[davidmanze]

The jury's "still"  out on this one;

 

 In spite of the graphs giving "near excellent resolution" stopped down at all focal lengths Ephotozone write:

 

"There is no doubt that this is a high quality optic, that delivers very high sharpness in the centre of the frame and sports excellent build quality and a useful optical stabiliser. However, the sharpness towards the edges of the frame isn't of the same standard as the centre and CA levels are higher than you might expect for a lens of this price"

 

My remark on their site is, their excellence levels are achieved far more easily than the majority of other test sites!

 

 I found the images soft at the edges, 

 

                  and the beat goes on..................we're not yet done with this baby!

[Royl]

I can't make my images with this lens look as bad as yours does. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough, or perhaps it's a distance thing. Are you sure you guys didn't drop that lens. I have always put a lot of faith in your reviews because you do it better than anybody. As for Sony service, I wouldn't put a lot of stock in their word about the condition of the lens. I think someone got a bad lens, got pissed off, and sent it to you.

[Royl]

PS: I'm not sending mine to you. I already have my lens, and I like it no matter what the photozone score. Maybe you could get another one from sSony because this is going to cost them some sales.

[Klaus]

PS: I'm not sending mine to you. I already have my lens, and I like it no matter what the photozone score. Maybe you could get another one from sSony because this is going to cost them some sales.

 

I suggest to read the review about the situation here - we BOUGHT the lens. We let them check it TWICE. We mentioned to the Sony service that we are a magazine and that there'll be a review. Thus where exactly is the flaw in the way we handled this ?

 

Now it's THEIR turn. We won't do anything further - we have done our part. If THEY contact us and replace the lens - fine. I may review it then once more. However, Photozone is not the marketing arm of the industry (as some other sites) thus we won't make them look good if they don't deserve it. The very last thing we care about is their sales. This is a site for customers. Customers receive such lenses from Sony. Customers send such lenses to the Sony service. And Customers have to live with such an outcome as you can see. So a website dared to put the finger into the wound - whether it relates to a poor design or abysmal service quality doesn't matter. THIS is the mission statement. Now what exactly is the problem again ?

[Scythels]

@Dave - both EPZ and photozone use imatest, so the "standard" is the same, however a difference in test configuration will produce very different results.  This is true of all testing methods.

[soLong]

…….we BOUGHT the lens. We let them check it TWICE. We mentioned to the Sony service that we are a magazine and that there'll be a review. Thus where exactly is the flaw in the way we handled this ?…..

 

….hmmm, prob might be that you’re living in Afailya now, formerly known as the land of Oz, where the man behind the curtain is pulling all our strings….

….now where were we….oh you can’t go wrong buying a Zeiss lens, they’re always money well spent, cough.

[Royl]

Wow. A thought just hit home for me. If I ever want to sell this lens it probably won't be worth 50 cents. I like it, but I won't keep it forever, I think. Those people at Sony service should have taken this s--t seriously. Photozone doesn't mess around, apparently. Sony did, and they just broke it off in all their customers who bought this lens. If I return it, where do I go for that color, contrast and smooth background blur that some people like to call bokeh. Maybe the 55mm and the 24mm. Bunch of money, even used.

[Royl]

Well, I found a good amazon warehouse deal on the 55mm. One down. Maybe gray market for the 24mm. Returnable, of course. If you want to go really small APSC CMOS, better go in with a fat wallet because the a6000 is really the only game in town. Guess I will return the 16-70. What a nice lens. Sharp portraits at 70mm f5.6, but dreamy portraits at f4. Not all bad. F4 sharpens up nicely in post when you want it, but you shouldn't have to do that. Works better if you soften a sharp image. Too bad photozone hasn't reviewed the 55mm or the 24mm for the a6000, but there is pretty much universal acclaim for those two, so the resale looks good if it comes to that. And I can get the color/contrast which I absolutely have to have, now that I have used the 16-70mm.

[borisbg]

Does all this have something to do with original NEX design - lens mount too close to the sensor? None of the other mirroless brands have so many poor perfoming lenses. I am not a sony user, but my observation on PZ is: each time Klaus publish a review, it generates quite a discussion about his testing method, sensor micro-lenses, sample variation...

[popo]

I don't think there is such a thing as a mount too close to the sensor. If you really need to keep the lens elements away, you simply put them further away in the lens design. In a quick look at the mirrorless bunch, Sony E/FE and Canon M are 18mm, Fuji X is slightly shorter at 17.7mm. m4/3 is miles out at 19.25mm.

 

Now, the question of tradeoffs made during the lens design is another matter... are they optimising for reasons other than pure image quality?