Sony A7IV + Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II Portraits: Anna in San Francisco, Part Two — Baker Beach & the Legion of Honor

Part two of our San Francisco session with Anna. After the Golden Gate spot, we moved to two more locations: Baker Beach first, then the Legion of Honor for a completely different mood. Same model, same city, but the light and the architecture couldn't have been more different between the two.

This was also the first real test of the Sony FE 85mm F1.4 GM II on this site, shot on my Sony A7IV (Alpha 7 IV) — and it did not disappoint. The bokeh is genuinely some of the smoothest I've shot with, and wide open at f/1.4 it's sharp exactly where it needs to be, even against a bright, foggy beach sky where a lot of fast primes start to struggle.

Baker Beach

Overcast skies and wind — a lot of wind — but that's what gave these frames their movement. With the Golden Gate Bridge sitting soft in the background, the 85mm's compression flattens the whole scene into these long, hazy layers of sand, water, and steel.

FE 85mm F1.4 GM II · f/1.4 · 1/8000s · ISO 100 · Model: @anna.vsz

Further down the dune path, away from the bridge view, the light turned even softer under the marine layer — good for close, wind-blown portraits where the background just melts away.

FE 85mm F1.4 GM II · f/1.4 · 1/6400s · ISO 100 · Model: @anna.vsz

A few more from Baker Beach — more of the wind, the light, and the bridge in the background.

The Legion of Honor

From the beach we drove over to the Legion of Honor, and the whole feel of the shoot changed instantly. Anna switched into a black lace dress, and the museum's colonnade gave us this long, repeating line of columns — exactly the kind of leading-line composition I'd been wanting to shoot with this lens. The warm stone against the black dress did a lot of the work on its own.

FE 85mm F1.4 GM II · f/1.4 · 1/3200s · ISO 100 · Model: @anna.vsz

Here's the full, uncropped frame — this is really the shot that sold me on the location. The columns keep receding in that same rhythm all the way down the corridor, and even wide open at f/1.4 there's just enough sharpness holding the first few columns to anchor the composition before everything dissolves into that warm blur.

FE 85mm F1.4 GM II · f/1.4 · 1/2000s · ISO 100 · Full frame · Model: @anna.vsz

Shooting straight down that column line at f/1.4 is where this lens really showed off — every column past the one she's leaning on just falls away into soft light, no harsh edges, no busyness pulling focus off her.

FE 85mm F1.4 GM II · f/1.4 · 1/3200s · ISO 100 · Model: @anna.vsz

A few more from the Legion of Honor — more angles on that column line.

The FE 85mm F1.4 GM II

A few quick thoughts on the lens itself after two very different lighting setups in one afternoon:

• Still the smoothest bokeh I've gotten out of any lens on this site. No onion-ringing, no busy edges on the beach's blown-out background — just soft, even falloff.
• Sharp wide open. Both locations were shot at f/1.4 the entire time, and focus on the eyes stayed crisp in every frame, even against the beach's flat, foggy light.
• The column-line shots at the Legion of Honor are the best example of what this lens does with repeating background elements — it doesn't just blur them, it dissolves them evenly, so nothing competes with the subject.

Shop the Gear

• Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II — Amazon
• Sony A7IV — Amazon
• Sony 85mm F1.4 GM II — B&H
• Sony A7IV — B&H