Tiny but mighty. Every image on this page was shot using this lens.

Some background: In the beginning of January in 2025 I wrecked by motorcycle, fracturing my wrist scaphoid and compound fracturing my 2nd toe proximal phalanx. Turns out my mother was right, motorcycles are in fact dangerous. Two weeks later I would be traveling to Taipei and three weeks after that Tokyo. In between the trips my toe was going to need a screw put in to stabilize the compound fracture. My right arm would be in a cast for Taiwan and a brace for Japan. Fun. My beloved 1dx & 24-105 would be out of the question. I needed something light, tiny, and able to get kick-ass photos.

Conveniently there is a lens that is light, tiny, and able to get kick-ass photos. This one. Combined with the relatively light older A7RII (Sony stop adding weight to these cameras, them being light was the whole damn point), I was able to capture some fantastic images even though I could barley even lift a few pounds and was limping around in such a manner David Attenborough could have narrated my forthcoming demise to a stalking lion.

Even after mostly recovering I still use this lens on days where I’m trekking long or need to cut down on gear to fit some budget airlines ridiculous baggage requirements (Seriously Norse airlines your “personal item” barely fits a 15L trail run bag). Another plus is you wont get the “wow so you must be really into photography – is that camera really be much better than my phone?” comments from strangers like you do with a pro body and lens setup. The integrated lens hood is also sick and lets you not worry about capping this lens or bothering with filters.

Optically this 35mm is almost perfect. Wide-open at F/2.8 this lens is SHARP. It retails for $600; it better be. It just doesn’t improve much stopping down. Edges never get super sharp and even at F/8 you’ll still need to apply vignette correction. Diffraction softens image a bit stopped down beyond F/8. I’m not DXO; read their review if you want technical details. I wouldn’t worry too much about any of this, I honestly pretty much only shoot this lens in shutter priority and let my camera pick the ISO and aperture.

Durability isn’t fantastic. Sony claims some kind of weather sealing but I wouldn’t put this through the ringer like my Canon gear. The outer metal scuffs and scratches if you look at it wrong. Won’t affect your images but if you expect your gear to look pretty after use this one wont.

My advice, pick this lens up, but find a used copy. You can find them on eBay for half of retail – especially if they are a bit scuffed up already. Make sure it still has the lens hood.