Sony 16mm f/1.8 G Is Nearly As Wide as 14mm f/1.8 GM but Way Cheaper

Feb 26, 2025

Jeremy Gray

Close-up of a black camera lens with a wide aperture. The lens features adjustment rings for focus and aperture, and has various labels and markings, including a G symbol and E-mount label. The lens is set against a plain white background.

Sony’s new 16mm f/1.8 G lens slots in between the company’s excellent, albeit pricey FE 14mm f/1.8 G Master released in 2021, which is $1,600, and the FE 20mm f/1.8 G that launched the year prior, promising photographers and videographers with a fast wide-angle prime that doesn’t break the bank.

16mm is a more natural perspective than 14mm, but considerably wider than 20mm for real-world applications, especially for things like vlogging. While the 14mm f/1.8 GM is a bit too large and expensive, and can’t take front filters, the 16mm f/1.8 is small, lightweight, $800, and accepts (very common) 67mm filters.

The Sony 16mm f/1.8 G weighs just 304 grams (10.7 ounces) and is only 75 millimeters (about three inches) long. The lens has a focus ring and dedicated aperture control ring, which can be de-clicked. It features a dust and moisture-resistant design, and all the lens’s seams, buttons, and switches are sealed. The barrel also includes a focus hold button, focus mode switch, and an iris lock switch.

A Sony mirrorless camera with a wide-angle lens and a small, furry microphone on top. The camera body is black, featuring various buttons and dials. The lens has markings indicating "FE 1.8 G" and focus/zoom rings.

Optically, the G-series lens features 15 elements across 12 groups. There are three advanced aspherical (AA) and three extra-low dispersion (ED) elements. It has an 11-bladed circular aperture diaphragm, promising smooth out-of-focus rendering, albeit without the remarkable cleanliness of a G Master lens’s bokeh.

The lens incorporates two extreme dynamic (XD) linear motors for fast, precise, and quiet autofocus performance. The lens can track subjects at up to 120 frames per second with the Sony a9 III and promises swift, reliable tracking with Sony’s other high-speed cameras.

Front view of a Sony Alpha 7R mirrorless digital camera with a zoom lens attached. The camera features a textured grip and control dials, and it bears the Sony and Alpha logos on the body.

The lens focuses as close as 0.15 meters (5.9 inches) when using autofocus and just 0.13 meters (5.1 inches) when manually focused, resulting in a maximum magnification of 0.25x (AF) and 0.3x (MF). Given that the lens is designed with hybrid users in mind, it comes as little surprise that Sony promises minimized focus breathing and the lens supports in-body focus breathing compensation with compatible Sony cameras. Video users will also appreciate the linear response manual focus control, providing filmmakers with greater control over focus adjustments.