LensTip.com

Cons: - Picture quality. Picture quality and again, picture quality or the lack of it: Take a RAW at wide angle and you\'ll understand that without the most massive in-camera software correction ever seen that lens is almost unusable at 16mm: strange distortion and heavy vignetting, soft corners - Lack of sunshade and weird 40.5mm filter diameter calling for an adapter (49 thread would have been doable too - why didn\'t they?) - Electric Zoom for still photography is rather annoying

Pros: In this lens Sony maximized the compromises to an extent I have never seen in a lens before: - Kit lens, must therefore be cheap in production. Still, the build quality is quite decent - Size and weight: one of the very few \"collapsible\" lenses making this lens most likely the most compact kit lens for mirrorless around and thanks to the happy plastic very light too - Video capability: thanks to the OSS and the electric Zoom very decent video usage. Noise from Zoom and Focus is rarely impacting the Audio recording if at all - Wide angle of 16mm (24 in 35mm world) is not that common for a kit lens - The lens is also very usable in Infrared (although other cheap kit lenses also have this capability)

Summary: Looks like this lens never made it to be tested by lenstip - I\'d love to see a test from lenstip on this lens! This kit lens is an impressive package which tries to serve everyone and therefore serves none in a decent way. It stayed mostly at home while other lenses performing better for a specific purpose made it into my bag instead: the 10-18 for even wider shots and better picture quality, a 40-year old manual 50/1.4 for gazillions better bokeh capability etc. etc. It only succeded to be rarely used on my NEX-5R and NEX-7 when weight and size was the only factor to consider or for home video with a NEX, where it really shines for the price as it gives good an silent (electric) zooming and the poor corner resolution does not matter much.

Cons: sharpness decreases hugely towards edges, indirect manual zoom (motor zoom)

Pros: Adds almost no size and weight to the camera, decent center sharpness

Summary: On the one hand focal lenght and size/weight are perfect for an everyday lens. On the other hand overall sharpness an especially the loss of sharpness towards the edges are a constant source of disappointment, especialy if you are into landscape and architecture photography. In combination with an alpha 5000/6000 etc. this lens is clearly the weak link of the system.

Cons: This first version is larger than the one reviewed above, 193g aluminum vs 116g for the current plastic fantastic. No power zoom, thankfully, as my videos will be manually pulled. I spotted some bluish CA, but the 6000 may prevent this, when I learn more about it.

Pros: I have had good sharpness and contrast with close ups of food using flash. That is a more reliable technique than using the camera's sharpening devices.

Summary: My lens was used, but in good shape because of the metal construction and a fine finish. I prefer it to the current version, and it will reside on my new a6000 until I find Sigma primes. I have plenty mf wide angles to keep me happy when I need 24mm or 28mm 0r 14mm f/2.8 I took it out for a spin today with the just opened 6000, and it was splendid. It goes into a coat pocket while I used a Canon 200mm f/4 FD. It focused perfectly (and fast!) on SUV's and pick ups zooming past me at 11 fps continuous.

Cons: Not so sharp

Pros: OSS, small,versatile

Summary: OK standard kit lens with OSS.