I’ve recently been out and about shooting some spring flower photos with the Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS prime lens.
I’m more familiar with the 105mm f/2.8 macro focal length. This lens backs off that slightly while still providing a 1:1 magnification ratio. One advantage is that the lens is physically smaller than the 105mm f/2.8 lenses I’m used to, which is a definite plus, especially for handheld photography (as is the lens’s optical stabilization, or OSS, as Sony calls it).
It focuses down to 11 inches (0.28m) for life-size reproduction, but that figure is measured from the sensor plane, not the front of the lens. In practice you end up about 5 inches (13cm) from the subject at 1:1, which is fine for flowers but tight if you’re trying not to shade the subject or spook an insect. Focusing is internal, so the barrel doesn’t extend and the front element stays put as you get closer.
If you have a Sony mirrorless camera and are looking to do some macro photography, this lens is well worth a look. It’s relatively compact, sharp, fast, and performs well. And it also works well as a fast-ish prime moderate telephoto lens, giving nice blurred background to portrait shots. In other words, it’s much more versatile than the “macro” in its name might suggest.
There was no special setup with these, and they were all shot handheld in natural light. These were all shot on a Sony A1 full-frame camera body. I’m posting them here in case they’re helpful to anyone trying to get a bit of a sense of what this lens is like. The lens can obviously do a lot more than just these types of flower photos, but hopefully, these might be helpful to someone. I’ve included a range of different apertures and shooting distances.
I’ve mostly used quite a light touch in processing these (in Lightroom). I haven’t added any extra sharpening or optical corrections; in a few cases I have retouched to remove some specks of mud splashed up in the rain. You can click on each of the images below to see a full-size version.
A few of these were shot at f/16 and f/22, which is a good reminder of something that catches a lot of people out with macro. As you focus closer, the aperture that actually reaches the sensor is smaller than the number on the display: at 1:1, a marked f/2.8 is really about f/5.6, roughly two stops darker, and f/22 behaves closer to f/44. The camera’s metering takes care of the exposure, but diffraction doesn’t care what the display says, and it softens those smallest apertures noticeably. For close-up work, somewhere around f/8 to f/11 tends to be the better balance, with focus stacking as the way to add depth of field rather than stopping all the way down.
Photos taken with Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS
Accessories for the Sony FE 90mm f/2.8 Macro G OSS lens
- It takes 62mm screw-in filters: Polarizer | UV/Haze | Neutral Density
- Lens Hood: Model ALC-SH138
- Front Cap: Model ALC-F62S
- Rear Cap: Model ALC-R1EM
62mm is an uncommon thread size, so there’s a good chance it isn’t one you already have filters for. If you’ve standardized on 67mm or 77mm, a step-up ring is the cheap way to reuse what you’ve got, with one catch: with a ring fitted, the bayonet hood generally won’t mount.
