Considering the quality of Sony’s G Master lenses, I had a feeling this would be a boring review to do with a few exceptions. You see, Sony’s lenses are clinically perfect and our staff aren’t fans of that. But the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master lens is designed to shoot a specific type of subject matter: sports and wildlife. Sure, we’ve done a lot of that stuff, but we’ve never been limited to just that. However, testing the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master was some of the most fun I’ve had shooting Sony cameras.

At nearly $12,000 one has to expect that the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master will perform very well. And indeed it does. The sports and wildlife photographers it’s aimed towards will love this lens as long as they have the money to justify its purchase. For the passionate photographers who want to do things like go on safari and observe wildlife, you’ll also find a deep appreciation for what this lens can do. 

The Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master is a holistically fantastic lens. It’s amazingly lightweight, fast to focus, and incredibly versatile. Sports photographers will be able to use it with a variety of cameras and get the shots they want. We used it with both the Sony a1 and Sony a7r III and captured photos we were in love with. What’s more, wildlife photographers will never want to put this lens down. We shot a bunch of photos of birds going about their daily lives using this lens. Frankly, we captured some of the most amazing moments we’ve shot with this lens. Unless you’re not nailing the autofocus, it’s pretty hard to take a bad photo.

The Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master receives five out of five stars and the Editor’s Choice Award. Want one? Check them out at Adorama and Amazon, or rent one from Lensrentals to see if you’d like it first.

We were provided with the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master from Lensrentals for loan. We tested it with:

The Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master doesn’t have a whole lot of innovation around it. Compared to the Canon version, it’s about the same weight. If anything, we can say it’s the first fast 400mm lens for the Sony FE camera system, but that’s it.

The Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master is a very big lens, but also very well balanced. Here you can see it standing with no issues attached to the Sony a1. If you’ve been in NYC, you should know that when attached to the camera, it’s around the size of those chess tables you see in NYC parks.

The front element is too big, so you’re not going to put a filter there. Instead, the filter is going into the rear area.

In fact, the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master takes 40.5mm filters. That’s a size that I haven’t seen in a while. It’s more akin to what I find for Leica lenses.

The body of the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master is well made and textured for grip pretty much everywhere. It’s honestly a joy to hold; I already miss using it.

Here’s where the lens gets complicated with the controls. You’ll find the AF/MF switch, focus limiter, full-time digital manual focus selector, IS, and much more. Luckily, all the controls are in only one spot.

Unlike lots of other lenses, it doesn’t have a dedicated aperture ring. Sony doubts this will be used for your cinematic masterpieces.

Here you’ll find the manual focus ring that also has another ring inside of it. But honestly, we never used it.

To bring this lens around, I needed a big bag. I brought the Gura Gear Kiboko V2.0 30L bag. It, attached to the Sony a1, took up an entire half of the bag.

Of course, the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master has serious build quality. Sony, of course, made this weather resistant. With that said, our sensors were always very clean when we used this lens. Something of this caliber is bound to be resistant to the elements. If it isn’t, it’s a bit of a rip off.

While we didn’t take it through the rain (there wasn’t any in NYC) it surely experienced quite a bit of dust. However, the lens kept working and I simply just brushed the dust off.

With that aside, the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master isn’t amazingly heavy. In fact, I did a walk and hike through some forests here in Queens, NY using this lens. It was handheld at all times, and I was able to use it while also working my muscles for sure. To be honest, I’d say it was akin to a light workout. 

Keep all this in mind, as we think you should have a camera with a solid camera strap when using this lens. Sometimes a monopod can just slow you down. 

The Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master has a ton of controls on it. The most important one is probably the focus limiter. What’s really fascinating is that it has its own beep for focus confirmation. As long as you’re setting the focus correctly, I think you won’t have much of a problem using this lens. If you’re an experienced photographer, it’s going to be a ton of fun.

Testing the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master meant that we needed to test in a variety of situations. I typically shot in aperture priority. When I shot in manual mode with exposure preview activated, the focus wasn’t affected much on both the Sony a1 and the Sony a7r III. That’s more of an issue with the camera body, but it’s worth mentioning. As it is, I don’t think I’d shoot with this lens in manual mode a lot for the type of work it’s designed to capture.

Besides sports and wildlife, we got a few abstract landscape style photos with this lens. And indeed it did well. We’d only expect that from Sony these days. Let’s see how it did for sports and wildlife.

Here in Queens, I was able to photograph some local street hockey thanks to my friends Andre and Rob. I haven’t played hockey in years, but using the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master with the Sony a7r III and the Sony a1 made the affair simple. Here’s how I used the cameras in combination with the lens:

The photos in this section were purposely unedited.

In this way, I was able to capture a bunch of great moments as long as I was in the right locations. I tended to move around with the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master and my cameras. Sometimes I’d switch to the Tamron 70-300mm f4.5-6.3 lens. Both lenses would autofocus at the same speeds, but the Sony gave me a few more “keeper shots.”

I’m positive that any photographer using the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master would basically make shooting sports with this lens look easy. In all seriousness, the system does such a wonderful job.

Where I arguably had the most fun with the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master is with photographing wildlife. I didn’t realize until I’d gotten home and looked closer that the Sony a1 recognized the frog in the photo as an animal and I’d set the lens to animal AF right before pointing it at the water. With that aside, it did a great job spotting a frog.

When photographing birds that were stagnant, the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master was pretty much set to the same settings as it was for sports. I didn’t mess with the responsiveness much, but the camera and lens did thier job providing that they could find a subject amongst the trees. Indeed, all systems sometimes have this problem.

Things got pretty spicy when I decided to use the lens on my balcony to photograph my bird feeder. Recently, it’s been attracting all sorts of birds from the neighborhood. What’s more, they’ve been fighting over their share of food. Sometimes, I’d set the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master and Sony a1 on a tripod and control it using the Imaging Edge mobile app. At other times, I’d be on the balcony or in my doorway photographing the birds as the went at it. Take a look at some of my favorite photos.

We were pretty amazed at what the lens and camera could capture, and we’re sure you’d agree!

The image quality from the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master is genuinely excellent. It’s clinically perfect, but honestly, you have to expect that. No matter what, you’ll realize it’s hard to take a bad photo with this lens.

I mean, how much do I have to talk about the bokeh on this lens? it’s gorgeous and creamy pretty much no matter what. That’s perfect for making your subject stand out from the rest of the scene and it’s also great for sports and wildlife.

The colors from Sony’s lenses tend to either be super vivid or kind of muted. This one is very vivid and punchy. With that said, you’ll probably want to add more contrast and clarity to make the colors pop a bit more.

There’s no issue with distortion, color fringing, or anything else considered to be traditionally problematic. Sony has quite literally engineered any sort of character out of this lens.

This lens is insanely sharp. We typically do our tests using a flash, but this lens doesn’t need it. It’s plenty sharp once your subject is in focus. There’s not even a question as to how sharp it is.

From day one, The Phoblographer has been huge on transparency with our audience. Nothing from this review is sponsored. Further, lots of folks will post reviews and show lots of editing in the photos. The problem then becomes that anyone and everyone can do the same thing. They’re not showing what the lens can do. So we have a section in our Extra Image Samples area to show edited and unedited photos. From this, you can make a decision for yourself.

Let’s run down the list of photographers who would possibly want the Sony 400mm f2.8:

Overall, the Sony 400mm f2.8 G Master is a fantastic lens, but many times I wanted a zoom lens. The Canon RF 100-500mm f4.5-7.1 has spoiled me in so many ways with its great image quality and more. But, the Sony has a faster aperture.

Overall, I really adore this lens. If you’re the type who would specifically benefit from a 400mm over something like the Sony 200-600mm f5.6-6.3 lens, then go for it. There’s also the Sony 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 G Master that’s quite good. Honestly, any of them are great options. I’d personally opt for a zoom lens over a prime for shooting sports and wildlife. 

Want one? Check them out at Adorama and Amazon or rent one from Lensrentals to see if you’d like it first.

These specs were taken from Lensrentals.

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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He also likes pizza.