Sony seems to have a well thought-out product strategy for their NEX series bodies, which are proving to be a big hit. But their lens strategy appears to be confusing. There is not a simple lens roadmap, but a mixture of lenses from different sources, some possibly designed inhouse by Sony, some with the Zeiss name (and inflated price premium for that name), and other lenses which appear to be made for Sony by specialty designers - producers. Most Sony NEX camera owners are not aware that Sony also makes a line of high end professional video cameras with the same sensor and e-mount lenses, which explains this in part. As a result Zeiss makes industrial quality cinema lenses in e-mount; $5k for the fixed focal lengths and $21K for the zooms. I bet those are cool.
But for the consumer NEX cameras, we see a scattered, overlapped offering in their list of ultra-wide e-mount lenses. The first kit lens offered by Sony was a compact 16mm f2.8. Then Sony offered an Ultrawide converter attachment for this (VDL-ECU1) which has an effective focal length about 12.5mm. These two, when attached together, are actually quite good optically, for a total price about 300 bucks if you got the 16 in a kit. In addition, there is the Fisheye Converter (ECL-ECF1) in the same series which has a 180° field (distorted) for just 129 more dollars.
Recently Sony came out with the 10-18 mm zoom, f4, with image stabilization, but quite expensive at $850; a completely different approach which almost certainly is designed and made by different people.
Having all of these at hand, I performed a direct image quality comparison. To compare the 10-18mm zoom to the 16mm, I set both to f4. When I added the Ultrawide I matched the field of view by setting the zoom to 12.5mm. I didn't bother to compare the Fisheye to the 10-18 mm zoom because the latter cannot match its field of view.
These were all JPEGs, not RAW. It is important to understand that modern lenses like both these Sony's are no longer just hunks of glass; they are designed to be used with the in-camera JPEG processing firmware, which undoes the inherent distortions found in most wide angle lenses, along with vignetting and chromatic aberration. For lens design, it is no longer so necessary to depend on the difficult correction of glass elements with additional glass elements, aspherics, etc., as has been the tradition for more than a hundred years. Lenses are now part software, and the manufacturers are all adopting this approach. The digital image processing can be observed directly on both these lenses when one is looking at the LCD image and then fires the shot - you'll watch as the replay image comes up, with the whole field visibly altered by software distortion correction. For this reason it would require a lot of skill and Photoshop time to do the same thing manually starting from the RAW images. The downside for users is that lenses can no longer be used on non-Sony cameras, even in manual mode with a mount adapter, because they will look terrible. But it's now a fact of life; JPEG's are the way these lenses are designed to be used, so that's how they should be evaluated.
A summary of my tests of the image quality from the 10-18mm zoom vs. the 16mm (including the converter) is that they are roughly comparable. If one is very picky and studies the finest details, the 16mm has a bit more chromatic aberration but overall may be just slightly nicer than the zoom. Surprisingly, the 16mm+Ultrawide converter images are very good. To look at performance in the corners, I made extra shots which focussed in the far corner because the field of wide angle lenses is not flat. This showed that, at f4, the 10-18 zoom is superior to the 16 in the corners, but it was a moderate difference. If stopped down to f8, the difference is less.
Which should you buy? Photographers on a budget should consider the "pancake" 16 mm plus the Ultrawide converter. Of course it's inconvenient to attach the converter if you are in a hurry, but the availability of the Fisheye is also a big plus and can't be matched by the 10-18 zoom. The 16 with two converters taken together constitute a rather brilliant and cost effective set and I don't know why Sony promotes them so little.
The 10-18mm zoom is a fine lens and superior to the 16mm but only moderately so. It costs three times as much as the 16+converter and is physically much larger. However, it's more convenient and quicker; having a zoom allows one to frame shots and optimize the sensor area. Also image stabilization, unusual on an ultra-wide, more than offsets the one-stop smaller aperture, permitting slower shutter speeds, and is very much worth having.
The 16 and 10-18 lenses are completely different designs - size, cost, convenience, operational quickness - but image quality is actually in roughly the same ballpark. If you can't decide, I recommend the 16mm plus the two converters. I put my NEX in movie mode with the Fisheye attached and walked around a party we were having, stopping for conversations and capturing the whole feel of the event - fantastic footage which would be difficult to record any other way.
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Excellent Lens if a Bit Pricey
I enjoy this lens as a versatile wide-angle tool to go with my A6400. It focuses quickly and exhibit decent corner-to-corner sharpness slightly stopped down. It feels solid in construction, with a metal skin over what I assume is a plastic frame. I find the stabilization quite useful, as you're not always taking pictures from a steady tripod - planes, trains, and automobiles! The stabilization also helps with low light shooting, where a slower shutter speed can be used to lower your ISO.The big downside of this lens is price. While its price seems to fluctuate within a $200 band, this lens is very expensive for an ultrawide APS-C lens. Other brands offer excellent crop sensor ultrawides for half or a third of the price. For this much, you would expect Sony to weather seal the lens, but no...Sony refuses to add weather resistance to their APS-C lenses regardless of the price. Also, while this lens is marginally brighter than those cheap peers (which are usually F4-5.6), you can get F2 or brighter ultrawide primes - often for a tiny fraction of what Sony charges for the lens.Overall this is an excellent travel and ultrawide lens - if you're willing to pay for it.
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- 41Danny1Reviewed in Canada on September 1, 2017
YouTuber Approved Lens!
Style: Lens onlyVerified Purchase - Ash AzrinReviewed in Singapore on September 10, 2020
Awesome lens.
Style: Lens onlyVerified Purchase
I was looking for a wide angle lens until I saw this lens. This lens is awesome if you like to photograph wide vistas. Pretty sharp too. Colors are nice. Lightweight and compact. Absolutely love it.Awesome lens.Ash Azrin
Reviewed in Singapore on September 10, 2020
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- SouleymaneReviewed in Canada on August 29, 2019
Amazing wide angle lens
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