Most Helpful
LeicaBossLovesSony
From: New Jersey

It's a Zoom - what did you expect?

February 28, 2014
It's hard to describe how much I like the A7r - but one of the things that comes with it is that punishing 36MP sensor. I knew in my heart that a mid-level (but premium priced) zoom lens would not be perfect - but my hopes were high. Basically, it's an average peer to lenses like the Canon 24-105 f/4, 24-70 f/4, and Sony 16-50G. Shooting with the lens, a few things are very clear. First the BAD: 1) It is Not a bag of prime lenses. You will not see nearly the quality of the FE 35mm and 55mm lenses, or other system primes mounted via adapter 2) The distortion is extreme. The camera will try to correct this if you shoot JPG or process RAW in Sony software - but I use Adobe LR. The distortion is wild at 24mm and 70mm - you will see pixel smearing and lose field of view if you correct it. 3) The corners are very soft at 24mm - 28mm, no matter how you stop down. There is no way to improve that. If you resize down to 25-50% it looks a little better (as expected) 4) 70mm is not terribly sharp. Actually, you probably get about as much detail at 70mm as you would at 60mm or 55mm and cropping. This means, that you really have a very good 35-60mm zoom lens, and a kind of so-so 24-28mm and 60-70mm lens 5) Autofocus is rarely quite right - for critical focus I always have to use DMF to fine tune things The GOOD: 1) Center sharpness is great - and this is the part that matters most 2) The contrast and resulting colors are very good, almost Zeiss-like 3) The performance between 35mm and 55mm is excellent - like REALLY exxcellent, stop down just a little to get a very good sharpness across the frame 4) The optical stabilization is amazing. I'm shooting 50mm at 1/5sec with no problem. I'm loving it! Bottom line - this is a zoom lens. It's expensive, but fair considering the reasonable size. Don't expect miracles - it's a zoom lens. For what it is, it's an average and solid performer. I'm keeping it. If you don't need 24mm or aren't very particular, consider the kit lens. It's probably 70-80% as good and less than half the price.... Read More  Hide
marktherutherford
From: Oakland, CA, United States

Just OK

October 01, 2017
Bought this to replace the 16-55mm kit lens. I'm disappointed with the relatively small improvement for the cost. For a Zeiss lens I expected much better IQ compared to the kit lens- it is a modest improvement but should be much sharper especially in the corners.... Read More  Hide
Lorbizzzz

Good, but could be better

February 17, 2019
It's very sharp and it has very good auto-focus which makes it very useful for shooting with gimbal. It' also very robust. On the other hand it has very bad bokeh and also manual focus is almost impossible to use due to manual focus acceleration which can not be turned off.... Read More  Hide
From: Tupelo, MS, USA

It's just OK

April 23, 2015
I love this focal range but not this lens. I'm shooting at ISO's of 500 and 800 and I'm still getting noisy images, way more noise than I feel one should get at these ISO's. At this price I'm disappointed with it overall as it is not nearly as sharp as my ancient Nikkor 28-70 f/2.8 D lens which I bought used two years ago at $200 less than what this one cost. It just doesn't perform nor give me the Image Quality I desire and at this price I feel that it should offer better. It could have something to do the a6000 I'm using the lens on too. If you hold the lens in one hand and the grab camera with the other just as you when shooting, you can feel a slight give back and forth between the lens and the camera. At least once or twice during shoot I've done the camera drops the aperture setting as if there is no lens connected any longer and a slight turn between the two as mentioned above bring the lens back to life on the camera. I've also heard the squealing near 70mm today as if it was stuck in a rut trying to focus. I zoomed moved the focal ring all the way to 70 and the squealing continued, so I moved the focal ring back towards 24 and it stopped thankfully. So yes I seem to have an issue with the lens and or the camera I own which is why I give this lens the rating I do but I've also read numerous review about this lens and not praised as a top performer at all so until a better one is released this is what you'll have to accept, well I hope that you won't have the issues I'm having.... Read More  Hide
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