Congratulations Alex Vincent, March 2024 PFRE Photographer of the Month! The theme this month was "Kitchen". Alex Vincent - #906 Yvonne Raaijmakers - #909 Peter Wingfield - #902 Here's what Alex has to say: Thank you for the award of Photographer of th ...
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After equipping yourself with a high-quality camera such as the Sony A7iii, remember it’s not the only part of the equation. To shoot high-quality images, you also need to equip yourself with the best lens for Sony A7iii. Otherwise, you may deliver disappointing results.
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Sony A7iii has a wide range of lenses, but all are not created equal. In this review, I focus on the best lens for Sony A7iii that produces impressive results.
The Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 is a flexible wide-angle zoom lens with a great design for mirrorless and full-frame cameras. It can keep a great constant aperture of f/2.8 throughout the zoom range, enhancing low-lighting working.
Unlike the Sony FE 28mm f/2, it features four dispersion elements, three aspherical elements, and two XA elements. The low dispersion elements help suppress the chromatic aberration, while the aspherical elements help minimize spherical aberrations for better image sharpness and clarity.
Besides, it comes with a Nano AR coating on its elements to help minimize flare and ghosting, which helps improve the overall image color fidelity and contrast when shooting in strong lighting.
Also, it features an 11-blade aperture diaphragm, enabling it to produce soft-edged and smooth bokeh. The construction is high-quality and weather-resistant, allowing you to use it in harsh weather.
It features two Direct Drive autofocus motors, which makes focusing responsive, smooth, and fast. However, it weighs 1.5 pounds, the heaviest on my list, and unsuitable for carrying around.
The Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 is designed with versatility in mind, being a short telephoto to a wide-angle lens for mirrorless cameras. Aside from the impressive range of focal length, it features a constant aperture of f/4 throughout the zoom range.
The constant aperture allows it to maintain great performance throughout the zoom and have better control over shallow depth of field. To suppress chromatic aberrations, distortion, and color fringing for better image clarity and sharpness, it employs extra-low dispersion elements and aspherical elements in its optical design.
Unlike the Sony 55mm f/1.8, these elements feature a Nano-coating which helps reduce flare and ghosting for better color accuracy and high contrast, especially when working in bright light.
Unlike the Sony 55mm f/1.8, it comes with an Optical SteadyShot image stabilization functionality to eliminate the camera shaking effect, ensuring sharp images even when shooting handheld.
However, it’s the second heaviest on my list, weighing 1.46 pounds, making it unsuitable for extended shooting periods.
The Sony FE 28mm f/2 comes with a fast maximum wide aperture of f/2, making it ideal for working in poor lighting conditions and selective focus effects.
Unlike the Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.38, the optical design consists of three elements that reduce the chromatic and spherical aberrations. It comes with an internal focus design that uses a linear motor for autofocus functionality.
The linear motor significantly improves the focusing experience, while the internal focus design eliminates the increase in length during focusing. Like the Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8, it features a weather-resistant construction, allowing you to work even in tough environments.
It comes with a 9-blade aperture diaphragm, which helps produce a smooth and good quality bokeh.
This lens accepts fisheye and ultra-wide converters, allowing you to transform it into a 16mm or 21mm lens for improved versatility. It weighs 0.4 pounds, lightweight enough to carry and shoot for an extended period without making your wrists hurt after a while.
This light weight and wide angle also makes it the perfect lens to mount on a gimbal designed for Sony A7iii cameras.
The Sony FE 35mm f/1.8 is a versatile wide-angle lens with an excellent wide aperture of f/1.8, ideal for low-light and selective focus shooting. The optical design features aspherical elements that help suppress spherical and chromatic aberrations, producing a clear and sharp image.
Like the Sony FE 28mm f/2, it comes with a linear motor and internal focus design to enhance the autofocus experience. Typically, it comes with an AF/MF switch, allowing fast and convenient selection between manual focus and autofocus.
Unlike the Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8, it comes with a 9-blade aperture diaphragm, ensuring the production of an impressive bokeh. The construction is dust and moisture resistant, allowing you to use it in harsh environments.
Although it’s 0.2 pounds heavier than the Sony FE 28mm f/2, it weighs 0.6 pounds, which is lightweight and suitable for carrying around. The focus hold button is customizable, and you can use it to lock the focus or set it to activate other functionalities, making the shoot effortless.
If you are looking for normal length high-performing prime, the Sony 55mm f/1.8 has a fast wide aperture of f/1.8 with excellent resolution. It comes with three aspherical elements to reduce spherical aberrations, improving image sharpness and clarity.
Also, it comes with an anti-reflective coating, which helps minimize flare and ghosting, especially when shooting in strong lighting conditions.
It uses the Zeiss Sonnar optical concept, incorporating seven elements arranged in five groups, allowing you to achieve a wide aperture of f/1.8 with enhanced contrast and reduced flare. It features an internal focus design with a linear motor geared towards improving the autofocus experience for sharper images.
Like the Sony FE 35mm f/1.8, it comes with a 9-blade aperture diaphragm which helps produce a good quality and smooth bokeh. Also similar to the Sony FE 28mm f/1.8, it weighs 0.6 pounds, being compact and lightweight enough for extended periods of shooting without exhaustion.
The Sony 85mm f/1.8-22 is a sleek short-telephoto ideal for portraits and real estate
Unlike the Sony 16-35mm f/2.8, the f/1.8 aperture performs better in low light. The optical construction features nine elements arranged in eight groups, including low-dispersion elements to suppress chromatic color fringing and aberrations, enhancing the color accuracy and image clarity.
Like the Sony 35mm f/1.8, it comes with an AF/MF switch and a customizable focus hold button, making the focus functionality effortless. Also, it features a double linear autofocus motor for smooth and fast focusing and a snappy manual focus, which allows focusing fine-tuning.
Like the Sony 55mm f/1.8, it comes with a 9-blade aperture diaphragm, which helps produce a pleasing bokeh quality. It weighs 0.6 pounds, which is convenient for carrying around.
The Sony 90mm f/2.8-22, a G series lens, excellently balances bokeh and sharpness using unique elements, ensuring clear and sharp images. It also minimizes chromatic aberrations and distortion, as well as enhances smooth out-of-focus areas.
It comes with a fast aperture of f/2.8, which facilitates the control over depth of field, ideal for working in poorly lit areas.
Like the Sony FE 24-105mm f/4, it comes with a Nano-coating on its elements which suppresses flare and ghosting for better image quality, especially when working in a strong light. It features a Direct Drive Super Sonic Motor, which enhances smooth and fast focusing.
Also, it comes with a focus range limiter and the focus hold button to further optimize focusing. Like the Sony FE 24-105mm f/4, it’s equipped with an Optical SteadyShot image stabilization system to minimize the camera shaking effect even when shooting handheld.
It weighs 0.98 pounds, which is less impressive for carrying around.
The Sony A7III is one of the most advanced full-frame mirrorless cameras you can use for real estate
The following features can help you choose a lens that is equivalently advanced and high-end. The following table can also help you know the most crucial aspects to consider depending on your shooting conditions.
| Lenses | Focal Length | Diaphragm blades | Aperture |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 | 16-35mm | 11 | f/2.8 |
| Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 | 24-105mm | 9 | f/4 |
| Sony FE 28mm f/2 | 28mm | 9 | f/2 |
| Sony FE 35mm f/2.8 | 35mm | 9 | f/1.8 |
| Sony 55mm f/1.8 | 55mm | 9 | f/1.8 |
| Sony 85mm f/1.8-22 | 85mm | 9 | f/1.8-22 |
| Sony 90mm f/2.8-22 | 90mm | 9 | f/2.8-22 |
Background blur refers to the aesthetically pleasing look when the main subject is in focus, and the foreground and background elements are out of focus. Apart from making the photo look professional, a good background blur can make the viewers focus on the main subject rather than the background elements.
Also, If you're shooting portraits or close-ups and you're planning to remove the background using a photo editing application such as Photoshop, a blurred background is more straightforward to remove as the application's artificial intelligence can be able to detect the main subject and separate it from the background.
Although the Sony A7III is a full-frame camera that can capture images with a pleasing background blur, the quality of the blur depends on how fast the lens is and the number of aperture blades. Generally, a lens with a bright aperture, such as the Sony 85mm f/1.8, enhances the production of a beautiful bokeh quality.
If you are taking pictures of a subject in motion, there are high chances of missing out on the moments simply because you were not fast enough to focus manually and track the subject. There are also chances of ending up with soft images because the autofocus system couldn't detect and track the main subject.
If the background or foreground is in focus and the main subject is out-of-focus, there are chances of the viewers focusing on other elements in the background or background rather than the main subject. You can avoid this problem by getting a lens with an advanced out-of-a-car system such as the Sony 16-35mm f/2.8.
With such a system, you can capture high-quality photos and videos even if you're a beginner, as you only need to pan and tilt the camera, and the system will automatically track the main subject.
One of the main challenges you might face when taking real estate interior photos is flare and ghosting. Ghosting appears as artifacts on the image when a strong light is repeatedly reflected by the surface of the lens.
Keeping in mind that most real estate properties do not have good lighting, you might need to use one or several sources of strong light. This increases the chances of flares and ghosting, making the resulting photos look lower quality.
Fortunately, you can avoid this by getting a lens with nano-coatings, such as the Sony 90mm f/2.8. These coatings help to reduce these effects, making the resulting images have good contrast and accurate colors.
The constant apertures are found in prime lenses and high-end zoom lenses. The constant aperture means the aperture can't adjust itself when you vary the focal length. On the other hand, variable apertures are normally used in zoom lenses that can't keep the aperture settings constant throughout the zoom range.
Normally the prime lenses are better than the zoom lenses because they come with a better optical quality due to the fewer moving parts. In a zoom lens, the barrel might extend to accommodate the moving elements as you zoom. This can lower its ability to resist dust and moisture, making zoom lenses unsuitable for use in harsh weather conditions.
Mounts in Sony cameras generally dictate the compatibility of the lens. Generally, Sony cameras have A-mounts and E-mounts, which are commonly used with mirrorless cameras.
Due to the wide range of Sony A7iii lenses in the market, it may be confusing to identify one that will suit you. Although the right lens may depend on the shooting circumstance, you can’t go wrong with any lens from the above list.
