How good are Sony lenses? - a podcast by Ted Forbes

Sony is making some of the best full frame mirrorless cameras in the world. How do their lenses stack up to the other options?

The last 2 mirrorless lenses that Sony has produced have shown us the direction things will be going in the next few years. Not only are the designs extremely innovative but also the materials used in these lenses. Sony have a method of producing XA elements, or Extreme Aspherical elements in a way where they can both dial in the clarity of bokeh in an image and also reduce sagittal flaring issues in astro photography. XA elements are made by molding glass, not grinding. So there is a much greater control to smoothness to tolerances of 0.01 microns.

Bokeh is also controlled with the use of 11 aperture blades over the traditional 9 (Canon uses 8). This allows you to maintain a circular aperture when stopping down slightly to get a better optical performance out of the lens.

And finally Sony has created essentially a solid state camera with the development of direct drive super sonic wave motors that are used in the autofocus system. This allows for faster, more accurate and quiet autofocus.

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