Sony in 2025: A year of BIG camera releases, amazing new lenses – and eye-watering prices!

Full-frame compacts, world-first telephotos, hybrid cine cameras – Sony has had an exciting and varied 2025. Over the past twelve months we saw some long-expected releases from the manufacturer, and some genuine surprises. It wasn’t the most groundbreaking and seminal year Sony has ever had, but one thing’s for sure – Sony’s 2025 was not boring.

While there were some affordable items on the menu, it has to be said that Sony’s 2025 was marked by cameras and lenses with wince-inducing price tags. With a full-frame compact that was aiming to eat Leica’s lunch, and a new format of lens aiming to supplant the professional standard of 70-200 f/2.8, this was mostly not a year to shop Sony on a budget.

As the year comes to a close, I’m going to cast my mind all the way back to the beginning, and take us on a tour of all the major cameras and lenses Sony has brought us this year. So, let’s get into it.

February 2025: Lenses long and short

Sony’s first major outing of the year, at the tail end of winter, was a pair of lenses that could in many ways be considered total opposites.

In one corner, we saw the arrival of the Sony FE 400-800mm f6.3-8 G OSS, a super-telephoto zoom that holds the crown of the longest telephoto zoom in the E-mount family to date, with monster reach that could be extended even further thanks to 1.4x and 2x teleconverter compatibility. Though it’s worth noting that when our own Mike Harris tried out this lens at The Photography & Video Show, he found it was less of an unwieldy beast than he expected, thanks to its internal zooming mechanism and handholdable 2,475g weight. Still, at $2,899.99 / £2,549.99 / AU$4,399.99, it was no small investment.

All this stood in very stark contrast to Sony’s other February release, the Sony FE 16mm f/1.8 G. An ultra-compact wide prime lens, this 16mm optic arrived measuring just 75mm in length, with a dual-motor autofocus system and the ability to focus at distances as close as 15cm. Substantially cheaper than the G Master 14mm f/1.8 at $799.99 / £850 / AU$1,899, the new optic proved a hit, making it onto B&H’s list of the trendiest lenses of 2025.

April 2025: The new professional telezoom?

Sony has released its share of trailblazing lenses over the years, but the new Sony FE 50-150mm f/2 GM released in April really grabbed our attention. This was the first time we’d seen a telephoto lens like this with a constant aperture of f/2, outstripping the f/2.8 lenses favored by professionals by a whole f/stop.

Could this be the new format for professional telezooms? Our lens expert Matthew Richards was hugely impressed by the lens in his Sony FE 50-150mm f2 GM review, praising its scintillating image quality, super-fast autofocus and well-engineered handling despite the considerable weight. Of course, at its price of $3,900 / £3,800 / AU$6,799, it’s a lens that’s firmly in the professional realm.

May 2025: Absolute cinema

Sony used May to beef up its cinema camera range, debuting the Sony FX2, its most affordable cine camera yet. Priced at $2,699 / £2,699 body-only, this was a cinema camera to tempt hybrid creators, offering a compact body with a lovely electronic viewfinder, capable autofocus and the stamina to record for long sessions.

In our Sony FX2 review, Gareth awarded it four stars out of five, praising its ergonomics and image quality while noting its limitations in certain areas: the lack of internal RAW and the crop on 4K 60p.

A quieter release in the cinema realm for Sony in May was the FX3A. Sony often brings out ‘A’ versions of its cameras, which are generally very minor updates that don’t merit the full pomp and circumstance of the major releases. Accordingly, the FX3A was essentially the same deal as the Sony FX3, only with a higher-resolution screen and a USB-C port.

July: It costs HOW much?!

A pleasant surprise arrived in July, as Sony re-entered the premium photo-focused compact camera market with a bang. The manufacturer took the wraps off the long-awaited Sony RX1R III, a full-frame successor to the RX1R II, which was by this point a decade old. Boasting a 61MP full-frame sensor paired with a Zeiss Sonnar T* 35 mm f/2 lens, the RX1R III benefited from the latest intelligent autofocus tech, and had an absolutely tiny build that made you wonder how on earth they crammed a full-frame sensor in there.

But then, of course, there came the price. At a starting price of $5,098 / £4,200 / AU$7,999, the RX1R III was firmly pitched as a premium Leica Q3-killer, rather than trying to compete with the likes of the Fujifilm X100VI or Ricoh GR IV. That is undeniably quite a tall order for most photographers, as James noted in our Sony RX1R III review. While he was hugely impressed with the camera, describing it as a ‘Swiss Army knife camera for street, travel, documentary and everyday photography’, both he and our commenters found the price tough to swallow.

December: The Next Generation

As December rolled around, Sony had one more treat in its sack of Christmas goodies. The full-frame A7 V, the latest model in the all-rounder full-frame A7 series for generalist shooters. Equipped with neither the monster high-resolution of an A7R, nor the low-light video prowess of an A7S, the A7 cameras have always been well-balanced, considered cameras that are pretty good at pretty much everything.

Sticking with a 33MP full-frame sensor, for this model Sony bet big on higher speeds, with a new partially stacked sensor to improve readout speeds, and a refreshed Bionz XR2 with its own separate AI unit to power intelligent autofocus.

When the A7 series debuted, they were the only full-frame cameras on the market. Now, more than a decade later, the A7 V is jostling against competition from the likes of the Canon EOS R6 Mark III, Nikon Z6 III, and Lumix S1 II. In our review, Gareth praised it for its improved handling compared to the previous A7 IV, describing it as ‘the best Sony camera in some time’, though noted that its video specs lagged behind the competition.

Like many Sony full-frame cameras, the Sony A7 V is so stuffed with professional-level features that it is probably overkill for many enthusiast shooters, who are likely priced out of it anyway – our own Hillary K. Grigonis described it as ‘a camera with an identity crisis’. Between this and the RX1R III, it’s been a year for the high end of Sony rather than the affordable. Will this continue to be the pattern for 2026? We’ll have to wait to find out!