Andy Westlake from the UK's What Digital Camera has just completed his detailed review of the Sony Planar T* FE 50mm f/1.4 ZA, and he's clearly convinced that it's a special piece of kit worthy of their Gold Award. Here are some of his impressions:

"It achieves a barely believable combination of cross-frame sharpness with gorgeous-looking out-of-focus blur, essentially regardless of aperture or focus distance. Indeed, few lenses come close to resolving as much detail across the frame from corner to corner when used at f/1.4."

"...the actual numbers from our Applied Imaging MTF analysis are staggering; this lens is sharper in the centre at f/1.4 than most others manage at their very best. Remarkably, even in the corners it’s as sharp as most other lenses are in the centre. This is impressive indeed."

"It’s always a little difficult to critically assess a lens this good. Like Sony’s recent FE 85mm f/1.4 GM, its optical characteristics are so close to perfect that all we can sensibly do is admire the pictures it creates."



