Seb
Ive now owned FOUR of these (three of which were returned), and also tested one more in a local store, they all had issues that are hard to swallow given the price tag. The one Im stuck with (I didnt realize the de-centering defect in time to return it) will have to be RMAd to Sony, or sold used at a considerable loss. Many refer to de-centering issues plaguing this lens, it shows up as a portion of the image being abnormally blurry. Im not talking about corner softness which is expected especially on a zoom of this range, but a good chunk of the upper half right side of the image being completely blurry while everything else is sharp. Three copies of this lens were bad at 70mm with one corner being abnormally blurry whereas everything else was sharp. The one Im stuck is perfect at 70mm but the right side is awfully blurry at 24mm (consistent with one lens review posted online), so was the one I tried at the local store. Stopping down to f/8 (I mostly shoot landscapes) unfortunately doesnt help in any way. I dont think I had crazy expectations for this lens, Im perfectly fine with border/corner softness wide open. However, I do expect sharpness shooting landscapes at f/8.0 where everything is at infinity focus. Depending on your shooting style, even bad copies may work for you (close ups or portraits with defocused background are great with this lens), but for landscapes the unpredictable image quality is just not acceptable. Having tried so many copies I have lost hope finding a good one that wont show any de-centering across the entire zoom range. In retrospect, I should have kept one that was bad at 70mm but OK on the wide end because thats the range Im most likely to use for landscapes. If this was supposed to be the best travel lens for the E mount system then Im afraid my A6000 will be sold very soon... Now onto the positives: the center is extremely sharp even at f/4.0, bokeh is very pleasant, it is ultra light compared to similar f/4 zoom lenses, and the range covered makes it in theory a fantastic travel lens. You also get a nice blue Zeiss logo on the lens. If you decide to go ahead and get this lens, just realize that despite the price tag you may have to go through many copies before getting a good one. As such, I can only recommend buying this from Amazon or anywhere with a hassle-free return policy.