Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G Review | All the Wide Angle You'll Need!

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[Music]
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hi I'm Dustin Abbott and I'm here to
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give you my review of the Sony 16mm
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F1.8 and this is from their G series now
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Sony's 20mm f1.8G 8G lens had the
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misfortune of releasing just about the
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time that the pandemic was picking up
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across the globe and so in some ways I
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think it maybe didn't get as much
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attention as it might have might have
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under different circumstances but even
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still today in 2025 I think it remains
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one of Sony's hidden gems a really
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really excellent lens sony has built on
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that formula by going even wider from 20
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mm to 16 mm even smaller and about $100
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cheaper and while the Sony FE 16mm f1.8
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does have one significant optical flaw
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that I will highlight in this review it
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is otherwise a really really fantastic
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lens so we're going to explore why this
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$800 wide-angle prime probably should be
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at the top of your list if you're
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looking for a wide-angle prime in
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today's review it's very interesting i
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actually got two Sony lenses at the same
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time for review one of them was this
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lens the other was the 400 to 800 mm G
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lens and as you can see there at two
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extremes of Sony's design spectrum but a
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probably more likely comparison is going
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to be this lens which is Viltrox's
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autofocus 16mm f1.8 it's obviously a
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very natural competitor same focal
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length same maximum aperture and really
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the price is not radically different
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about $250 between the two and yes for
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those of you that are so interested I
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will do a full comparison video where I
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break everything down side by side of
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these two lenses watch for that it will
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be upcoming but what is one thing that's
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really interesting to me that quickly
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stood out to me as I started to do side
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by side tests is that while they're both
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16 millimeter lenses the Sony's actually
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significantly wider than what the
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Viltrox is now there's maybe a little
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bit of give and take with that that I'll
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explore here in just a moment but it is
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wider is 107° versus
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105.6° now the one thing that's you
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probably already noticed is that the
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Sony lens manages to be much much
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smaller than what the Viltrox does it is
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only 73.8 mm in diameter by 75 mm in
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length or
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2.91x 3 in it weighs in at just 304
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grams or 10.7 ounces which means that it
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is a full 246 grams less than what the
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Viltrox is i'm getting pretty close to
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half the weight which is really quite
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impressive that it is so small and so
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lightweight up front we've got 67 mm
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filter threads and you may not be able
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to see it but on also on that front
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element is a flooring uh coating and
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then throughout the lens to the actual
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mount there are 10 different uh weather
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sealing gaskets as you can see here
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around all the switches and all of the
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rings and so it is a thoroughly weather
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sealed lens it also has a very thorough
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and robust feature set despite being so
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small we've got Sony's full complement
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of approach to aperture here and so that
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starts you can have it clicked and the
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clicking is on definitely on the firm
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side and so when you switch into the
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D-click mode it's surprising how little
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resistance there is there they've also
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got an iris lock that will allow you to
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either lock into or out of that manual
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aperture ring if you maybe if you want
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to make sure you don't go into automatic
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or if you're someone who doesn't like an
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aperture ring you have the option to
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lock right out of it altogether now on
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the dclicked side I did note I I find
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some lenses some cheaper lenses even if
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they have a dclick click option you
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still see very visible steps as you go
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throughout the aperture so it doesn't
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really work for aperture racking very
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smoothly it's not the case here and as
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you can see I was able to do a pretty
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smooth aperture rack without any kind of
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issue and so a kudos to them for uh
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making sure that this actually works and
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so it's not kind of just a wasted
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feature now one thing you may also have
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noticed in that test is that there are
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11 rounded aperture blades and they do
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really a very good job of maintaining
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nice circular shape to the specular
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highlights and we are actually able to
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get a little bit bigger highlights than
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what you might expect from a 16 mm lens
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for the simple reason that this lens can
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actually focus down very closely if
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you're using autofocus you can focus as
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closely as 15 cm however if you manually
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focus you can actually move 2 cm closer
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up to 13 cm and so your maximum
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magnification is 0.25 if you're using
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autofocus but all the way up to
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0.30 times if you're using that manual
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focus to get a little closer now
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downside of that is as you can see here
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this is how close I had to be to this
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chest piece to produce this image right
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here and so obviously you're going to
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have to get really really close to your
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subject you're almost certainly going to
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need to remove the lens hood to avoid
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shading it or interfering with your
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subject and if you're happen to shoot a
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two-dimensional subject as you can see
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here like from my test chart the plane
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of focus is anything but flat it almost
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seems three-dimensional as you look at
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this image here now Sony's able to
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achieve that close focus capabilities by
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putting some floating elements in the
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design so just so you know with floating
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elements if you have the lens off like
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this and you rock it back and forth
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you'll feel a little bit of a clunk as
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if things are moving back and forth
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inside that's because they're they are
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your lens isn't broken but it is it has
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those floating elements but you can know
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that nothing is wrong because if you
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mount it to the camera and you turn the
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camera on you can do that same thing and
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nothing is moving because now those
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elements are energized it is a purpose
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purposeful part of the design and it's
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what allows it to work so well up close
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the manual focus ring moves very
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smoothly it's on the light side however
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uh the focus motors are nice and quick
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and so there's no lag and so you do have
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a good overall focus experience as noted
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there is a lens hood it's shallow it
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locks into there's no lock but it
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bayonets into place with a good definite
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click and so it holds into place nicely
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no issues there it's shallow enough that
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it shouldn't interfere with using
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filters up front and rotating them so
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obviously this is a very wellexecuted
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package very featurerich and extremely
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compact i love a compact lens like this
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because it just means it's far more
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likely it's going to make it into my bag
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and come along with me when I travel so
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how about the autofocus sony is doing
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probably a better job than any company
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I'm aware of in really nailing autofocus
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at this point and that is that they
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don't really skimp on using their focus
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motor so here even though this is a a
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wide lens we have two of their XD linear
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motors high-owered linear motors that
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are driving autofocus and so that means
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that if anything the focus system is
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overpowered here and so focus is
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extremely fast extremely quiet and as
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you can see whether we're shooting
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indoors or outdoors it just basically
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zips back and forth and so no issues
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with that um and so it it does a great
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job indoors or outdoors and what's more
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because it's a native Sony lens you also
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get the advantage of being able to
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unleash the full burst capacity of your
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camera and so when I'm shooting on a
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camera like my Alpha 1 that means I'm
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getting 30 up to 30 frames per second if
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you're shooting on something like the A9
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Mark III that could be all the way up to
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120 frames per second whereas with a
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third party lens you simply can't do
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that because of an artificially imposed
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limitation from Sony and so uh great to
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be able to have that full capability you
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can also see here that eye tracking it
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works quite well but just understand
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that that's only going to work when
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you're at close focus distances because
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the eye becomes too small in the frame
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with a wide-angle lens to track that and
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so it will switch from the eye to the
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face and after a while it'll switch to
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the body which is all fine because
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everything is going to be in focus at
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that point anyway so for stills I had
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zero issues with autofocus it worked
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really really well so how about the
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video side of things again this lens has
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got plenty of power and so you would
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expect that it performs well and that's
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exactly what it does focus pulls are
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fast and you're they're smooth no issues
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there there's no visible steps there's
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no pauses or hesitations what's more you
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can see that focus breathing is fairly
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minimal and so it's not going to be any
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kind of issue and of course because it's
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a Sony lens you will have the advantage
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of Sonus Sony's focus breathing
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compensation to further smooth things
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out if your camera is so equipped i
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found with my hand test that it was
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mostly good there was a few times where
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it stuck on my face rather than
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transitioning to my hand but frankly I I
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blame that more on the fact that because
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of being such a wide angle even putting
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my hand forward you can a lot of times a
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little bit of my face is left unblocked
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and so I think it stayed locked on that
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but again the when it does transition
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back and forth those focus transitions
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are really nice and smooth and so uh and
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I think fairly cinematic and so I don't
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see any kind of real issue there now in
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this clip I had Nala kind of move
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towards me and what I found is that
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focus was moving along with her however
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it's not nailing on her eye all the time
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i think you would have to turn up focus
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speed right now it's it's d-tuned a
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little bit to allow it to be a little
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bit more cinematic if you're wanting to
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track track persistent action I would
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turn up the reactiveness a little bit
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more in camera and so I'm getting that
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get that kind of focus point from like
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her shoulder or neck level up to the eye
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level where it's keeping up there but I
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think I see enough there to understand
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that this lens is going to do fine even
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if you're tracking things that are
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coming towards the camera itself we'll
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take a look now at the image quality and
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I will have my deep dive optical
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breakdown at the end of the video for
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those of you interested in that this is
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an optical design of 15 elements and 12
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groups by the way that's identical to
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what the Viltrox's design is sony's
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design here has seven different exotic
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elements different kinds of aspherical
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elements different kinds of you know
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extreme low dispersion elements of
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different varieties that are in there
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you can see that the MTF it looks really
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really excellent and there's the vast
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majority of the performance all across
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the frame is above the 80% margin and in
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some cases highly above that in fact if
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I did do this comparison chart between
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the Sony and the excellent Viltrox lens
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you can just see how much better the
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Sony lens is there's just a lot more
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above that 80% threshold than what there
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is on the Viltrox however this lens does
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have one fairly huge optical flaw and
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that is that it has a massive amount of
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barrel distortion and part of the reason
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why I think it's a little extra wide is
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that there's extra that's left there to
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give room for correction and then so
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that's just a factor that has to be
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taken into consideration it requires a
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plus 30 to correct for the barrel
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distortion and as you can see if I'm
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manually correcting it doesn't correct
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all that well it's still quite a complex
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mustache style pattern there in fact if
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looking at this there's more distortion
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left after correction than what there is
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before correction on the Vtrox and so
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this is an area where the Sony is just
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way behind the Vtrox this is obviously
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the place where uh Sony's engineers
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compromise to allow us to get such a
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small package there now if you look at
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the JPEG of that which has the in camera
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corrections on you can see that it does
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a fairly good job of correcting for it
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and if I look at this kind of real world
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comparison with some walls you can see
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with the uncorrected RAW it looks
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terrible the corrected JPEG it looks
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good enough that I suspect people won't
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notice and so I wouldn't even rule out
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this lens for doing real estate type
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work i think as long as you're getting
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the correction it looks okay there's
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probably better choices but I think I
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can make do with it in a pinch if
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necessary fortunately everything else is
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quite good vignette is to the low to
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moderate side particularly for a wide
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angle compact lens i used a plus 52 to
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correct for it but I didn't really
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notice it being much of an issue even in
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uncorrected um images and by the way
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that's an area that definitely excels
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over the Viltrox the Viltrox has about
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double amount of vignette there i also
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found that while there isn't a complete
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lack of longitudinal chromatic
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aberrations they're very very minor and
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obviously with wide-angle lenses there's
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not really a lot of real world
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situations where you end up with that
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kind of fringing anyway far more common
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is the lateral style chromatic
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aberrations that come near the edges of
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the frame and this lens handles that
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like a champ and either on my test chart
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or out in real world results I saw no
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frringing there and so contrast and
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detail right off into the corners is
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looking really quite
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excellent speaking of that sharpness
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this lens is fantastically sharp and
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particularly in the center and the
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mid-frame and as you can see here even
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at f1.8 contrast and detail is fabulous
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in the center of the frame mid-frame
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looks excellent and there's just a
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little bit of falloff into the corners
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and I think a lot of that has to do with
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the amount of correction that's needed
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there in the corner however if you start
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to you know stop down a little bit by
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f2.8 the corners are looking quite good
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and they're excellent from f4 to f8 kind
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of your prime landscape apertures they
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look really really fantastic i found
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that real world detail and contrast just
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looks amazing and definitely comparing
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side by side side I would say that the
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contrast is a little bit better on the
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Sony lens than what it does on the
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Viltrox vtrox is a great lens but the
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Sony lens is better still in those
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metrics defraction is going to start to
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creep in at f11 still looks okay there
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but by f-16 and then particular f-22
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which is the minimum aperture you can
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see that defraction has really softened
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the image now because you can get so
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close to your subject you will be able
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to create some defocused background the
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bokeh is okay it's uh it's not like
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particularly creamy or anything like
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that um it can be a little bit busy in
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certain situations specular highlights
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mostly look okay though they do have a
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little bit of concentric rings inside of
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them and will have a little bit of
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deformation into the corners overall
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however it looks pretty good and again I
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appreciate the fact that you can get
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close to your subjects and gives you
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just some more creative options for
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composing out there flare resistance
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overall is quite good uh there's very
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good contrast there is some mild
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ghosting i actually noticed it less at
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wide open or small apertures and more in
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the middle of the range f5.6 f6.3 you
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see a little bit more of a ghosting
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pattern here but overall looks pretty
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good sun stars I find look nice you get
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a 22-pointed star and they have pretty
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nice definition certainly could add to
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an image and then finally I tested for
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shooting coma and there is some coma
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estigmatism in the corners where those
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uh those star points starting to look a
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little bit like flying insects it's not
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terrible but it's not great either the
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Viltrox is a hair better in that regard
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but of course the Viltrox also has uh
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much more vignette which means that
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towards the corners of the frame you
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have a a different issue to have to
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correct for and so it's wouldn't be my
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top choice for shooting astro but
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certainly it works and it's anything but
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terrible for that so overall outside of
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that barrel distortion optics are really
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quite good despite it being so compact
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here so my conclusion is this i feel
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like an f1.8 lens to me for wide angle
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kind of hits the sweet spot sure there
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are f1.4 options out there but they tend
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to be much much larger um you know weigh
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a lot more cost a lot more i love that
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we can get this compact a package and
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really get a very decently bright
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aperture and of course it's much easier
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to get handholdable shutter speeds with
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a wide-angle lens than what it is with a
15:41
longer lens anyway so I feel even then
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that the bright aperture is a little bit
15:46
less necessary and so to me f1.8 is
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bright enough and it allows you to
15:52
continue to have as we've seen great
15:54
optical performance but also this
15:56
wonderfully compact package i mean this
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is a lens that easily fits into the palm
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of your hand easy to throw into a bag
16:02
easy to bring along no issues there at
16:06
$800 it's not cheap per se but the fact
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that it is $100 cheaper than the 20mm
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f1.8 you know after you know all of the
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inflation since that lens has been
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released tells me that Sony's actually
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being very competitive with the pricing
16:21
here and so $800 for what is an
16:23
extremely good lens outside of that
16:25
barrel distortion I think makes it a
16:26
pretty fair value and again it's not
16:28
radically more expensive than what the
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Viltrox is which is really the only
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other main competitor that's out there
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this is a lens with great autofocus a
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great feature set it's wonderfully
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compact it's extremely sharp and so all
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of that adds up to a lens I think that
16:43
is well worth consideration now if you
16:46
want more information you can check out
16:47
my full text review that's linked in the
16:49
description down below there's buying
16:50
links there also and I we're getting
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close to those pre-orders starting to be
16:54
fulfilled at this point and of course if
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you want a deeper dive into the optical
16:58
performance stay tuned with me right now
17:00
we'll jump into that together okay we're
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going to start by getting the bad news
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out of the way so we're going to like a
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band-aid we're just going to rip it off
17:08
quick here there is a really tremendous
17:11
amount of barrel distortion and so you
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can see here looking at this there's a
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considerable amount of leftover image
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that's there that's not because I framed
17:19
with that additional but rather I was
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framing with these basically right
17:23
inside i used these outside lines as my
17:26
framing guide and so that was how I was
17:28
lined up and there's a lot left over
17:30
that's to allow for electronic
17:32
correction now I've only seen Canon
17:34
really do more than this uh but this is
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bad i mean this is a massive amount of
17:38
distortion and as you can see it's a
17:40
very complex pattern i tried to manually
17:43
correct it as good as I could there is
17:45
no yet no raw profile available for
17:47
Lightroom yet so but I always do this
17:49
anyway so I wanted to see how it would
17:52
correct and as you can see it's just a
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really wavy pattern that's left behind
17:56
now by the numbers this is a plus 30 to
17:59
correct for the distortion vignette far
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less of an issue vignette I used a plus
18:04
52 to correct for it's not bad now while
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there isn't a RAW profile yet available
18:10
I've taken this JPEG out of camera so it
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give you an idea on how well it's all
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going to correct you can see it's not
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flawless um it's a little too complex to
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be corrected flawlessly but it's not bad
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either and so certainly usable and I
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think that's illustrated here if we look
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at the RAW image you can see there's
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just lots of bowed areas where that
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barrel distortion is affecting the image
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if we look on the right this is the JPEG
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out of camera you can see how much of
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the image has been taken away for
18:39
correction if you compare side by side
18:41
remember this is the exact same image
18:42
taken at the exact same time but that
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being said you can see that the lines
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for kind of a real world shot like this
18:49
they all look fine i mean I don't see
18:51
anything that's kind of standing out to
18:52
me as being objectionable obviously
18:54
that's really going to help this lens to
18:56
continue to be useful for a lot of these
18:58
applications thanks to getting great
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electronic support from Sony now beyond
19:03
that it is mostly good news yes there is
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a little bit of this green fringing some
19:07
longitudinal style chromat chromatic
19:09
aberration but with a wide-angle lens
19:11
like this there are going to be
19:12
relatively few situations where you
19:14
would ever see what little is there and
19:17
more important would be the lateral
19:19
chromatic aberrations near the edge of
19:20
the frame and they are not quite
19:22
perfectly but pretty close to perfectly
19:24
corrected very clean black to white
19:26
transitions so that means if we go out
19:28
into the real world and we look off into
19:30
the edge of this image where typically
19:33
in all particularly these bare branches
19:36
that you would see the fringing on
19:38
either side of them it's just not there
19:39
and so what that means is that the lens
19:41
is going to resolve really nicely right
19:43
off to the very edge of the frame now
19:45
the MTF suggests that this is a very
19:47
sharp lens particularly in the center
19:49
and mid-frame this is going to be 200%
19:52
magnification i'm going to show you on a
19:53
61 megapixel Sony A7R Mark 5 so here at
19:58
extremely high magnification on very
20:00
high resolution the center is pretty
20:02
much perfect very very precise rendering
20:05
of all the fine details good contrast if
20:08
we move into the midframe it also looks
20:11
excellent really really strong and as we
20:13
kind of pan down here we can see that as
20:16
we get towards the corner it does drop a
20:19
little bit and a lot of that's also too
20:22
you can see it's things are kind of
20:23
dragged and stretched a little bit and
20:25
trying to correct for the distortion we
20:27
can see a pretty similar result in the
20:30
various areas of the frame and so we
20:33
have got a good centering performance
20:35
here as well now in real world use I
20:37
felt like even at f1.8 the real world
20:40
contrast is really great and so you can
20:42
see a lot of pop here into all of these
20:45
branches just a lot of places for
20:47
textures to be mushy they're not it's
20:49
resolving really nicely obviously at
20:52
f1.8 depth of field means it's not going
20:54
to be the same all the way throughout
20:55
the image but everything that's falls in
20:57
that plane of focus really looks quite
20:59
excellent here's one f1.8 and then f2.8
21:03
and so we see in the middle of the frame
21:06
it already looks great obviously
21:07
contrast improves a bit more as you stop
21:10
down a little bit if we pan over here to
21:12
the side you can see a little bit more
21:15
noticeable a difference you know just
21:17
more that the contrast levels are a
21:19
little bit deeper but it already looked
21:21
really good and between f2.8 and f5.6 we
21:25
can see that the details really just
21:27
resolve even more so so contrast becomes
21:30
great right into the corners going back
21:32
to f1.8 in a real world image you can
21:35
see the amount of detail there is just
21:37
really really beautiful contrast looks
21:39
great and of course this being a
21:41
first-party Sony lens with great
21:43
autofocus it means you're getting great
21:45
results even when uh you're in kind of
21:48
an extreme situation and so you know in
21:50
this moment this is f1.8 you know very
21:53
fast action you can't tell cuz it's a
21:55
frozen shot but he's moving very quickly
21:57
here but detail looks great there well
22:00
focused again here a very you know
22:02
precise moment but detail looks really
22:04
good because autofocus is helping the
22:06
lens to achieve its its potential going
22:09
back to the test chart for a moment f2.8
22:11
looks brilliant in the center of the
22:13
frame and f5.6 doesn't look a whole lot
22:16
different but you're going to see that
22:18
difference more up here in the corners
22:19
and you can see that at f2.8 it looks
22:22
good but at f5.6 it looks great nor is
22:25
it a paper tiger if we take a big
22:28
landscape image like this and we just
22:30
poke around in the various details right
22:33
off to the edge of the frame you can see
22:35
that there's just lots of information a
22:38
lot of textures that have been gathered
22:39
it looks really really fantastic this is
22:42
an extremely sharp lens you've probably
22:44
heard me frequently say that I consider
22:46
f11 to be pretty much the smallest
22:48
aperture that I'm willing to go to when
22:50
I'm using a high resolution camera and
22:53
you can see the reasons why by f11 it's
22:55
not looking as good but still looking
22:57
very good but by f-22 the minimum
22:59
aperture you can see the image is just
23:01
really really much softer and that's due
23:04
to the effects effects of defraction so
23:06
again if at all possible I would say go
23:09
as small as f11 and don't go beyond that
23:12
so as mentioned previously while you can
23:14
get a very high degree of magnification
23:16
if you're working with a two-dimensional
23:17
subject the plane of focus is not fast
23:19
at all in fact it looks like the ship is
23:21
kind of sailing right off of the flat
23:24
bill and that's because there is so much
23:26
field curvature here so just be aware of
23:29
that it's actually going to work better
23:31
with a three-dimensional object you can
23:33
see it's it's actually the perspective
23:35
is not great but you're able to kind of
23:38
use that as a point of emphasis and so
23:40
it's not as destructive here's the
23:42
difference just toggling back and forth
23:44
between this would be the autofocus
23:46
result this is the manual focus result
23:48
so you can get a little bit closer you
23:50
can get a slightly higher degree of
23:51
magnification if you uh manually focus
23:54
in now without being right on top of the
23:57
lock and you'd be surprised at how close
23:59
I was but not anywhere near the minimum
24:01
focus distance but you can see that the
24:03
detail on the lock looks fantastic the
24:06
bokeh quality I can only say that's okay
24:09
i don't consider that to be exceptional
24:10
at all here I'm you know right on top of
24:13
the subject near minimum focus distance
24:15
so the background is more strongly
24:17
blurred out it's better but it's Don't
24:20
expect this lens to be like crushing
24:22
backgrounds and making them really soft
24:24
and creamy that's not realistic flare
24:26
resistance overall is good so here's a
24:28
pretty typical shot where the sun might
24:30
be right out of frame you can see
24:32
contrast is holding up perfectly here
24:34
where a very bright directional sun is
24:36
in the frame at f1.8 again contrast is
24:39
holding up very well just a very very
24:42
minor little ghosting artifact right
24:45
there nothing bad uh here stop down to
24:47
f11 you can see that there's a little
24:50
bit of a prismatic pattern from you know
24:52
stopping down but again it's holding up
24:54
really well what's interesting here is
24:57
that there is you might be able to see
25:00
here in this image where I've composed
25:02
to where it allows more of that to show
25:04
up there is a little bit of a ghosting
25:06
pattern but it's not strongly pronounced
25:08
in fact I see it more stopped down
25:10
towards the middle of the range this is
25:12
f6.3
25:14
now maybe you don't mind that at all i'm
25:16
just pointing it out and so you can be
25:18
aware of it you will also see here going
25:20
back to f11 in this shot that the
25:23
sunbursts look to me really quite good
25:25
uh 22-pointed star from the 11bladed
25:28
aperture and uh you know the the blades
25:31
have nice precision i think that that's
25:32
going to add rather than distract from
25:35
an
25:35
image finally taking a look here at Coma
25:39
and so you know the good news is is that
25:42
star points are nice and crisp here in
25:44
the center of the frame there's very low
25:46
fringing and so that doesn't mar the
25:48
image and you can see that as we get off
25:50
into the corners that's where we start
25:52
to see that aigmatism and so the stars
25:54
start to look like they're taking wings
25:56
and trying to fly out of the frame um
25:59
but it's it's also not the worst that
26:02
I've seen by far and obviously because
26:05
those star points occupy such a small
26:07
portion of the frame the general
26:09
impression you're going to get I think
26:10
is just good overall so thanks for
26:13
sticking through the optical breakdown i
26:14
hope it's helped you to make a more
26:16
informed decision whether or not this is
26:17
a lens for you as always thanks for
26:20
watching have a great day and let the
26:22
light in
26:23
[Music]

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