Luminous Landscape tested the new Sony 10-18mm E-mount lens. And the usually very critical reviewer ends the review with that short sentence: “It is the best of the four super wide-angle zooms I’ve tried, and I consider it a keeper.”
Also a SAR readers tested the lens and sent me this email: “NEW images from the Sony 10-18mm f4 lens / NEX 7 at image shack album: http://imageshack.us/g/1/9887931/. Feel free to share the link on SAR. (The Watermark copyright is my own company). Initial impression of the lens are:
Excellent build quality, great balance on the NEX 7, surprisingly sharp corners even wide open, incredible depth of field, mild distortion at 10mm but easily correctable, excellent color and contrast. Bottom line, the is my new favorite lens for my NEX 7! (Even better than my 24mm CZ 1.8).”
Sounds good!
The new 10-18mm E-mount lens is in Stock at Amazon and Adorama and on eBay (via Slidoo).
38 Responses
for its price… it better be good -_-
Sony is trying to get in to photography market by using Cal Zeiss lens. After that they will ditch the Zeiss lens. Like other Sony camera do. For better photo you guys should buy Zeiss lens. Later if new Sony body comes, you can buy, So there is no waste buying Zeiss lens. To me Sony make cheap camera body. So buy it. I don’t like Sony Auto. When I select landscape mode, it select f4. don;t you think it silly. When doing photography go for image quality. if not just buy pocket camera will do.
The article does not claim it was the best wide-angle zoom ever tested, they said, and you quote correctly this time, “It is the best of the four super wide-angle zooms I’ve tried”. It is disingenuous to misquote them in the title like that.
It will also be nice to know which 4 UWAs they tested.
I agree, and was coming to the comments to post the same thing. Additionally, it seems the reviewer was comparing it to Sony Alpha options mounted via the adapter, not compared to Canon, Nikon or even m43 UWA zoom options.
That is probably because both the camera body and Lightroom are applying lens correction to the images shot on this lens (JPG and RAW respectively)
I have nothing against this if it means that we get cheaper, smaller lenses with high post-correction quality.
Played with this lens for 20min at a Sony store. Fell in love with it right away! This lens is no joke and is actually worth more than what Sony is asking for it. (I normally never say that about Sony products!)
Looks very good – game changer for the NEX system – a solid wide angle option.
Hmmm… Decision between NEX-6, E-M5 and XE1 just got harder…
We will gladly help you –> NEX-6
I have the Nex6, a wonderful camera!
Try it, you’ll like it.
I just wonder how its performance on nex5n?
How does…
“It is the best of the four super wide-angle zooms I’ve tried, and I consider it a keeper.”
become…
“best wide angle zoom ever tested”
???
It is indeed quite the exaggeration to go from article to blog entry title. 😛
I’m quite curious as to what those other three super wide-angle zooms were. I tried finding other M.D. Segal reviews within LL, to no avail.
I wondered the same thing, but he did reference that they were used with the la-ea2. Sony 11-18, Tokina 11-16, and Sigma 10-20mm would be my guesses.
I’m surprised that he didn’t mention that is a benefit to landscapers is the ability to accept filters. For MFT users, the 7-14 is awesome but doesn’t take filters, and the 9-18 just isn’t wide enough for some.
Or it could be the Sigma 8-16. In any case I would be impressed if it’s actually better than the Tokina 1116 or the Sigma 816.
Admin isn’t a native English speaker. Let’s just say what he read was lost in translation. When I read the title of the blog entry, I thought back to my old Nikkor 14-24/2.8 and thought, best ever, huh? I’ve seen amateur samples from the lens in dpreview, and they looked like crap. I had to read the review. I was severely disappointed that the LL review didn’t match SAR’s title. I’m going to pick one up and try it for myself. Take heed of LL’s recommendation and buy from a retailer that will allow returns. There might be QA variances in the lens samples. The ones in dpreview’s forums have looked horrible. There’s been quite a bit of disappointment from those amateur samples.
According to few user review, the lens seems very good. Planing to buy one to see how it performs.
OSS will be obsolete sooner or later. Hopefully Sony will implement IBIS in later NEX models.
This lens look so formiddable. It is probably the world best ever.
I tested NEX-6 + SEL1018 against Canon 7D + EF-S 10-22 in RAW+JPEG file formats shooting brick wall.
SEL1018 is a great lens. Vignetting is very minimal and can be ignored. Distortion is there, but much, much, much better than SELP1650, and can be reduced using software. NEX-6 does a great job correcting the distortion in JPEG files.
SEL1018 is optimized towards the short end. At 10, 12, and 14mm, SEL1018 made EF-S 10-22 look like trash (I really mean it). At 16mm SEL1018 is still better, but only a small amount. At 18mm, EF-S 10-22 is about 2 times better than SEL1018.
>> At 10, 12, and 14mm, SEL1018 made EF-S 10-22 look like trash (I really mean it).
I find such comments utterly useless because you have not given any details about the aspects in which you found SEL1018 to be superior at those FLs. Maybe I should assume that SEL1018 is prettier at those FLs?
>>At 18mm, EF-S 10-22 is about 2 times better than SEL1018.
Thats even more puzzling as I have no clue what it means for a lens to be 2 times better than the other. Does it give you two great shots in one go?
Gotta say i also thought the “best ever wide angle tested” headline was the wrong one for this story.
This reviewer is not a regular at LL, and according to his byline usually specialises in scanning.
Not that I’m discounting his review, but I wonder of Sonyalpharumors has also confused the guest reviewer with LL owner Michael Reimann when they say “usually very critical reviewer”.
The example pics don’t blow me away to be honest, but I’m open to be persuaded this is one stunning lens.
He put the words in quotes as to make it appears LL claimed that, which they did not. It’s either a case of lost in translation, or he is practicing yellow press for the sake of clicks. Either way, he really needs to be careful going forward.
f/4 is too slow. no wonder it’s sharp wide open–“wide open” is only f/4!
Fast ultrawide zooms are few and far between. It appears that Sony made the right compromises in this design. If they can come up with a 55-300mm analog to their A-mount offering, and assuming it’s a good performer and fairly compact, the lens offerings would be adequate for many (not all) people. Great job on this lens though.
f4 is good enough for a wide angle zoom IMHO 🙂
I wouldn’t cry if it were f5.6. I would use f8-f11 anyway 😉
Do you want 10-18mm/f2.8 with 77mm size?
Don’t forget NEX’s small body. At f4, this lens is big enough with 62mm front thread size.
If it was f/2.8 it would be:
– huge and heavy. “What use is a small camera if the lenses are so big? Sony sucks!”
– $2000+. “Wayyyy too expensive! Sony sucks!”
So, there’s always something to complain about.
This lens has a perfect balance between size, price, max aperture and quality 🙂
@pixelbart-I disagree. I think Sony made the range way too wide at the expense of a better f-stop. IMHO, they should have taken a cue from Tokina and limited the range to 11-16. Then they probably could have gotten at least an f3.5 and kept the size down. 10-18 is too versatile, and sacrifices the f-stop for more focal lengths.
Dude, I disagree! Sony makes some great stuff just Nikon and Canon and in my opinion Sony is a much better product. This lens is perfect fit with my NEX6 and a6000, it looks mean and attracts attention like ‘What kind of camera is that?!’
As for the price, i think it’s fair pricing compared to, again, Nikon and Canon. Now which one is overpriced? Sony? I think not! This lens is super sharp and who cares about the f/stop of 4? This lens is not meant to be for low light but for landscape, architecture, and heck…It is a versatile lens!
SONY, NIKON, CANON, and all are great stuff! PERSONAL PREFERENCE DUDE
You know many much faster UWAs? At best you’ll have f2.8. And with this one you have image stabilization and minimal weight.
I am waiting for zeiss 12 f2.8 I will be able to use it interior shoot .
So am I. That lens will be the ultimate wide angle for a steadicam. Too bad the Sigma’s won’t work with the LA-EA3 at this point. Otherwise you could use the 20mm f1.8 in full frame which would be about the same as 12mm in APS-C, but you would get the 1.8 speed.
The lens would be so huge I guess.
Does someone tested the lens with the Nex 7 ?
I really wanted to know if it gives good results, especially chromatic aberration
Another vote for fixing the title. The article never said it is the best UWA Zoom ever tested, it said that of the 4 UWA zoom that the author tried on NEX, this one is the best. And as others mentioned we don’t even know which were the other 3 zoom tried by him. So yes the title gives a very false impression of what the article says
I don’t exactly understand the praises on all Ultra-wide Emount lens. Unprocessed landscape photos on the Nex cameras using UltraWides don’t impress me.