Sony DT 16-50 mm f/2.8 SSM review - Vignetting

Have you rated your lenses yet?

Sony DT 16-50 mm f/2.8 SSM

25 April 2012

Arkadiusz Olech

8. Vignetting

The appearance of miniatures, shown below suggest unambiguously that we won’t speak in superlatives about the vignetting correction.

Our measurements confirm it. At the maximum relative aperture and at the shortest focal length the lens loses as much as 49% of light (-1.94 EV). Stopping down can help with fighting this aberration but to a not very satisfying degree. By f/4.0 the vignetting reaches a still significant level of 32% (-1.11 EV) and is still noticeable by f/5.6, where it reaches the value of 26% (-0.87 EV). By f/8.0, f/11 and f/16 the vignetting stops at the level of 19-21% and it doesn’t want to decrease any further.

Please Support Us

If you enjoy our reviews and articles, and you want us to continue our work please, support our website by donating through PayPal. The funds are going to be used for paying our editorial team, renting servers, and equipping our testing studio; only that way we will be able to continue providing you interesting content for free.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - advertisement - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

It’s worth reminding here that the results above are practically the same as those of the Tokina and the Pentax, which, at the maximum relative aperture and the widest angle, reached the values of 46-49%.

A noticeable improvement can be seen in the middle of the focal lengths range where, at the maximum relative aperture, the vignetting gets to 35% (-1.25 EV) and becomes low at f/4.0 where it decreases to the value of 18% (-0.58 EV). The problem disappears completely by f/5.6.

The worsening of the properties in this category you can witness at 50 mm. It its case by f/2.8 the light fall-off in the frame corners amounts to 41% (-1.52 EV) – significantly higher than in the case of the Tokina and the Pentax, which vignetting never exceeded 30%. The vignetting is still noticeable by f/4.0, where it reaches 21% (-0.69 EV) and it becomes not bothersome by f/5.6 and f/8.0 (13% and 7% respectively).

In this category the Sony fares worse than its competitors. As at the shortest focal length all lenses are equally bad but with the increase of the focal length the rivals improve their results more distinctly than the Sony 16-50 mm.