SONY SEL 1018 f4 OSS Final Word

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7 Responses

  1. I have a Sigma 8-16mm on my Sony NEX-7 which is very sharp in the centre but smears horribly to the corners. As it was the widest I could get for interior photography I have had to just live with it and fix everything through various processing applications afterwards. I tried the Sony 10-18 against my Sigma at my local store, went home processed the images, and as soon as I saw the quality of the Sony, I rushed back to buy it, by which time (4 hrs) they had sold out. The Sony NEX-7 sensor asks a lot of any lens in front of it, and the lack of quality and range in the Sony NEX lens range seems to be getting addressed. All now is to hope the update to the NEX-7 fixes some of the quirks of the current sensor, as you are starting to see a powerful little system from Sony for both stills and video.

    Thanks for doing these test, not everyone has access to a lens you are thinking of purchasing before hand, but with test like yours and a few others I feel much more confident when I have to go into a purchase blind.

    Keep up the good work.

    • Thank you Adam, for great input. Many people on forums questioned Sigma 8-16, so I can quote now from your comment.
      I can see the better lenses from Sony are coming but my main concern are cooked RAW’s. I am not sure what are we comparing than, optics or softwares and how many pixels were lost or interpolated.
      Software correction can work up to certain print size and in some situations, but it makes comparison between the lenses – impossible.
      I urge everyone, to shout on Sony to bring us back – un-retouched RAW files, at least as the option. It can’t be hard to include such an option, and the only reason to hide it from users, is to cheat on the resulting image, so that reviews (before we all see what is going on there), give Sony better marks. Blah. Shame on you Sony!!!

  2. waardij says:

    I also use the sigma 8-16 on my n7. I think a problem with the lens is that there is a lot of variation form copy to copy. mine performs extremely well. At 8 en 10mm it needs to be stopped down, preferably to f11, to be really good, from corner to corner. and it does really well at f11. another thing is that at 8 en 10mm there seems to be some focus shift, so I rather use a fixed setting than AF. due to the very large depth of field at f11, this is hardly ever a problem.
    In certain ways the combination of the sigma 8-16 with the n7 compares favorable with the combination of the a99 with ZA16-35. the later combination gives better contrast and better resolution (just) in absolute terms. The field curvature of the 16-35, at the wider end, can give problems I do not see with the 8-16.
    and the 8-16 does not give a color shift, as apparently the 10-18 does.
    The 10-18, for me, is tempting due to its size. the 8-16, with adapter, is rather large.

  3. Benson says:

    Thanks for the tests Viktor, great work.

    coming from a d800 with lee filters, i am also venturing in mirrorless sony nex6 for more light weight travel landscape.

    i am concern if the new 10-18 sel has any vignetting issues with the LEE Seven filters which i assume you are also using? I often stack up to 2 filters (sometimes even with lee cpl) on d800, and i do see vignetting till around 19mm on my 17-35.

    With the smaller mount size of 10-18sel, will that still be a problem? and on a separate note how do you find the new Lee with 10-16. big stopper still cooler cast?

  4. Hi, sorry for the short reply, but I am in the area with a weak signal. SEL 1018 have some vignetting issues with a Lee system, but I need to test it more to see the pattern. I have a standard (fat plastic) 62mm ring adapter and with it, hard vignetting occur at around 12mm. Problem is when you want to use polarizer. With it vignetting starts at 14mm approx.

  5. Benson says:

    Are you using the standard 100mm LEE filters with your SEL 1018 and still having issues with vignetting? or the new LEE seven filters for mirrorless? Wonder if the 1018 can take the weight of the standard LEE system. But i will be surprise it still have vignetting with the bigger filters, maybe you should get the wide angle adaptor ring?

    • I am using standard 100mm LEE. Vignetting is caused by the ring adapter, and yes, I should get thin one for UWA. But I am afraid, that it won’t be possible to use normal polarizer anyway, so probably only Lee Poralizer on UWA ring + 1 filter of choice.

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