CAMERA

Sony SEL 10-18mm f/4 OSS Lens Review

7/24/2013 9:31:32 AM

Sony SEL 10-18mm f/4 OSS is a wide angle zoom lens for Sony NEX camera.

A wide – angle zoom lens for the Sony NEX camera offers a quite wide angle equivalent to 15-27mm lens on a 35mm camera. The lens can also be proud of its maximum aperture of f/4, image stabilization and the price of $1,062.

The wide-angle zoom lens for Sony NEX camera

The wide-angle zoom lens for Sony NEX camera

Handling and features

As it is built and designed typically for Sony’s E-Mount lenses, most of its barrel is made of high quality black plastics with a glossy finish and the lens mount is made of metal. For such wide-angle lens, it is incredibly lightweight, tipping the scales at 225g.

Fast and reasonable focus

Fast and reasonable focus

The lens features a reasonably fast auto focus, but sometimes, it still struggles to focus accurately. This is more obvious for subject with low contrast or in lowlight condition. The process of adjusting manual focus is also very comfortable as the damped manual focusing performs smoothly.

The minimum focus length is 25cm from the sensor plane, which means it is ideal for shooting in narrow space, or for making most of the distorted perspective wide angle lenses give when shooting in a close distance.

As the lens does the focus internally, the 62mm filter ring does not rotate, which makes the lens very suitable for use with graduated and polarizing filters. A standard petal-shaped lens hood is given, coming with the lens via a bayonet fitting.

Auto focus is performed internally

Auto focus is performed internally

Although there are main conflicts have been raised towards the usefulness of having optical image stabilization on a wide angle lens like this, this feature gives a little more leeway when shooting with slow shutter release speed. To be specific, in the speed ranges as low as half a second around half the time at 10mm and ¼ of a second at 18mm, sharp shots are likely.

Performance

At 10mm, we witness an excellent level of sharpness in the center of the frame at f/4, although that of the frame’s edges is a little bit disappointing by comparison, just falling off the good level. The sharpness across the frame would be significantly improved when stopping the aperture down to f/5, creating fabulous sharpness in the center and the edges’ clarity stops at excellent level.

The performance of aperture decreases considerably at 14mm, where the center’s clarity is just good and that towards the edges is fair. Stopping down to f/8 would bring a more improved performance with wonderful sharpness in the center and good for the edges’ clarity. At 18mm, the lens also works in the same way.

Resolution at 10mm

Resolution at 10mm

Resolution at 14mm

Resolution at 14mm

Resolution at 18mm

Resolution at 18mm

How to read the charts

Readings from the center of the frame in different apertures are represented by the blue columns and the green ones shows figures of the frame’s edges. The average of them is showed in the read columns.

The indicator of the real resolution is showed on the scale on the left. The higher the columns are, the better the lens performs, as simple as that.

For this review, the lens is tested on a Sony NEX-5R using Imatest.

It is recorded that chromatic aberrations are well controlled. Rarely does it exceed three quarter of a pixel width at any focal lengths and apertures. It just exceeds 0.75 pixel width for the edges’ clarity at 14mm. This level seems to be visible only along the high contrast edges towards the frame’s edges.

Chromatic aberration at 10mm

Chromatic aberration at 10mm

Chromatic aberration at 14mm

Chromatic aberration at 14mm

Chromatic aberration at 18mm

Chromatic aberration at 18mm

The inability of the lens to focus on the sensor or record all color of visible light at the same point is called chromatic aberration. The stronger it is, the clearer the fringing or the halo effect around sharp edges of the photo is. These effects can be eliminated by software.

Apochromatic lens owns special lens element (aspheric, extra-low dispersion etc.) can be used to minimize this issue. That is why they are normally very expensive.

For this review, the lens is tested on a Sony Nex-5R using Imatest.

It seems that declination of illumination towards the frame’s corners is clearer than expected for such wide-angle lenses. At f/4 and 10mm, the corners are recorded to be 2.29 stops darker than the center and this level reduces to 1.86 stops at 18mm. Even when the lens is stopped down to f/11, it is still likely to catch some darkness in the far corner of some shots. The illumination seems to never be visually consistent across the whole frame.

For such lenses, the control of distortion is very good with only 0.298% barrel distortion showed at 10mm and 0.219% pincushion distortion recorded at 18mm. This distortion can easily be fixed by image editor software, as it is uniform across the frame.

The lens hood fulfills its mission to shield the lens from extremely strong light properly, preventing the probability of getting flare. However, the lens is able to resist the flare and retains good contrast when shooting into the light even without this hood.

Sample photos

Wide angle | 1/250 sec | f/6.3 | 10.0 mm | ISO 100

Wide angle | 1/250 sec | f/6.3 | 10.0 mm | ISO 100

Telephoto | 1/250 sec | f/6.3 | 18.0 mm | ISO 100

Telephoto | 1/250 sec | f/6.3 | 18.0 mm | ISO 100

Closest focus is 25cm | 1/160 sec | f/4.0 | 18.0 mm | ISO 100

Closest focus is 25cm | 1/160 sec | f/4.0 | 18.0 mm | ISO 100

Shooting without the hood, the lens is still able to resist flare | 1/250 sec | f/4.0 | 10.0 mm | ISO 100

Shooting without the hood, the lens is still able to resist flare | 1/250 sec | f/4.0 | 10.0 mm | ISO 100

1/60 sec | f/4.0 | 10.0 mm | ISO 125

1/60 sec | f/4.0 | 10.0 mm | ISO 125

1/100 sec | f/5.6 | 17.0 mm | ISO 100

1/100 sec | f/5.6 | 17.0 mm | ISO 100

1/125 sec | f/4.0 | 10.0 mm | ISO 100

1/125 sec | f/4.0 | 10.0 mm | ISO 100

1/160 sec | f/6.3 | 10.0 mm | ISO 100

1/160 sec | f/6.3 | 10.0 mm | ISO 100

Value

Looking at the price tag of $1062, many people might expect better performance at the maximum aperture than what this lens actually provides.

Like an alternative selection, those who own a Sony NEX system should also consider the Sony’s A-mount 11-18mm, which costs about $607 and can use a NEX camera with the suitable adapter. Making an extra payment for the adapter might only be rational for those who have already had one of the A-mount lenses, and the result would be a bulky system, worthwhile.

Conclusion

As long as the limit of the lens is kept in its user’s mind, this lens will be able to create wonderfully high-quality shots.

However, it is such a shame that the maximum aperture between 14mm and 18mm does not achieve the same standard as when the lens is stopped down.

Advantages

·         Good built quality

·         Performances are good when stopping down the lens

·         Lightweight for a wide-angle lens

·         Less distortion

Disadvantages

·         Fair performance at the maximum aperture between 14 and 18mm

·         Some issues occurring in focusing accurately under lowlight conditions and bad contrast

Verdicts

·         Features: 4.5/5

·         Handling: 4.5/5

·         Performance: 3/5

·         Value: 3/5

·         Overall: 3.5/5

Specifications

General

·         Lens mounts: Sony E Mount

Lens

·         Focal length: 10mm – 18mm

·         Angle of view: 76 – 109 degrees

·         Max aperture: f/4

·         Min aperture: f/22

·         Filter size: 62mm

·         35mm equivalent: 15mm – 27mm

·         Internal focusing: yes

Focusing

·         Min focus: 25cm

·         Stabilization: yes

Construction

·         Blades: 7

·         Elements: 10

·         Groups: 8

Box contents

·         Box contents: Front and rear caps, Lens hood

Dimensions

·         Weight: 225g

·         Height: 63.5mm

 

Other  
 
Top 10
Review : Sigma 24mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art
Review : Canon EF11-24mm f/4L USM
Review : Creative Sound Blaster Roar 2
Review : Philips Fidelio M2L
Review : Alienware 17 - Dell's Alienware laptops
Review Smartwatch : Wellograph
Review : Xiaomi Redmi 2
Extending LINQ to Objects : Writing a Single Element Operator (part 2) - Building the RandomElement Operator
Extending LINQ to Objects : Writing a Single Element Operator (part 1) - Building Our Own Last Operator
3 Tips for Maintaining Your Cell Phone Battery (part 2) - Discharge Smart, Use Smart
REVIEW
- First look: Apple Watch

- 3 Tips for Maintaining Your Cell Phone Battery (part 1)

- 3 Tips for Maintaining Your Cell Phone Battery (part 2)
VIDEO TUTORIAL
- How to create your first Swimlane Diagram or Cross-Functional Flowchart Diagram by using Microsoft Visio 2010 (Part 1)

- How to create your first Swimlane Diagram or Cross-Functional Flowchart Diagram by using Microsoft Visio 2010 (Part 2)

- How to create your first Swimlane Diagram or Cross-Functional Flowchart Diagram by using Microsoft Visio 2010 (Part 3)
Popular Tags
Microsoft Access Microsoft Excel Microsoft OneNote Microsoft PowerPoint Microsoft Project Microsoft Visio Microsoft Word Active Directory Biztalk Exchange Server Microsoft LynC Server Microsoft Dynamic Sharepoint Sql Server Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2012 Windows 7 Windows 8 Adobe Indesign Adobe Flash Professional Dreamweaver Adobe Illustrator Adobe After Effects Adobe Photoshop Adobe Fireworks Adobe Flash Catalyst Corel Painter X CorelDRAW X5 CorelDraw 10 QuarkXPress 8 windows Phone 7 windows Phone 8