Sony FE 50 mm f/2.5 G review

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Sony FE 50 mm f/2.5 G

29 March 2021

Maciej Latałło

8. Vignetting

At the beggining we want to mention the fact that, contrary to distortion, the vignetting correction option remains completely available and it can be switched off, so, traditionally, we switched it off for the duration of our test. Still it should be mentioned that automatic distortion correction influences vignetting as well. Images are cropped a bit so the areas where vignetting can be at its highest are removed from the file. In case of slight distortion, like in the case of the Sony FE 50 mm f/2.5 G tested here, differences between JPEG and RAW files aren't high and, typically, range from 1 to 3% but still it's worth keeping in mind that they are present. Our analysis of vignetting is going to be traditional, the same as in case of tests of other Sony FE lenses, so we are going to focus on JPEG files.

First let's check vignetting on the smaller APS-C sensor – appropriate thumbnails you can find below.

A7R III, APS-C, f/2.5	A7R III, APS-C, f/2.8

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There are some chances to notice slight vignetting but only at the maximum relative aperture, where it amounts to 22% (−0.73 EV). By f/2.8 that aberration decreases to 14% (−0.43 EV), and by f/4.0 it drops to an imperceptible value of 7% (−0.21 EV).

After passing to a bigger full frame sensor there are far more problems and photos, presented below, show them very well.

A7R III, FF, f/2.5	A7R III, FF, f/2.8

A7R III, FF, f/4.0	A7R III, FF, f/5.6

In this case you have to take into account a loss of light of 55% (−2.29 EV) at the maximum relative aperture. By f/2.8 vignetting decreases to 46% (−1.80 EV), and by f/4.0 it drops to 38% (−1.37 EV). A slight decrease of this aberration is observed by f/5.6 and f/8.0 where we got, respectively, the following results: 32% (−1.11 EV) and 26% (−0.89 EV). By f/11 you see a level of about 21% (−0.67 EV), which, additionally, decreases very slightly to 17% (−0.54 EV) on stopping down the aperture to f/16.

Sony A7R III, JPEG, f/2.5