Sony FE 100mm f/2.8 STF GM OSS Lens

The Sony FE 100mm f/2.8 STF GM OSS is a short-telephoto prime lens that offers exceptional smooth bokeh and precise sharpness, distinguished by its advanced optical design. Unlike typical portrait-length lenses, this 100mm f/2.8 incorporates Smooth Trans Focus (STF) technology, utilizing an apodization filter to achieve remarkably smooth bokeh and rounded out-of-focus highlights in both the foreground and background.

G Master Optics

This lens serves as an excellent complement to the G Master series, offering remarkable resolution alongside an exceptionally soft and smooth bokeh that beautifully highlights the in-focus subject. Its optical design incorporates a groundbreaking optical apodization element and a newly developed 11-blade aperture, ensuring consistently high performance across the entire image area. With features such as spherical aberration compensation, ED (Extra-low Dispersion) glass, and aspherical elements, this lens delivers outstanding resolution and sharpness, meeting the stringent 50 lines per millimeter MTF standard that underpins G Master optical design. This sharpness is maintained throughout the image area.

Smooth Trans Focus

The optical design features an apodization (APD) element that enhances the quality of bokeh. This component, akin to a radially graduated neutral density filter that transitions from clear at the center to denser at the periphery, generates more circular out-of-focus highlights, resulting in more aesthetically pleasing selective focus and shallow depth of field effects. The aperture range extends from f/2.8 to f/20; however, due to the presence of the apodization filter, this range effectively translates to T5.6 to T22. Additionally, a rounded 11-blade diaphragm further enhances the quality of bokeh when utilizing shallow depth of field techniques.

Autofocus and Macro Switching

The Direct Drive Super Sonic Wave Motor AF system delivers rapid, silent, and accurate autofocus capabilities, while also enhancing the ease and intuitiveness of manual focus adjustments. The internal focusing mechanism ensures a more agile focusing response and preserves a uniform lens length throughout its operation.

The macro switching ring provides the option to select between two distinct focusing ranges: from 2.8 feet to infinity, or a more intimate range of 1.9 to 3.3 feet. The lens achieves a maximum magnification of 0.25x at its minimum focus, enabling near-macro capabilities for capturing intricate details in close-up photography. Additionally, the customizable focus hold button located on the lens barrel can be utilized to maintain the current focusing position, or it can be configured within the camera to manage various other lens functions.

Handling and Physical Design

Optical SteadyShot image stabilization significantly reduces the visibility of camera shake, resulting in sharper images when capturing photos handheld at slower shutter speeds. This stabilization technology can also be integrated with certain cameras' sensor-shift image stabilization for enhanced management of camera blur. The manual aperture ring can be adjusted to allow for seamless and silent aperture transitions, which is advantageous for video production. Additionally, a dust- and moisture-resistant construction facilitates operation in adverse weather conditions, while rubberized control rings improve handling in lower temperatures.