The Best Sony Lenses for Beginners Under $500

If you’re brand new to photography and have picked up a Sony camera, then congratulations. You’re getting into arugably one of the best camera systems on the market. And to help you in your journey, we’re rounding up the best Sony lenses for beginners. You don’t have to spend a whole lot of money. And you can have faith in us that we’ve actually tested these. Dive in with us.

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How We Chose the Best Sony Lenses for Beginners Under $500

Here’s some insight into how we chose the best Sony lenses for beginners:

• Our Editorial Policies don’t allow us to talk about products that we haven’t tested. And thankfully, we’ve reviewed pretty much every lens Sony makes. You can see all that in our giant Sony FE lens guide if you’re curious.
• Thankfully, all of these lenses are very lightweight. It’s one of the reasons why we’re so amazed at the best Sony lenses for beginners and all that they offer to photographers.
• Don’t hate on the kit lens. Looking back in our review, we’re quite surprised at how good it performed.
• The best Sony lenses for beginners are all chosen for different reasons. The 50mm is a nice short portrait lens. Then there’s the kit zoom. And the 28mm f2 is a wonderful lens for landscape photography. You can see more in our reviews within each section.
• We shot all these images ourselves. So you can trust that we’ve used these products.
• Sony FE monikers refer to full-frame 35mm sensor cameras. Sony E typically refers to APS-C cameras. But they’re all the same mount, which is Sony E mount.

Sony 50mm f1.8 FE

Pros

• Pretty decent image quality
• Affordable
• Small
• Fast to focus in good lighting

Cons

• Autofocus is very slow in low lighting even with the a7r II
• Autofocus is a bit louder than we’d personally like, though it’s still pretty quite in real life use

In our review, we state:

“Generally speaking in terms of nifty 50 lenses, you can’t really get much better here. Sony’s 50mm f1.8 is right up there with the Canon 50mm f1.8 in terms of image quality. It’s got great color output, is very sharp, very little chromatic aberration (and even then you’ve really got to look for it) and bokeh that isn’t bad overall.”

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Sony 28-70mm f3.5-5.6 OSS

Pros

• Surprisingly great performance for a kit lens.
• Fast focusing even with older cameras.
• Pretty compact size and doesn’t get much larger when fully zoomed in or out

Cons

• Honestly, not much considering I had low expectations to begin with due to this being a kit lens. While I understand that kit lenses have improved over the years, I just never know what to expect these days.

In our review, we state:

“During the review process, I was absolutely amazed at this kit lens. Many times I didn’t think that I was using one but instead something targeted at a middle of the road user. Indeed, there is very little to complain about with this lens and if you’re using it for general shooting purposes, then you’ll be very satisfied. But at the same time, expect it to be a jack of all trades but master of none.”

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Sony 28mm f2 FE

Pros

• Very sharp at any aperture
• Beautiful bokeh
• Nice, small size
• Lightweight
• Weather Resistance
• Pretty affordable

Cons

• Metal build on the exterior, though almost hollow feeling because ti’s so light weight.

In our review, we state:

“In the right situations, the bokeh really shines here. For what it’s worth though it still seems like every other Sony FE prime lens outshines this one and for good reason–they’re all longer focal lengths. However, we really do like the bokeh for a 28mm lens as those nine aperture blades really do help a lot.”

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The Phoblographer’s various product round-up features are done in-house. Our philosophy is simple: you wouldn’t get a Wagyu beef steak review from a lifelong vegetarian. And you wouldn’t get photography advice from someone who doesn’t touch the product. We only recommend gear we’ve fully reviewed. If you’re wondering why your favorite product didn’t make the cut, there’s a chance it’s on another list. If we haven’t reviewed it, we won’t recommend it. This method keeps our lists packed with industry-leading knowledge. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.