The E-Mount is one of the most popular lens types for Sony camcorders and mirrorless cameras. With this article, we’re going to cover what we consider to be the best E-Mount lenses available right now.

The choice of E-mount lenses is pretty rich and if you have a Sony camera, then there are a lot of different options for you to choose from. Some of the lenses we feature here will be proprietary Sony lenses, but lots will be lenses created by other manufacturers like Carl Zeiss.

In particular, the versatile standard zoom, specific to the Carl Zeiss lens, is enhanced with the G lens for E-mount cameras and camcorders. Together with the new option for the popular E 50mm F1.8 lens port that is now available in black, the latest enhancements increase the range of E-mount lenses considerably.

All these lenses are ideal for use with NEX-3, NEX-5, NEX-6 and NEX-7 compact cameras, as well as the new α3000 and NEX-VG900E1 and NEX-VG30EH Full HD video cameras. It’s also notable to mention two of our favorite cameras here, the Sony a7S and FS7, that most have an E-Mount.

The Best E-Mount Lenses

Let’s look at 5 of the best E-Mount lenses that are fantastic for Sony cameras, as well as other cameras with the right adapter.

1. Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 16-70mm F4

A great E-mount camcorder with replaceable lenses is able to experience the legendary excellence and superiority of a simple and compact zoom like the Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 16-70mm F4.

Extremely practical quadruple zoom range (24-105mm in 35mm equivalent for full frame) makes the SEL1670Z ideal for shooting video (and taking photos) of the most varied situations, from landscape and portrait to completely informal images of your everyday life.

Superior contrast and resolution that can be selected among the zoom settings are a trademark of this lens, which can be taken with you wherever you go.

Advanced Aspherical Lens (AA) lenses combine an AA lens element with three common aspherical elements, reducing the size and weight of the lens without compromising the quality of the image produced.

In addition to the unique and refined Carl Zeiss T coating, glittering and blur reduced color reproduction with the addition of superb resolution and clarity is a must have here.

Unlike more fast-paced zooms, the maximum aperture of F4 is achieved in the entire range of focal lengths. This reduces the need for high ISO settings when zooming, and also allows you to ‘freeze the action’ that is played in front of your eyes, regardless of its speed. Thanks to the circular aperture, the added clarity and naturalness of your image is kept intact.

Sony’s Optical SteadyShot Photo Stabilization System prevents any effect if you shoot in handshaking, enabling clearer shots even in low light environments.

Appropriate optical performance is provided with the ultimate in design that you would expect from the Carl Zeiss lens, with an elegantly refined metal exterior that gives the lens an enviable look and a more pronounced sense of luxury.

2. Sony E PZ 18-105mm F4 G OSS

This Sony lens is the rare G lens designed specifically for E-mount cameras and camcorders with replaceable lenses.

The SELP18105G model has a very rich 5.8x zoom range – equivalent to that of 27-157.5mm, making it the first choice for travel and everyday shooters.

The optical design of the ELP18105G model reflects the pedigree of the G lens. Two ED glass elements are associated with three aspherical elements for high resolution and contrast throughout the entire zoom range.

Distinctness and color deviation is minimized, allowing beautiful performances with excellent contrasts at all focal lengths. The Circular Blur guarantees simple and professional effects, regardless of whether you are shooting static photos or full HD motion video clips.

This model with its full-featured performance and effects is highly recommended for video recording in Full HD. The technology was developed specifically for smaller cameras provides incredible autofocus and powerful zoom without any difficulty or distraction from your subject.

Zoom is located at an exceptionally convenient handling site, which ensures you control the zoom speed as much as you need, and all the additional operations you want to eliminate any instability and unwanted changes are placed at the fingertips.

For more significant creative control, independent focus and zoom rings allow manual focus adjustment when zooming. The overall lens length remains unchanged at each zoom and focus, all in order to ensure consistency of comfort while being used.

Like the new SEL1670Z, the SELP18105G keeps the F4 maximizing the aperture for tremendous clarity at all possible zoom settings. The SteadyShot setting eliminates camera shake effects for clearer shots, even in poor lighting conditions.

3. Sony E 50mm F1.8

In response to user requirements, the 50mm E-mount F1.8 with fixed focal lengths of the lens is now available in a striking black color.

This clear, wide aperture lens is ideal for capturing very “atmospheric” portraits.

The SteadyShot setting eliminates camera shake effects for clearer shots, with no fear of blurring.

You do not have to worry about how the autofocus affect will negatively impact your work, irrespective of whether you are recording a static or moving body.

4. Sony 10-18mm Wide-Angle Zoom Lens

This is a super wide-angle zoom lens.

The Sony SEL1018 is by no means a cheap E-Mount lens, but with a very good picture quality, it convinces lots of more professional users to make the purchase, especially those who have a slightly higher demand on their lens.

The SEL1018 has consistently received good reviews from review aggregator platforms.

With the aperture of F4.0 you can take beautiful photos during the day, but if you want to shoot many photos at night, the relatively small aperture is quite limiting when it comes to low light performance.

If you’re looking for a wide-angle lens with a larger aperture for a lower price, you’d better look around at some other options.

5. Sony Alpha E-mount 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 OSS Lens

The is an impressive standard zoom lens that ticks a lot of people’s boxes.

Earlier Sony Alpha system cameras came with this kit lens. Compared to the new kit lens (SELP1650), it is much larger and has a slightly longer focal length. Judging by many reviews, this lens has a slightly better sharpness than the new kit lens.

If you have not bought your Sony A6000 with the new kit lens, the SEL1855 is a good all-rounder lens. However, it makes no sense to own this kit lens in addition to the standard kit lens (the SELP1650).

Although the range of zoom lenses for the Sony E-Mount system is somewhat clear, there are a large number of fixed focal lengths for the E-Mount.

Especially notable are Rokinon, Walimex and Samyang, who bring out several fixed focal lengths for the Sony E-Mount every year. But most of them have to be completely manually controlled (ie manual focus and manual iris).

We would advise you to opt for a fixed focal length if you are looking for a high-quality lens that should not cost too much. In general, fixed focal lengths are much sharper, more compact, and often have much faster apertures compared to zoom lenses.

The larger aperture lets you achieve a greater depth of field (also called bokeh ), and your sensor also gets more light, making it easier to shoot in darker environments.

Naturally, though, with a fixed focal length lens you’re compromising on the range of different focal lengths that you’d get with a zoom lens.

Normal fixed focal lengths

Normal fixed focal lengths are fixed focal lengths that have a focal length of 30 to about 60 millimeters.

With these lenses, for example, you can shoot beautiful footage of people talking, since a focal length of 50 mm full-frame (ie about 33 mm of APS-C cameras) covers the natural field of view of us humans.

If you are looking for a new lens, especially for portrait work, you should make sure that it also has a fairly large aperture (preferably F1.8 or smaller). You can also take a look at the portrait fixed focal lengths, which have slightly longer focal lengths.

Portrait prime lenses

Portrait fixed focal lengths are fixed focal lengths that have a focal length of 50 to 85 millimeters (75 to 130 mm in full format) and are therefore very suitable for shooting portraits.

In general, they also have a relatively large open aperture (for example, F1.8), which can easily enable background blur to be achieved.

Macro prime lenses

Macro lenses are usually fixed focal lengths, which are specially designed to take footage of subjects that are very close to the camera.

Often, you want to make very small things appear very big, such as small insects or flowers, and this type of lens is great for that.

For understanding this more effectively, we found a good chart from Digital Camera World that’s very helpful:

Wide-angle Zoom

Wide-angle zoom lenses are zoom lenses that are mostly used in landscape and work. These are especially useful for your establishing shots of places, as well as master shots in narrative filmmaking. Whether you’re working in video or photography, everyone needs a good wide-angle lens.

In general, the smaller the focal length of the lens, the stronger the “wide-angle look”, which makes the foreground much larger than the background.

Owners of an Sony Alpha 6000, unfortunately, do not have a large selection of wide-angle zoom lenses for the E-mount. However, there is a much wider selection of wide-angle fixed lenses that I would recommend to most users of this camera.

As a general rule of thumb, you get at fixed focal a much better price-performance ratio and the zoom function you need in the wide-angle range is not actually always necessary.

Check out some great Sony cameras in our article on our favorite slow-motion cameras below:

High-quality lenses for cheap

Did you know that all sorts of other lenses can be connected to your Sony cameras via an adapter?

With different adapters, it is also possible to connect other lenses to the E-Mount. These adapters are usually reasonably priced and it gives you a lot more lens options. This also allows you to use lenses that are more than 30 or 40 years old on your modern day camera.

Probably the best option for this is the Pentax K Mount. You get an adapter for about a reasonable price. Then you have the choice between all sorts of used lenses.

These can be in good condition, for example, second hand sales sites for little money.

Best E-Mount Lenses – In Conclusion

Buying decisions can be tough regardless of the kind of equipment you’re considering. Lens decisions are especially tough, as there are so many variables to consider.

It should be noted that, whilst there are a range of options here for the E-Mount, there are only a few manufacturers who make good E-Mount lenses, so this helps us out a little when making a choice.

It should also be noted that these E-Mount lenses won’t work with a lot of cameras, notably your Canon DSLRs and other EF mounts. Even with an adapter, this is just not possible due to the very small flange distance. These lenses are predominantly designed for mirrorless cameras, which Canon EF isn’t.

So whilst you can use something like a Metabones (or similar) to use our Canon EF lenses on you Sony cameras, the same cannot be said in reverse.

We hope this article on the best E-Mount lenses has been instructive for you in making a purchasing decision on these lenses. In a lot of cases, having two or more of these lenses will have you covered for all kinds of shooting situations.

Which of the E-Mount lenses have you found most useful for your projects? Have we missed out one of your favorites here? Let us know in the comments just below here.

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