"G Lens" — the culmination of Sony optical expertise.
    What is the "G Lens"?
    The "G Lens" is Sony’s original camera lens, designed and manufactured to the highest standards of optical performance. Through original Sony technologies, the "G Lens" achieves superb clarity and sharpness that maximises the performance of Sony’s advanced imaging sensors and camera systems.
    Wide angle and zoom
    Wide-angle 28 mm "G Lens" with 20x optical zoom
    The HX1 lens covers a wide range of focal lengths from 28 mm to 560 mm (35 mm film equivalent), making it suitable for various types of shooting including landscapes, portraits and snapshots. In particular, it offers a wider minimum focal length, starting at 28 mm with a lens speed of F2.8
    Extend your reach with powerful optical zooming
    The breathtaking quality of "G Lens" extends to powerful 20x optical zooming. You’ll enjoy smooth, seamless zooming from 1x to 20x without the aberration and distortion that spoils high-magnification zooming in conventional lenses. Even the finer details of faraway objects can be captured with utmost clarity.
    1x 20x optical zoom
    Capture more of your world with wide-angle shooting
    Capture the world around you in stunning wide-angle images. The "G Lens" combines a minimum focal length of 28 mm and a large F2.8 aperture to deliver wide-angle images of crisp, razor-sharp quality. Whether shooting dramatic landscapes or groups of friends in small rooms, the "G Lens" is the right choice for outstanding results.
    35 mm   28 mm
    Chromatic aberration
    Effective correction of chromatic aberration
    You may have noticed an unnatural colour fringe on the edges of objects in photos taken with regular glass lenses. This phenomenon, called chromatic aberration, is significantly reduced in photos taken with Sony’s sophisticated "G Lens".
    Extra-low Dispersion lens
    The HX1 corrects chromatic aberration through various advances, including an extra-low dispersion lens element (ED lens) composed of ED glass. Through reduced and irregular dispersion, as well as reduced refraction, ED lens significantly reduces chromatic aberration in comparison with regular lens.
    With regular optical glass lenses, chromatic aberration generally increases as the focal length increases (such as in high-zoom ratio and telephoto lenses). This results in reduced contrast, increased colour fringe and an overall loss of detail. Extra-low Dispersion lenses, developed as a solution to this problem, are composed of ED glass featuring significantly lower dispersion and a lower refractive index than regular optical glass. ED glass also features uniquely irregular dispersion that dramatically reduces chromatic aberration. Even when shooting with a fully open aperture, Extra-low Dispersion lenses deliver crisp, clear, high-contrast images from corner to corner. Now that Sony employs these lenses, highly effective correction of chromatic aberration has become a reality.
    High contrast
    High contrast brings out the details
    One of the leading determinants of lens quality is lens contrast, which refers to the ability of a lens to differentiate between small details. Thanks to an ultra-high refractive index lens element and aspherical lens element, the sophisticated "G Lens" delivers exceptional lens contrast.
    Low contrast High contrast
    Ultra-high refractive index lens element
    This lens element contributes to exceptional lens contrast at all focal lengths from wide-angle to telephoto. A much higher refractive index than regular glass is what makes the difference.
    Ultra-high refractive index lenses utilize glass with a refractive index significantly higher than that of regular glass, resulting in much more effective correction of spherical aberration. Contrast, which tends to deteriorate in wide-angle and high-zoom ratio lenses made of regular glass, is also enhanced. Moreover, ultra-high refractive index lenses tend to be smaller in lens thickness and diameter than regular glass lenses, resulting in reduced overall lens unit dimensions.
    Aspherical lens element
    The aspherical lens element in Sony's "G Lens" achieves much higher lens contrast than conventional spherical lenses. It effectively corrects spherical aberration, minimises bleeding, and prevents distortion during zooming.
    Light beams passing through the edges and centre of conventional spherical lenses do not precisely converge at a focal point on the focal plane. This phenomenon, called spherical aberration, can be partially corrected by minimising the curvature of the main lens and incorporating an additional concave lens. However, it is impossible to completely correct this problem with a spherical lens. As a result, aspherical lenses were developed as a replacement. Aspherical lenses produce high-contrast images with minimal bleeding even when the aperture is kept open. Not only do they prevent spherical aberration, but they also effectively prevent distortion when zooming. In addition, they enable the use of fewer lens elements, thus contributing to lens compactness.
    Superb limiting resolution
    The HX1 lens features excellent limiting resolution. Since lens contrast increases in proportion to limiting resolution, the HX1 lens also delivers beautiful high-contrast images. This limiting resolution is clearly illustrated in the following charts, with distance from centre measured on the horizontal axis (image centre: 0%, 4 corners: 100%) and limiting resolution (LPH*) measured on the vertical axis. The "G Lens" exhibits high resolution from centre to periphery.

    * Lines per image height
    Beautiful bokeh
    What is bokeh?
    Bokeh refers to the out-of-focus areas in photographs captured with a shallow depth of field. Photographers often purposely blur backgrounds and foregrounds to enhance image quality and bring out the subject. Nearly round apertures create an especially beautiful bokeh effect.
    6-blade diaphragm unit
    Conventional compact camera lenses feature a 2-blade iris diaphragm (aperture iris) that produces diamond-shaped bokeh at partially open aperture. The "G Lens", on the other hand, features a nearly round 6-blade iris diaphragm that creates beautiful round bokeh. At large focal lengths that produce a shallow depth of field — especially in "G Lens" models featuring optical 20x zoom — the amount of bokeh in the foreground and background can be controlled through fine adjustment of the aperture.