the red ring on the lens. Another difference between the mid-range and high-range is the aperture. A mid-range lens will have reasonable aperture, for instance the 85mm f/1.8, while the L lens will be 85mm f/1.2 or something; a leap from the reasonable and good enough, into the state of the art. Sigma, too, has the Art series which has extreme apertures, and the Contemporary lineup, which has more reasonable and practical designs for less money and weight, but maintaining excellent build and image quality.

So, essentially, it’s a naming scheme. In Minolta times, G meant top of the line, but Sony started with that and then they decided they want to separate the ultra high end designs into a special category, and they made the lenses with G in the orange rectangle. That’s all there is to it. G means Minolta. GM also means Minolta, but on steroids.

90mm G macro

I recently caught myself calculating 35mm lenses, fields of view and depth of field, in terms of the 4/3 format, which is weird because I usually think in terms of the 35mm format. I did, however, use 4/3 for quite a while, and with standard zoom lenses, the ZD 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 and m.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6, and I don’t tend to use walkaround zooms on 35mm, so when I wanted to know how something would look, I calculated it in 4/3 terms.

So, what’s the calculation? Let’s say I used the 14-54mm at the long end and wide open the most, that’s 54mm f/3.5. There are two ways you can translate this to 35mm terms. The first is the crop: if you take a 54mm lens at f/3.5 and crop the central part with the factor of 2, you’ll get the same picture. Or you can take a 108mm lens on 35mm and stop it down two stops, to f/7.1 if I’m not mistaken, and you’ll get the same pitcture.

But what happens if you use a 54mm? Or something in the general range; 50-55mm, and you stop it down to f/3.5. You will get picture that’s significantly wider, the equivalent of 25-27mm on the 4/3 format, but with the depth of field of 54mm on 4/3.

For the identical visual impression, something like the 24-105mm f/4 on 35mm would be the best approximation, only stopped down to f/5.6-7.1. That will cost you two stops of light to get the 4/3 image aesthetics. If you use the same f-stops, you get shallower depth of field.

If you’re using primes, let’s say the equivalent thing to Zuiko Digital 50mm f/2 macro would be 100mm f/4; you’d have to stop down the 35mm lens to f/8 to get the depth of field of 50mm Zuiko at f/4. You’d say this gives 4/3 the advantages in available light, but diffraction also hits you two stops sooner, so there really are no freebies.

What I was thinking is that I like the look of those high quality Zuiko lenses, crisp up close with creamy rolloff into bokeh, but often not so much background blur as to lose the definition of the background altogether. So I thought, what kind of a small and light, slow but crisp lens would I need on the Sony FE platform if I wanted to replicate that look. One obvious answer is the 90mm macro stopped down to f/7.1 or f/8, and that’s true; I really did get a similar look with that one:

That looks very much like the things I used to take with the E1 and 14-54mm, especially if I didn’t push for the extreme macro.

As you can see, that’s close enough, and it’s actually the look I normally prefer. The question, however, was how to get that with a small lens on the 35mm format. Both 90mm macro and 24-105mm zoom are chunky lenses, and I often prefer something the size of the Zuiko 50mm f/2 macro, which is quite pocketable, so the first thing I considered was the FE 50mm f/1.8, but this one has a completely different image look. Wide open and at the minimum focusing distance it’s hazy and blurry, nowhere near the crispness of modern designs such as the Zuiko. Its bokeh is lovely in those conditions, but the chromatic aberrations are nasty, and sharpness starts looking good from f/2.8 onwards. Also, it’s ergonomically quite bad, without the AF/MF switch, and with that terrible DC motor. And it doesn’t actually allow you to get all that close.

Then I considered the FE 28-60mm f/4-5.6 zoom, but its closeup performance is actually even worse. Hard pass.

The 50mm f/1.8 is not what everybody keeps repeating online. It’s not a beginner’s 50mm that’s not really good so you’ll want to upgrade as soon as money allows. In fact, it’s one of the best Planar designs that I tried. It’s mostly usable wide open, and becomes really good when you stop it down to f/2.8, and it’s so good it’s indistinguishable from much more expensive 50mm designs. When it works, it’s amazing.

Hazy, soft, romantic, low contrast.

That’s the look. If that’s what you want – amazing; that’s your lens. But I feel it’s not my cup of tea, really. I like the detail much crisper, and the image contrastier:

So it’s a frustrating lens for me, because when it works, I get amazing results with it, but when it doesn’t, it tends to ruin it for me. I didn’t actually replace it when I bought the 50mm f/1.2 GM, because that one is very heavy and it feels more like the wider 135mm f/1.8, than a replacement for the 50mm f/1.8. So, I went looking for something compact for the 35mm Sony that would have the aesthetics of the Zuiko Digital lenses – contrasty and clear, crisp detail, decent background blur that becomes quite good when you come close, and it needs to be crisp at minimum focusing distance, it needs to have the AF/MF switch on the lens, and hopefully the aperture ring. It also needs to be pocketable, because I’m aiming for micro four thirds dimensions here.

What I ended up considering were the Sony FE 50mm f/2.5 G, and Sigma 65mm f/2 DG DN. Sigma had better capacity for blurring things out, but it approaches the size of the 90mm macro, at which point it becomes moot. The Sony, however, is extremely pocketable, almost a pancake lens, and not only focuses close, but is very crisp up close. Its problem is the f/2.5 aperture, but it’s excellent wide open, and honestly, I used f/3.5 for years in these conditions and it was fine.

In the end, I ordered the Sony, mostly because the only copy of the Sigma available on MPB was sold while I was thinking about it, and the Sony was in a much cleaner condition.

So, it’s not that you can’t get small and light configurations on 35mm. It’s just that I usually prefer setups that are optically so extreme, they end up being very big and heavy. My favourite lenses, normally, are the 90mm macro and the 135mm f/1.8. Their combination of crisp detail and blurry background is unparalleled.

But sometimes I just want a tiny 50mm that’s optically brilliant, and I don’t feel like dealing with FE 50mm f/1.8 and its stupid shit.

There’s some photographic advice on the Internet that I would like to address.

The first one is that one should take a look at the focal length statistics for his pictures in Lightroom, for the last year or so, and see what focal lengths they are using the most, and then consider buying a prime lens in that focal length. So, essentially, if you see that you’re shooting your 24-105mm lens mostly at 35mm, getting a good 35mm prime might be a thing to do.

The corollary is that you should focus more on what you’re doing the most, and eventually sell the lenses you’re using the least.

I understand the logic behind the advice, but it’s somewhat akin to a minimalist advice that says you should get rid of your winter clothes because you haven’t been using them for almost nine months. Not the greatest idea ever. The fact that you’re using something rarely doesn’t mean you don’t need it. I made some of my best work with a fisheye and an ultrawide, and yet I barely used them at all in the last few years. Sure, if you look at the stats of my pictures in the last three years, almost none are made with a fisheye. Then again, if you look at the prints on the walls of my home, of five pictures in total, two were made with a diagonal fisheye. That’s 40%. It’s a huge percentage for something I use so sparingly. Obviously, it has a place in my kit; I use it rarely, but when I use it, I make a disproportional number of winners. Some lenses are of the kind that really require special circumstances, and if you overdo it, it becomes counterproductive. Not everything lends itself to fisheye or wide angle, or to macro, for that matter. I didn’t use the macro lens much in the recent years, because I overdid it before; however, when I used it, I made a disproportional number of good pictures with it.

Once-a-year lens.

Statistically, I use certain focal lengths infrequently, but I do want to have an excellent lens in that focal length for when I do want to use it. So, frequency of use or a number of pictures made with a certain lens doesn’t really say much. It can even lie. For instance, when I take pictures of insects, I need to use rapid shutter in order to catch them in motion properly. I also do that with a telephoto. As a result, there will be a disproportional number of telephoto shots with long focal lengths, which will overwhelm the stats, which don’t know it’s all one or two motives. What I know and Lightroom doesn’t, is that I actually use a telephoto rarely, but when I do, I use it in rapid fire mode and create a deluge of similar transitional shots.

So, my logic is that if I use a certain lens once in five years, but when I do it will be to make a unique shot on top of the island or a mountain, that is a lens I simply must have in my arsenal. Frequency of use doesn’t mean anything.

Also, the logic of “if you’re not using a certain lens much, why get the best lens of that type?” It’s because when I do use it, it needs to shine. I might not use the 50mm frequently, but when I do, I want to fall on my arse when I see the results in Lightroom.

The second thing I keep seeing is whether one should use zooms or primes. Personally, I have more primes than zooms and I use them more, but I think one should use the best lens for the job at hand. For instance, when I’m visiting Plitvička Jezera, I shoot zooms exclusively; mostly 24-105mm f/4, but also prominently the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6. I actually don’t use the 24-105mm that much otherwise, but there, I wouldn’t be caught dead without it, because it’s so useful and appropriate for the location. I use it basically twice a year, but I would have to re-purchase it immediately if it were lost or broken. So, basically, I shoot mostly with primes but I find zooms to be essential. You need to be reasonable and practical about those things. If a pin hole in a sheet of paper worked best as a lens for some specific task, I’d have it in my arsenal.

Zoom zoom!

The third thing, and that one is really annoying, is that “real” or “serious” photographers use X, where X is either film, medium format, large format, Leica, rangefinder, Hasselblad or something else. Honestly, the easiest way to know a poseur and a wannabe is to check for such statements, because if their work spoke for itself, they wouldn’t have to augment it with statements about the technology they made it with. I’ve seen very good photographers use literally every kind of equipment under the sun, and I’ve seen incompetent people with more money than brains spew bullshit about special magical equipment more times than I care to remember. Just shut the fuck up with that bullshit. If you think a Leica or medium format will make you a “true photographer”, go ahead. I just don’t want to listen to that crap. Mystical properties of camera brands don’t have the power to make pictures good, unless the camera happens to be in the hands of a skilled artist. You’re not “serious” because you use a Nikon. Using Nikon makes you a Nikon user, not a serious photographer. Developing your style and art over years and decades makes you a serious photographer.

Taken with absolute shite.

Also, perspective is important. People have filled art galleries over decades with pictures taken with cameras and lenses that would be routinely called crap on dpreview and YouTube. You can take excellent pictures with lenses that are objectively not that great, if you know what you’re doing. Also, to quote Adams, there’s nothing worse than a sharp picture of a fuzzy concept. Let’s end at that.