After long time contemplating rather to buy and invest in this expensive option I have purchased the Sony SEL e mount zoom 18-200 mm. This review is less mechanical and more of my impressions on this lens. I have moved to Sony Nex-5 after years of using both Canon and Nikon bodies, because of size and it was the first camera enable me to shoot Panoramic sweep in digital. After having a long zoom lens in canon the 24-300 I missed the option to walk with a full zoom in the street and capture moments further away from me. Had to adopt the saying if the photo is interesting your not close enough that meant getting closer with the 16mm was not always an option.
The zoom is lighter and smaller then I imagined, It is the same size of any normal 30 mm zoom maybe a bit thicker but nothing to trouble me while walking around. It has a lock option knob to lock it on the wider zoom, after walking a while I found the reason for it. if the camera hang on the strap the lens zoom eventually fully open. No big deal but that almost triple the length of the lens and if you are not aware you may easily hit it with something. It is missing any external marking of manual focusing which make it more versatile I guess for turning endlessly on either side for working with auto focus, but would be a nice touch for a street shorter from the chest level to choose his distance. A big help is build in the hardware to jump x14 to help with focusing. I change the focusing area to a spot area and use a lot a point half click, adjust the frame and full click.
Another strange flow is some time the lens f is not recognizable giving a -- instead of numbers to solve it either I turn off and on the camera or unlock and re lock the lens to the body. Not sure if it a problem in my lens or the body. Might be a problem specifically with my equipment. Will be happy to hear from you if you have the same issues. That was also the problems of causing the lens to unfocused. Once I figured that out the lens works perfectly fine.
Lots of people complained about the time it takes to focus I find only on the full zoom some problems focusing and if I widen the zoom sharp image appearing and then zoom in again. I like the wide option of the lens and with the option of setting my speed to a fixed speed and letting the camera choose aperture and iso I find it extremely helpful in street photos.
zoom test from maximum wide to full zoom.
A zoom test with stops in the middle.
The lens is not balance if you are holding the body only, but once you hold the lens with your left hand and holding the camera grip just to snap or to adjust while your zooming it is well balance and the grip is great. I found this very helpful when I shot video with it and manually focusing.
Video shot in Central park. fixed zoom and manual focusing.
Evening and indoor I have seen it working fine. grain is not an issue for me in a snap photos I am doing in the street or at home. Usualy in door I shot with the wider option so I have a better aperture options. Raw photography always work well for me.
As a pamoramic freak I had to see if I need to carry my 16mm or could use my zoom. For most of my panoramic it is working fine, and was able to even produce 3D panoramic as well as regular once.
The depth of field is getting shorter by the zoom and I find this very appealing in head shots and some creative perspective of shooting. this lens did not trouble me much with darker corners or a shifting to red. I am sure is there on some value like every compromise of zoom. but with raw shooting I can fix most of the troubling issues if I need to. I had worse lenses that I have made great results. With this lens I was not trouble much by those issues. I know that for this price range people expect more. But I have paid in the past triple then this to get the same results on a full frame camera. so I am not sure it is such a bad investment for your money. With my experience when you resell the lens you can get about two third of the investment back and that make it worth much more then renting or dreaming of buying but never full fill you need.
In genral a great option for me. I am looking forward to use it a lot.
The zoom is lighter and smaller then I imagined, It is the same size of any normal 30 mm zoom maybe a bit thicker but nothing to trouble me while walking around. It has a lock option knob to lock it on the wider zoom, after walking a while I found the reason for it. if the camera hang on the strap the lens zoom eventually fully open. No big deal but that almost triple the length of the lens and if you are not aware you may easily hit it with something. It is missing any external marking of manual focusing which make it more versatile I guess for turning endlessly on either side for working with auto focus, but would be a nice touch for a street shorter from the chest level to choose his distance. A big help is build in the hardware to jump x14 to help with focusing. I change the focusing area to a spot area and use a lot a point half click, adjust the frame and full click.
Another strange flow is some time the lens f is not recognizable giving a -- instead of numbers to solve it either I turn off and on the camera or unlock and re lock the lens to the body. Not sure if it a problem in my lens or the body. Might be a problem specifically with my equipment. Will be happy to hear from you if you have the same issues. That was also the problems of causing the lens to unfocused. Once I figured that out the lens works perfectly fine.
Lots of people complained about the time it takes to focus I find only on the full zoom some problems focusing and if I widen the zoom sharp image appearing and then zoom in again. I like the wide option of the lens and with the option of setting my speed to a fixed speed and letting the camera choose aperture and iso I find it extremely helpful in street photos.
zoom test from maximum wide to full zoom.
A zoom test with stops in the middle.
The lens is not balance if you are holding the body only, but once you hold the lens with your left hand and holding the camera grip just to snap or to adjust while your zooming it is well balance and the grip is great. I found this very helpful when I shot video with it and manually focusing.
Video shot in Central park. fixed zoom and manual focusing.
Evening and indoor I have seen it working fine. grain is not an issue for me in a snap photos I am doing in the street or at home. Usualy in door I shot with the wider option so I have a better aperture options. Raw photography always work well for me.
As a pamoramic freak I had to see if I need to carry my 16mm or could use my zoom. For most of my panoramic it is working fine, and was able to even produce 3D panoramic as well as regular once.
The depth of field is getting shorter by the zoom and I find this very appealing in head shots and some creative perspective of shooting. this lens did not trouble me much with darker corners or a shifting to red. I am sure is there on some value like every compromise of zoom. but with raw shooting I can fix most of the troubling issues if I need to. I had worse lenses that I have made great results. With this lens I was not trouble much by those issues. I know that for this price range people expect more. But I have paid in the past triple then this to get the same results on a full frame camera. so I am not sure it is such a bad investment for your money. With my experience when you resell the lens you can get about two third of the investment back and that make it worth much more then renting or dreaming of buying but never full fill you need.
In genral a great option for me. I am looking forward to use it a lot.
