I’m a freelance photographer who enjoys all genres, from landscape to wedding, sports to commercial. And because my approach to photography encapsulates so many styles, my choice of lenses follows the same varied route.

I don’t have a favourite focal length; I don’t prefer a zoom over a fixed lens and vice versa and I don’t like to limit myself by classifying individual lenses for different genres. Whenever I shoot, I take all my lenses with me, so I’m covered from 16mm up to 400mm.

It’s unbelievable what size and weight Sony have managed to achieve with their G Master lenses. Because I like to have all my lenses to hand, I don’t want to have to choose which of the lenses to leave at home due to weight or size. The great thing about the GM series is that there are no compromises and despite the low weight, they offer impressive brightness. One could save a few more grams using slower lenses with an aperture of f/4, but it is not really necessary.

For this article however, I want to focus on a recent acquisition for me – the FE 50mm f/1.2 GM.

One of my favourite features of the G Masters is the ability to shoot wide open at the maximum aperture, with no loss in sharpness or performance. I’ve been shooting since 2006, so I’ve experienced a lot of lenses where it wasn’t possible to shoot at full aperture. I mean, it was possible, but the image was soft and I was forced to stop down to retain sharpness and definition. But the 50mm f/1.2 is an absolute miracle to me – so much so that I tend to always shoot at f/1.2. The sharpness is beautiful across the entire frame and the bokeh is so smooth it’s unreal.

Of course, with a fully open aperture, the demands on accuracy and speed of focusing also increase. It’s nice to have a shallow depth-of-field, but if the lens can’t focus properly, you’ll end up with a lot of soft images. If I tell you that the number of soft images when shooting with GM lenses is effectively zero, you probably won’t believe me. And that’s why I recommend you try it yourself. I’m just warning you in advance, once you try a lens from the GM series, you’ll never want to take a step back.

In fact, the only issue I’ve ever encountered with my Sony G Master lenses is if the image doesn’t turn out well, it’s not down to the equipment, but the photographer 😊