Sony FE 20mm f/2.8 APS-C Lens Review, Full-frame Use, Sample Photos, & 4K Video | Round Glass Review

If you’ve been around this channel a bit, you’ll have heard me say that many new or modern lenses are too large, too heavy, and that lens designers need to focus on making high-quality optics that can be carried easily. No better example I know of on the market today proves that this task is possible than the Sony 20mm f/2.8 pancake lens. This lens has delivered some of the most captivating work I’ve created over the last year with details so incredibly realistic that they almost look fake. There are many, many photos in this video that still give me pause to look at them and think ‘I can’t actually believe I took that.’ I think that’s high praise, by the way.

If there were anything I could change about this lens, it would be that the molds for the aspherical elements could be polished to eliminate the onion ring out-of-focus point effect. I really, truly, hate that look more than basically anything else that a lens does. That said, stopping down this lens a bit eliminates that problem, as does shooting in settings where bright lights aren’t in the background. So if you, like me, loathe that look, just stop the lens down.

There’s a lot of good to be said, though, for a lens like this. But here is the best thing I can say: Sony, I want and would buy more lenses like this – small, light, well made, and with exceptional color, contrast, and sharpness backed by nice out-of-focus areas wide-open and stunning source-point stars when stopped-down. If that sounds like a lot to ask, yes, of course it is. But this lens proves that it can be done. You’ve set the bar high here and now it’s your job to meet or beat that bar again.

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Video Index:
0:00 - Intro
0:11 - Sony SEL20F28 20mm f/2.8 Pancake Lens Round Glass Review
1:46 - Sony SEL20F28 20mm f/2.8 Pancake Lens Specifications
2:44 - Sony SEL20F28 20mm f/2.8 Pancake Lens Tips & Tricks
4:06 - Sony SEL20F28 20mm f/2.8 Pancake Lens Seidel (Bokeh) Analysis
8:20 - Sony SEL20F28 20mm f/2.8 Pancake Lens Diagram
8:52 - Sony SEL20F28 20mm f/2.8 Pancake Lens Video Use
9:48 - Sony SEL20F28 20mm f/2.8 Pancake Lens Strengths & Weaknesses
12:51 - Sony SEL20F28 20mm f/2.8 Pancake Lens Review

References:
https://www.handprint.com/ASTRO/ae4.html
https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/ca...
https://www.imaging-resource.com/lens...
McKeown, James, McKeown, Joan. McKeown's Price Guide to Antique and Classic Cameras 2005/2006. McKeown, Grantsburg, Wisconsin, 2005.

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"Suffer City Blues" by Suffer City and "Some Time (Instrumental Version) by CLNGR used under active license from Epidemic Sound at the time of this video's upload.