With its stunning blend of mirrorless performance and everyday affordability, the Sony a6000 is one of the most consumer-friendly cameras available. It offers a surprising amount of versatility and performance for the price.
One area where this camera can really shine is portrait photography. Its sensor, image processing, and overall ease of use make it a great candidate for your portrait shots. You just need to make sure you’re using the right lens. So, what’s the best portrait lens for the Sony a6000?
On this page, we’ll explore this question and help you become a better shopper when looking for lenses. We’ve scoured the internet for online reviews, comparisons, and recommendations.
After carefully weighing up price, performance, reliability, and compatibility, we produced the list of products below. Check them out – we genuinely believe they’re well worth the money.
How to Know if a Lens is Compatible With Your Camera
This might seem fairly straight forward, but it trips up more beginners than you might expect. In this section, we’ll briefly touch on how you can make sure your camera is compatible with any lens you consider. Read on to learn more.
Amazon ConfirmedFit
If you’re shopping on Amazon, the site’s lens listings usually feature their handy ‘ConfirmedFit’ option. It’s designed to take the guesswork out of buying a new lens for your setup. Just enter your camera’s brand and type in its model number and Amazon will do the rest.
You’ll know if your lens fits in just a few clicks. For the Sony a6000, this process would look like this:
- Choose ‘Sony’ from the brand drop-down box
- Type in ‘a6000’ and click the prompt that pops up
- You’re all done! Amazon will tell you if the lens is a good fit
The E-Mount
When shopping elsewhere, the process is still super simple. The a6000 uses Sony’s E-mount system for interchangeable lenses. If a lens you’re considering doesn’t mention ‘E-mount’ compatibility, it’s probably not going to work.
Adapters – A-mounts and Beyond
One selling point of the a6000 is that it’s compatible with a fair few adapters that let users significantly increase the number of lens types at their disposal. The recommendations on this page are all 100% compatible with your camera out of the box.
If you want to try some of Sony’s A-mount lenses, or even look elsewhere for lens types, an adapter is what you’ll need.
Awesome Portrait Lenses for the Sony a6000
Let’s get into it! This section contains our favourite portrait lenses for the Sony a6000. We think they represent a great balance of price, performance, and reliability. We also touch on some other great a6000 lenses further down this page. Be sure to check them out.
The Best of the Best – Sigma 60mm f/2.8
If you’re just going to buy one portrait lens for your a6000, we think it should be this one. Sigma has a phenomenal track record for producing excellent lenses and this 60mm shooter is no exception. Expect razor-sharp focus, stunning images, and super steady results.
The image quality in particular really stands out with this lens. Your models will be captured at their most beautiful every time! A veritable slew of optical technology has gone into making this lens a very strong performer.
Issues like chromatic aberration, image noise, and distortion are all very hard to find on this Sigma. Whether you’re shooting graduation photos or work professionally as a portrait photographer, this option is worth considering.
Pros:
- Brilliant image quality
- Relatively affordable
- Makes for lovely portrait photos
Cons:
- The outside of the silver model can scratch fairly easily
Sony E-Mount 50mm F/1.8 Lens
When most people think of portrait photography, they imagine shots that use impressive bokeh effects with blurred backgrounds and a model sharply in focus at the center of the frame. The 7-blade circular aperture of this Sony E-mount lens will make it trivial to achieve these results.
It’s been built from the ground up to be an excellent portrait lens. While many people rely on a tripod for noise-free results, plenty of portrait photographers prefer to shoot handheld. If this sounds like you, Sony’s “Optical SteadyShot” technology will definitely serve you well.
It does a great job of keeping everything steady and blur free. Sony has been pouring a lot of their resources into lens manufacture over the past several years. The results really shine in this E-mount lens.
It offers the ‘nifty fifty’ form factor that so many people love and delivers image quality that far surpasses its price tag.
Pros:
- 7-blade circular aperture makes bokeh super easy
- Excellent image stabilization
- Built specifically for portrait photography
Cons:
- Same issue as the Sigma lens – the silver model scratches a bit too easily
Rokinon 85mm E-Mount f/1.4 Fixed Lens
As a word of warning, this is a manually operated lens. If you rely on auto-mode for any of your portrait photography, you might want to look elsewhere. If you’re comfortable with manual settings, this lens offers superior levels of control than a good chunk of the competition.
You’ll be able to tweak your setup to your heart’s content. In the right pair of hands, this thing is capable of some stunning portrait photos. Bokeh, low-light, and overall optical performance are all brilliant on this 85mm shooter.
At under $250 for the E-mount variant, it’s cheaper than you might expect too!
Pros:
- Brilliant manual controls
- Strong low-light and bokeh performance
- Takes killer portraits
Cons:
Sigma E-Mount Lenses for Sony a6000
In this section, we’ll explore some of the best Sigma lenses for Sony E-mount cameras, including the a6000. While they’re capable of brilliant portrait photos, they can also do so much more.
Sigma 30mm F/1.4 Lens
If you need an affordable lens that can take some great basic portraits, this 30mm Sigma might be for you. In our opinion, it strikes a perfect balance of price, performance, and portability.
The 9 rounded aperture blades on this product make it fairly easy to achieve the blurred backdrop effects featured in most portrait photos. Add this to the fact that this lens delivers much better optical results than you might expect and you’re looking at a seriously compelling package.
The 30mm format makes this a decent candidate for an everyday travel and street photography lens. We’re big fans of this one.
Pros:
- Great balance of price, performance, and portability
- Decent travel lens
- Lovely portrait results
Cons:
- Video performance is just ok
Sigma 56mm E-Mount Prime Lens
We’re big fans of this prime Sigma lens. Its autofocus performance in particular caught our attention. Your subjects will come into razor-sharp focus in mere fractions of a second. The E-mount functionality of this lens means it plays nicely with Sony’s legendary tracking features.
When taking portrait photos, features like facial recognition and focus tracking can make the job significantly easier. If you regularly take advantage of Sony’s auto modes, this lens is worth considering.
For a full-frame lens, this thing is surprisingly portable. You won’t think twice about throwing this into your kit bag with the rest of your gear. Overall, this is a fantastic Sigma lens that will serve you well when taking portraits.
Pros:
- Plays nicely with Sony’s focus tracking features
- Surprisingly lightweight
- Excellent autofocus and overall sharpness
Cons:
- More expensive than other options on this page
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Sigma 16mm f/1.4 E-Mount Lens
The 16mm focal length of this lens will be a touch smaller than some people will be used to. It does, however, offer plenty of opportunities to get creative with your portrait shots. One thing that really stands out to us about this model is its low-light performance.
The large f/1.4 aperture of this Sigma means that your shots will still look lovely, even if your lighting isn’t perfect. If you’re a fan of impromptu portraits on the fly, the low-light results here might impress you.
Like other options on this page, this Sigma lens works flawlessly with features like Sony’s hybrid autofocus and tracking features. You should always try to take full advantage of your camera wherever possible, so compatibility like this is great to see.
Pros:
- Fully E-mount compatible (hybrid autofocus included)
- Strong low-light performance
- Creative portrait opportunities
Cons:
- Bokeh results could be better
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Macro Lens for Sony a6000 portraits
What about macro photography with your Sony a6000? This section contains a couple of our favourite macro lenses for this fantastic camera. Macros can deliver phenomenal results for portrait photos.
While you’ll want something else for full-body images, it’s hard to argue with the stunning sharpness of macros for headshots and close-up portraits.
Check out our Macro Guide here.
Sony SEL30M35 f/3.5
The 1:1 magnification ratio of this lens guarantees true macro results. Within the context of portrait photography, this means your models will be sharply in focus at close distances. The impressively lightweight and compact build of this lens makes it a refreshingly portable accessory for your camera.
One thing we love about this product is its simplicity. It’s designed to deliver great macro results and it achieves this flawlessly. If you want an accessory that can also help you take stunning images of insects, plants, and other close-up subjects, this option is well worth considering.
The lens-based OIS on this model does a brilliant job and chromatic aberration is very well addressed in this product’s design. It gets a huge thumbs up from us.
Pros:
- Super portable
- Great macro results
- Very little distortion or aberration
Cons:
Venus Laowa 65mm f/2.8 Macro
The design of this option from Venus Laowa is a little different from traditional macro lenses in that it can focus “from infinity to 2x magnification”. In layman’s terms, this means it offers a wealth of versatility when it comes to macro photography.
For your portrait shoots, this will likely give you more flexibility when working. No matter what kind of photography you’re doing, this lens delivers outstanding sharpness, with color accuracy that’s seriously impressive in our opinion.
While this lens is a touch bigger than some of the other options on this page, it’s still nice and lightweight for shooting on the go. This is a brilliant macro lens that will do a great job when fitted to your a6000.
Pros:
- Super sharp with excellent color accuracy
- Lightweight and relatively portable
- Focuses from infinity to 2x magnification for versatile macro performance
Cons:
- Fully manual – not ideal for newbies
Zeiss Lens for Sony a6000
Last, but certainly not least, is this Zeiss shooter. For our money, it’s the best lens the brand makes for Sony E-mount cameras. Read on to learn why.
Zeiss maintains a killer reputation for producing some of the best lenses money can buy. You don’t have to spend long with this a6000 lens to see why. It offers incredible image quality with staggeringly high contrast results.
The robust, weatherproof construction should serve you well no matter where you choose to take your portrait photos. The name of the game here is versatility. This thing can handle virtually anything you throw at it.
Whether you’re taking portrait photos, nature shots, or something else entirely, this option is unlikely to let you down.
Pros:
- Amazing optical performance
- Fully E-mount compatible
- Killer autofocus
- Great for portraits
Cons:
- The most expensive option on this page
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Related
Conclusion
We hope this page has helped you to begin narrowing down your search. Remember that if a lens doesn’t mention E-mount compatibility, it might not work with your a6000. When in doubt, you can always use Amazon’s handy ConfirmedFit checker.
Whichever lens you choose, we hope it helps you take amazing portraits!
