I am looking for the best portrait lens for my a6000

[Brenda]

Hi there, I am looking for the best portrait lens for my a6000. I have read a lot about the SEL35F18F (missing stedyshot on my a6000 with this lens) and the difference between the SEL35F18. And perhaps 3 or 4 other different ones.  

After a while I really don´t know anymore what to do. And can´t go to a shop to get informed well. I love to make fotos of animals, people and close ups and I am looking to get a bit of a more professional lens. A 750 euros is a bit my max. Hope someone could take the time to explain me a bit more what lens would be good to buy. 

Thank you in advanced! Have a good evening!

Brenda

[Pieter]

Bear in mind there's also a 35mm f/1.8 lens with stabilization specifically designed for APS-C cameras, make sure to have a look at that one: it's about half the price of the fullframe version.

That being said: you mention you're looking for a portraiture lens and are considering 35mm focal length. On APS-C cameras, 50-60mm is generally considered to be the ideal focal length for portraiture. Don't go blindly on this as your portraiture style might include more context around the subject, but for an a6000 camera I'd say the 50mm f/1.8 OSS or Sigma 56mm f/1.4 would be ideal portraiture lenses.

Honestly, unless you're planning to go fullframe one day, the combination of a 'professional' fullframe lens on an a6000 camera doesn't make too much sense to me. You're paying a lot for a bigger lens to cover a sensor area you're not utilizing.

[Brenda]

Thank you Pieter!! 

Really appreciated!

And yes, I just orderd the sigma 56mm after seeing a few more videos.

Going to have a good Corona lockdown time a lot more to practice!

Have a great day! 

Brenda

 

[Pieter]

Great choice! I have the Sigma 56mm myself and consider it to be exceptional value. Fairly cheap, compact, large aperture, extremely sharp, practically zero chromatic abberation (both lateral and longitudinal) and buttery smooth backgrounds. Only drawback is that it has quite extreme pincushion distortion if you're shooting RAW. If you're using Lightroom to post-process, distortion compensation -8 should fix it entirely. If hefty distortion is the price we have to pay for such a great combination of portability and image quality, I'm all up for it: glad we live in the digital age where it can be fixed with just a mouseclick.

[Alejandro Espeche]

I really like the Sony 55 1.8

 

[Pieter]

7 hours ago, Alejandro Espeche said:

I really like the Sony 55 1.8

OP is looking for a lens on an APS-C camera. Various comparisons show the Sony 55 f/1.8 is really mediocre compared to the Sigma 56 f/1.4:

 - considerably less sharp

 - really bad chromatic abberation (especially longitudinal)

 - much more expensive

 - slower aperture

The Sony Zeiss 55mm is therefore not a good suggestion, unless OP might go fullframe one day. Have a look at these comparisons, the Sigma really is that good:

Even compared to the older 50mm f/1.8 OSS the optical difference is indiscernible, the Zeiss lacks OSS and costs 3 times as much.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Pieter

[Alejandro Espeche]

I never used or tried the sigma Sigma 56 f / 1.4 so I can't compare them. I can only talk about the lenses I tried and can say that the 55 is really good.

Were you able to try both or any of them?

[Pieter]

As said, I own the Sigma 56mm and had the Sony 50mm f/1.8 OSS before. Watched many comparisons and reviews and all agree on my own findings regarding those two lenses. Haven't actually used the Sony Zeiss 55mm before but all comparisons (including sample images) agree that on an APS-C camera, there's really no point buying the 55mm over the 50mm (sharpness is equal, both suffer from bad LoCA). I was actually considering buying it until the Sigma came out, just for the slightly longer focal length. The Sigma however really shows the age of both Sony lenses and blows them out of the water in terms of optical quality. The 50mm has OSS and is cheaper than the Sigma, which might be a reason to consider it. The 55mm has nothing which vouches for it compared to the other two options, especially considering the price tag.

Of course, recommending something out of your own positive experience is definately a good thing. But if you only know option A, just just saying you like option A without any context or reasoning why you like it so much doesn't really help anyone to consider it over other options.

Edited April 24, 2020 by Pieter