The Sony E 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ OSS is an E-mount zoom lens that's frequently bundled as a kit lens with several Sony NEX-series compact system cameras such as the NEX-6. Designed for APS-C sensors, the lens features a field of view range equivalent to a 24-75mm lens on a 35mm camera, covering a healthy span of wide to short-telephoto focal lengths in a small, compact size. This lens isn't a ''constant'' lens, in that as you increase the focal length, both the maximum and minimum aperture sizes decrease. The following table reflects the aperture changes as you zoom: Focal length 16mm 35mm 50mm Max. aperture ƒ/3.5 ƒ/5.6 ƒ/5.6 Min. aperture ƒ/22 ƒ/32 ƒ/36 The lens features built-in electronic optical image stabilization, as well as a new electronic zooming mechanism controlled using a "wide-to-tele" toggle switch reminiscent of a camcorder's zoom button. The Sony lens also features a single rotating ring that functions either as a traditional zoom ring or as a focusing ring depending on the shooting mode of the camera. Both focusing and zooming on this lens are electronically controlled. Image stabilization is controlled via the camera as well. The lens is not compatible with a lens hood, but does accept 40.5mm lens filters, and ships with front and rear caps. Sharpness At 16mm and f/3.5, the Sony E 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ OSS is fairly soft in the corners and across much of the frame, but the very center of the frame remains fairly sharp. As you stop down, f/5.6 and f/8 appear to be the sweet spot with the largest center area of sharpness; however, the far corners still remain relatively soft. Zoomed in to 35mm, overall sharpness improves, and at f/8, the corners start to look pretty good, although still not tack sharp. At 50mm, you'll see the best results at f/8. Based on the numbers, the best results overall are at 35mm at f/8. Strangely, at 16mm at f/8, we saw the largest difference between sharpness at the center vs. the corners. The center of the frame was quite sharp, but the corners, conversely, were very soft. This is unusual in our experience; normally sharpness becomes more uniform across the frame as you stop down. At all focal lengths, once you stop down to f/16 and beyond, diffraction limiting sets in, and you'll begin to see significant loss in image sharpness. Chromatic Aberration Chromatic Aberration appears very well-controlled on the Sony 16-50mm. At both 35mm and 50mm, there is very little difference between CA in the extreme corners of frame vs. the overall average. We do see more CA in the corners at the 16mm focal length, with a slight increase at f/8, but the CA is still quite low for a wide-angle zoom lens. CA is however suppressed by the camera body by default in JPEGs, and during RAW conversion via an embedded lens profile which cannot be disabled in Adobe Camera Raw. Shading (''Vignetting'') Wide open at 16mm, the Sony lens suffers from pretty severe vignetting, with the corners being more than 1-stop darker than the center of the frame. At f/16-22, we still saw light loss in the corners, at just shy of 0.75-stops. At 35mm and 50mm, vignetting levels are almost identical, with less than a half-stop of light loss in the corners at f/5.6. At all focal lengths, as the aperture is stopped down, vignetting decreases. Distortion Lens design is a juggling act, and optical engineers have to decide how to trade off between sharpness, CA, shading (“vignetting”) and distortion. The ability to correct for some of these shortcomings in the camera, post-capture means that lens designers can allow some parameters to drift, and in the process achieve better results in the other areas. This is common practice for Micro Four Thirds lenses, but the Sony 16-50mm is the first example of this at work we've seen in an E-mount lens, however it probably won't be the last. The uncorrected RAW files show really dramatic amounts of geometric distortion, that's corrected-out by the NEX cameras in their in-camera JPEGs. At the wide end, we see truly dramatic distortion, with no less than 3.3% barrel distortion in the corners at 16mm. It's literally off our charts. The average amount of distortion over the entire frame is just over 1.5%. As noted, the in-camera JPEG processing does a significant amount of distortion correction, producing almost perfectly-corrected images. If you shoot RAW photos, though, you'll see a big difference between those compared to straight-from-the-camera JPEGs, unless your RAW converter applies a lens profile to correct it automatically. There is not an option to turn off this in-camera correction for JPEGs, at least on any current Sony NEX bodies. Once you zoom to 35mm, distortion is reduced greatly, and the corners look very similar to the average. At 50mm, the average distortion across the entire frame is very close to zero, while there is a bit of pincushion distortion (less than 0.5%) at the edges of the frame. Autofocus Operation The Sony 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ OSS lens can focus very quickly -- it only takes about a second to go through the full range from minimum focus distance to infinity. When shooting with this lens, autofocus felt very fast, quick and it locked onto targets easily. Macro This lens isn't specifically built for macro, with maximum magnification of 0.215x and a minimum close-focusing distance of around 9.8 inches. Build Quality and Handling The E 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ OSS lens is quite small and compact at just 117 grams (4.13 oz.) and measuring just a bit over 1-inch when retracted. When the camera is powered on, the lens automatically extends to nearly double its length. It fits nicely on a Sony NEX-6, feels nicely balanced, and is fairly compact, particularly when powered off. It's not heavy or bulky at all. When stored away, this lens and camera combo could easily be put in small bag, cargo pants pockets or a large coat pocket. (If you carried the two separately, though, they could easily fit in regular pants pockets.) The exterior of the lens is plastic with a smooth, glossy black finish. The lens mount is metal, as is the single dual-function zoom/focus ring. The only button or switch on the lens is the powerzoom slider switch on the left side (think 7 to 9 o'clock position). There are no focal lengths marked, nor is there a manual focusing/depth of field scale. Inside the barrel sit 9 lens elements in 8 groups, with one ED and four aspherical elements. The aperture mechanism has 7 blades for a fairly circular aperture. The zoom/focusing ring is about 3/8th inch wide and has an array of small ribs for texture. Very little force is necessary to turn the ring; it's easy to rotate with one finger. The zoom/focus action is very smooth, and rotates indefinitely, as zooming and focusing are electronically controlled. While focusing or zooming, the front element of the lens doesn't rotate, so filters such as circular polarizers work fine. The lens does extend during zooming, though, about 1/4th of an inch. The Sony 16-50mm is equipped with Sony's Optical SteadyShot image stabilization technology, which worked quite well. See our IS Test tab for more details on this. ALTERNATIVES There are very few other options for E-mount lenses, particularly those that feature similar specs to the Sony 16-50, such as autofocus and electronic controls. There is the Tamron 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 Di III VC, which provides a similar wide-angle focal length, but offers a much higher telephoto range (as well as size, weight and price). It also features image stabilization technology. The other option would be to forgo the zoom lens, and buy a set of prime lenses. Sigma makes a set of E-mount prime lenses: 19mm f/2.8, 30mm f/2.8 and 60mm f/2.8, and there's also the recently announced (as of this writing) Carl Zeiss Touit series of primes: 12mm f/2.8, 32mm f/1.8 and 50mm f/2.8 (not yet released). These would allow you to have a similar range of focal lengths with much wider apertures, but at the expense of more lenses to carry and a much higher price. CONCLUSION The Sony E 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ OSS is a compact and inexpensive kit zoom lens that produces decent results, although it suffers from heavy barrel distortion at wide angles and produces images that are only super-sharp at the center. That said, it does better than most kit lenses, to the point that you may not feel the need to immediately rip it off and replace it with something better. It's a very serviceable shooter. The big selling points here are its compactness as well as the powerzoom and image stabilization features, both of which come in handy for video shooting. Product Photos Sample Photos The VFA target should give you a good idea of sharpness in the center and corners, as well as some idea of the extent of barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, while the Still Life subject may help in judging contrast and color. We shoot both images using the default JPEG settings and manual white balance of our test bodies, so the images should be quite consistent from lens to lens. As appropriate, we shoot these with both full-frame and sub-frame bodies, at a range of focal lengths, and at both maximum aperture and ƒ/8. For the ''VFA'' target (the viewfinder accuracy target from Imaging Resource), we also provide sample crops from the center and upper-left corner of each shot, so you can quickly get a sense of relative sharpness, without having to download and inspect the full-res images. To avoid space limitations with the layout of our review pages, indexes to the test shots launch in separate windows. SonyE 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ OSS SELP1650Sony E 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 PZ OSS SELP1650 User Reviews7.9/10average of 13 review(s) Build Quality7.4/10 Image Quality7.5/10
9 out of 10 pointsand recommended by Gatorowl (5 reviews) Compact size, excellent sharpness through 30mm, fast AF Severe distortion at wide angles, noticeable vignetting, weak at 50mm This is my first Nex lens and camera. It was part of the Nex 6 kit. I have experience with both Canon and Nikon DSLRs and this kit lens ranks well with those. What sets this lens apart is its amazingly compact size. The Sony is truly pocketable (albeit, it needs to be a large pocket) with this lens. I can carry the camera in a sleeve or my fanny pack when I go for a ride. The lens is a marvel of engineering. It expands when powered on and collapses when powered off. It takes a little time--maybe half a second each way--, but it doesn't bother me. Do remember to power off the camera before switching lenses otherwise the lens will remain in its expanded state. AF is fast and pretty accurate. It locks quickly and suredly to its target. This contrasts with the e-mount 50mm lens, which has a habit of hunting. If you shoot jpg the IQ is phenomenal due to the automatic lens correction. If you shoot Raw, you will need to deal with the heavy distortion and vignetting wide open. The distortion is almost cartoonish (4-5% or perhaps greater?), and the vignetting is heavy. However, there is now a Lightroom profile that deals with this problems nicely. The lens is actually 13-14mm wide open, so after correction, you do get a true 16mm. Sharpness and contrast are on par with the best lens I have used through 30mm (e.g., I have used Nikon 14-24mm Sigma 17-50mm, and Canon 10-22mm). However, at 50mm, look elsewhere for critical shots. Sharpness and contrast drop off considerably, and the difference from primes at the FL is substantial. However, it is still serviceable. For most shooting at normal (non-pixel peeping) sizes, differences are acceptable. For a collapsable kit lens that finally delivers on the Nex promise of compactness, I am extremely happy with this lens. It is stellar over the focal lengths that are most important to my shooting. YMMV. |