My name is Hannah Couzens, a European Sony Imaging Ambassador and have been photographing people for the past 17 years. As a portrait photographer, it’s so important to me to accurately represent my subject. The camera never lies, right?! Well, if you choose the wrong focal length and shoot too close then the lens most definitely will.

Distorted features are absolutely not what we’re going for, so I choose my lenses carefully based on my subject matter, the space I have to work with and the overall look I’m trying to create.

One of the most common questions I’m asked is what’s the best camera? My answer very often is the same. A good camera is great to have but choose the very best lens you can afford as this will make all the difference when it comes to image quality.

In my professional work I shoot with G Master lenses but I was definitely intrigued when Sony asked me to shoot with this trio of primes. A lens that would suit a close up headshot – the FE 85mm f/1.8, for some mid length shots, the FE 55mm f/1.8 ZA and finally for some environmental and full length shots, the FE 35mm f/1.8.

I chose to put them to the test on a 1940’s location shoot so that we could shoot wide open at times and really see what they were made of.

One thing that struck me instantly was the size and weight difference. Suddenly I could take one bag instead of two. To be able to fit my camera, three lenses, and three of my lights in the same bag and still have space is really quite impressive.

To begin, we started with a dramatic shot in the bar area. Initially I was torn whether this should be a full length shot or a headshot but I decided that the navy velvet gown and red shoes had to feature in this image so I chose the 55mm.  This was close enough to hide the other distractions on the scene but far enough away to keep a good full length composition.

My favourite focal length for close up portraits is an 85mm. For me, I love how it doesn’t distort the features and I can be a nice distance away from my subject to communicate, without being in their personal space. I couldn’t resist shooting some closer portraits in this scene so I switched to the 85mm.

Another thing that was impressive was the speed at which these lenses focused. When shooting at such wide apertures, it’s really important for me to get my subject’s eyes in focus otherwise my shot will be unusable. The eye autofocus worked impeccably every time and with great speed.

Moving on to our afternoon tea setting. The room was small and dark but I loved the light fixture in the centre of the room.

Next I had the challenge of finding a composition as I wanted to include Scarlett’s beautiful dress but also include the light on the ceiling. This was no trouble for the 35mm. With a few seconds of adjusting my position to keep the lines of the walls straight, we had our composition. With the room being so dark I was definitely shooting this wide open so being able to shoot at f/1.8 was really helpful.

I decided to use the natural light from the large windows for this shot and just add a hair light in the back with a flash. Once I had taken the full length shots, I chose to move Scarlett close to the window for some mid length portraits.

Due to the room being reasonably small, the 85mm would have been too tight so this was a job for the 55mm. Making sure that I wasn’t too close to cause any distortion, this worked perfectly.

Generally speaking, I always try to stop down a little from wide open to achieve ultimate sharpness, however I was amazed at just how pin sharp this trio of primes were at f/1.8.

Finally, we moved outside, as I wanted to capture the autumn colours, and see how these lenses would render the background when shooting wide open. Once again, I was very pleasantly surprised.

I decided to fire a flash with CTO (colour temperature orange) gel back into my frame to create some flare to mimic sunlight. I was really surprised how beautifully the 85mm coped with this, even at full aperture.

While we know that any Sony genuine lens will always produce incredible images, I really have been pleasantly surprised at the results here. I really did push those lenses and they stood up every time. Combine the image quality with the inconspicuous and lightweight size and this really has given me food for thought.