The scale of Sony's achievement here becomes clear when comparing the FE 55mm F1.8 directly to the Zeiss Otus 55mm F1.4, which lays a strong claim to being the best lens for which we have test data. The Otus still just about comes out on top - it measures as slightly sharper wide open - but it's unlikely any difference will be particularly visible in real-world photography. The Otus also just about wins out on chromatic aberration and distortion, but overall the Sony can certainly wear its Zeiss badge with pride. A soft cloth bag, front and rear lens caps, and a large plastic petal-shaped lens hood are supplied as standard in the box. Focal Range

It might be a relatively older design (Compared to other FE lenses) but the FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA remains a fantastic lens and one of the best standard prime lens options for Sony’s mirrorless camera system. Optically, it’s excellent with outstanding sharpness in the center of the frame when used at f/1.8 and truly incredible corner to corner sharpness just a couple of stops down. The lens also has a very pleasing bokeh, very good contrast and performs incredibly well against bright sources of light. The one genuine optical flaw is the high amounts of bokeh fringing at f/1.8 and this doesn’t really disappear until the lens is stopped down to f/5.6. It has a very large rotation angle which enables precise focusing and moves smoothly without any play. Two different focusing aids are provided - auto magnification and focus peaking.Enjoy high quality performance, low cost prints and ultimate convenience with the PIXMA G series of refillable ink tank printers. Here is the kind of sharpness you can expect at f/1.8: ILCE-7M3 + Zeiss Sonnar T* FE 55mm F1.8 ZA (SEL55F18Z) @ 55mm, ISO 250, 1/1600, f/2.2 f/1.8, center crop f/1.8, corner crop

The 55mm focal length gives an angle of view of 52.9° degrees, which is equivalent to a focal length of 44mm on a 35mm full-frame sensor camera. Chromatic Aberrations The lens exhibits a strong amount of vignetting, with light falloff reaching around 2.5 stops with the lens used wide open at f/1.8. One stop down, things greatly improve with there now being about 1.5 stops of corner shading. By f/5.6, this number further improves with the lens exhibiting less than one stop of darkening in the corners. ILCE-7M3 + Zeiss Sonnar T* FE 55mm F1.8 ZA @ 55mm, ISO 250, 1/500, f/1.8 8) Flaring Notice the very minor flaring on the bottom of the image frame: ILCE-7M3 + Zeiss Sonnar T* FE 55mm F1.8 ZA @ 55mm, ISO 320, 1/200, f/16.0 9) Chromatic Aberration Thanks to the inclusion of In-body stabilization or IBIS in Sony’s mirrorless camera bodies, their lenses don’t need to have built-in image stabilization to be stabilized. As such, the Sony FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA isn’t optically stabilized but it does benefit from the IBIS system of the Sony camera it’s mounted on and I found that I could achieve consistently sharp shots at shutter speeds of around 1/10 of a second while hand-holding the lens. This number dramatically drops at lower shutter speeds. Still, having image stabilization in such a small lens is a fantastic feature and one of the main selling points of the Sony system. 6) Bokeh

As with all of the the other GF lenses that we've previously reviewed, the build quality of the Fujifilm GF 55mm F1.7 R WR is excellent. The lens is dust, freeze and moisture resistant and it features a metal bayonet. When it comes to handling chromatic aberrations the Sony FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA turns in a mixed result. On one hand, lateral chromatic aberration is very well controlled with very little of it showing at f/1.8 and almost none showing two stops down. Unfortunately, the lens exhibits a significant amount of bokeh fringing (color fringing in front of and behind the focused area) with this especially prominent with the lens used wide open at f/1.8. The fringing remains quite noticeable until the lens is stopped down to f/4 where things improve markedly. By f/5.6 the lens exhibits only a small amount of fringing. This is certainly one of the FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA’s biggest optical weaknesses though it isn’t all that difficult to correct in post-processing. ILCE-7M3 + Zeiss Sonnar T* FE 55mm F1.8 ZA @ 55mm, ISO 125, 1/320, f/1.8 10) Comparisons A minimum focus distance of 50cm / 1.6' and a maximum magnification ratio of 0.17x doesn't make the lens particularly useful for shooting close subjects, although the fast maximum aperture does at least make it easy to isolate the subject. Bokeh

Measuring just 64.4mmx70.5mm, the FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA is a very small and lightweight lens which perfectly captures the original intent of compactness of Sony’s mirrorless camera system. In use, the lens makes for a perfect companion to the Sony A7 series of cameras and is a joy to use during extended shooting sessions as you rarely feel you’re even carrying a camera with you. At the front of the lens is a non-rotating 49mm filter thread, surrounded by a bayonet mount for the lens hood supplied with the lens. The petal shaped hood is well made and attaches firmly. It’s quite large and nearly doubles the overall length of the lens but does a great job of protecting the front element. The 55mm f/1.8 has three aspherical elements, but its internal design is otherwise quite simple, helping to make for such a small lens. Sharpness is simply spectacular. At F1.8 the 55mm is impressively sharp, outperforming the 50mm F1.8s for Canon and Nikon SLRs by a substantial margin (and the 50mm F1.4s for that matter, too). It just gets better on stopping down; at F4 and F5.6, central sharpness is literally off the charts (helped here by being tested on the 36MP, AA filterless A7R). Diffraction takes the edge off sharpness at F22, as usual, but this setting should still be perfectly usable when depth of field is a priority. The Fujifilm GF 55mm F1.7 R WR lens has a traditional aperture ring on the lens barrel which allows you to set the aperture in 1/3 steps, complete with full aperture markings. The aperture is also shown in the viewfinder or on the LCD screen as you change it.With the FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA featuring the Zeiss brand logo on its lens barrel and a price tag to match (being three times more expensive than the Sony FE 50mm f/1.8), I expected the lens to produce very sharp images and to do so without the need to stop down from its native aperture. Thankfully, the lens doesn’t disappoint with a very strong performance right from the get-go at f/1.8 where sharpness and contrast are on a high level. At this aperture, sharpness in the center of the frame is very good with the corners showing a good if an unimpressive level of sharpness. Dramatic improvements can be seen at f/2 and especially so at f/2.8, with the lens now extremely sharp over most of the image frame with the corners improving gradually improving as you stop down. In the center of the frame, you the lens is jaw-droppingly sharp from f/2.8 until f/5.6 where it starts to feel the effects of diffraction. The corners reach peak sharpness at the f/5.6 settings where the performance is truly outstanding. Overall, the FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA is extremely sharp with a truly outstanding performance that rivals the best 50mm wide aperture lenses on the market.