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Sony E 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS (Sony NEX) - Review / Re-Test |
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Lens Reviews -
Sony NEX
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Review by Klaus Schroiff, published March 2012
Special thanks to Dieter Scherk for providing this lens for testing!
Note: We have re-used some portions of the old review for obvious reasons.
Introduction
The Sony E 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS is the standard kit zoom lens sold with Sony NEX cameras. This is actually a re-test based on the Sony NEX 7 - we already did so before based on the NEX 5 where the lens performed reasonably well. It will be interesting to see how it can cope with the 24 megapixel sensor this time. The lens covers the usual range from wide-angle to a moderate tele with an equivalent field-of-view of a 27-83mm full format lens.
"Kit" zoom lenses have a rather bad reputation regarding their build quality due to the use of cheap plastic and a rather "laissez-faire" clearance between the inner lens tube and the outer lens body. However, the Sony lens is an exception to the rule here. Surprisingly Sony used mag-alloy for the lens body as well as the focus ring and everything's just as tight here as it should be. The inner lens tube (made of plastic) wobbles a little bit though. Typical for such lenses it extends when zooming towards the long end of the zoom range. The front element does not rotate so it remains easily possible to use polarizers.
The AF performance is pretty good for a contrast detection system (albeit highly dependent on the base camera). AF operations are basically noiseless. Manual focusing works "by wire" so the focus ring is not directly coupled to the focus gears but to the AF motor. DMF ("Direct Manual Focusing" in Single Shot AF mode) is supported. OSS ("Optical Steady Shot") is Sony's lens-based image stabilization mechanism. It seems to be on par with the Canon and Nikon variants (better than Panasonic's OIS).
| Specifications |
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| Equiv. focal length | 27-83 mm (full format equivalent) |
| Equiv. aperture | f/5.3-f/8.4 (full format equivalent, in terms of depth-of-field) |
| Optical construction | 11 elements in 9 groups, 4x aspherical surfaces |
| Number of aperture blades | 7 (rounded) |
| min. focus distance | 0.25 m (max. magnification ratio 1:3.3) |
| Dimensions | 62 x 60 mm |
| Weight | 194 g |
| Filter size | 49 mm (non-rotating) |
| Hood | petal-shaped, bayonet mount (supplied) |
| Other features | - |
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