Sony FE 55mm F1.8 ZA Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* review: specs and price

The device is protected with extra seals to prevent failures caused by dust, raindrops, and water splashes.

Best

A metal mount is generally superior to a plastic mount as it is more durable.

A prime lens has a fixed focal length. In general, these are sharper, with a wider aperture.

It comes with a lens hood so that you don’t have to buy it separately. These are used to block strong light sources, such as the sun, from the lens to prevent glare and lens flare.

A shorter minimum focal length allows you to get more of the scene in the photo, and offers a wider angle of view than longer focal lengths.

Best

At the shorter end of the lens you get the widest angle of view. This allows you to fit more of the scene into the photograph (based on APS-C format).

Best

At the longest end of the lens you get the narrowest angle of view. This allows you to fit a small portion of the scene into the photograph, such as when you are zooming in on a subject (based on APS-C format).

Best

A true macro lens has a magnification of 1:1. This means that the image produced is a life-size representation of the subject being photographed.

Best

The zoom range is the ratio between the longest and shortest focal lengths. A higher zoom range means that the lens is more versatile.

Best

With a wider aperture the sensor can capture more light, helping to avoid blur by enabling a faster shutter speed. It also provides a shallow depth of field, allowing you to blur the background to focus attention on the subject.

Best

With a wider aperture the sensor can capture more light, helping to avoid blur by enabling a faster shutter speed. It also provides a shallow depth of field, allowing you to blur the background to focus attention on the subject.

Best

A smaller aperture reduces the amount of light reaching the sensor. This is important in bright conditions where a wider aperture could result in your image being overexposed. Another advantage is that with a smaller aperture you get a greater depth of field, and can keep all of the image in focus.

Best

A smaller aperture reduces the amount of light reaching the sensor. This is important in bright conditions where a wider aperture could result in your image being overexposed. Another advantage is that with a smaller aperture you get a greater depth of field, and can keep all of the image in focus.

Best

The aperture controls how much light gets through to the camera’s sensor. More blades is often an indicator of a better quality lens. It also allows you to achieve much nicer looking bokeh when blurring out your background, whereas a lens with less blades will often produce harsher, more polygonal bokeh.

Best

Similar to the number of aperture blades, rounded blades affect the way the light gets through to the sensor. Rounded blades, often only found on more expensive lenses, improve the appearance of the out-of-focus areas. This allows you to attain better, softer looking bokeh in your photos.

Lenses with a built-in focus motor can autofocus even if the camera does not have its own focus motor.

This is the closest distance that the lens can focus. A shorter minimum focus distance allows you to get closer to your subject, and is particularly important when doing macro photography.

Best

Lenses with built-in focus motor focus faster and more quietly than lenses without a focus motor which rely on the camera's body focus motor.