Chris_Dobz
I rarely take the time to write reviews but with all the mixed reviews and information surrounding this lens I thought I might share my experiences. Firstly, what everyone says about the quality control is 100% accurate. YOU MUST TEST YOUR COPY OF THIS LENS FOR DECENTERING! I purchased two copies of this lens from Amazon (from Murphy, fulfilled by Amazon) and a used/tested copy from eBay ($635). Both copies from Amazon were decentered and were returned (probably should of just paid taxes and got one direct from Amazon). However, the one from eBay was flawlessly sharp edge to edge at both 16mm and 70mm. The superb performance of this lens (when you get a good copy) is the reason for the high review rating. It is hands down far and away the best performing zoom lens available for the Sony NEX/a6XXX series. Additionally, I purchased a Sony G 18-105mm for comparison and for those that are debating between the 18-105mm and the 16-70mm take my advice and spend the extra coin and spring for the Zeiss (save some coin and find a used one on eBay that has been tested to be a good copy). The G 18-105mm is a decent lens if and only if you plan to shoot mostly video due to its power zoom, however, its not at all much of an upgrade over the 16-50mm kit lens. The barrel distortion is out of control, its heavy AF and its presence with the 72mm front element makes it a full frame sized lens on a camera body that was designed to be compact. IMHO the size and weight of the G 18-105mm defeats the purpose of the Sony a6XXX camera system. The color rendition, contrast, sharpness, size and weight of the Zeiss makes it the hands down winner as an everyday kit lens replacement. How to test your copy for decentering: 1. Download a test chart. 2. Print out 4 copies and tape them in the corners (see pictures). 3. Use a tripod and position your camera/lens so that at 16mm the test chart reaches each corner of the viewfinder. 4. Shoot in RAW at the highest quality. 5. Turn off steady shot! 5. Set your camera to manual and set your aperture to f4, ISO 100 and shutter speed to whatever you need given your lighting situation to get your EV value (exposure comp) to 0.0 6. Use a remote or shutter timer to avoid and hand shake. 7. Snap your photos and use Capture One to evaluate the corners of your photo to verify that there is no blur (youll be able to see if it is decentered). The first picture is an example of a bad decentered copy taken at 16mm f4 and the second one is an example of a good copy from eBay. Not sure how much youll be able to see with any real detail on Amazon but if you were to zoom into the corners on the first photo the upper and lower right hand corners the numbers are blurred. The third photo is just a final test shot to illustrate the lenses abilities although slightly under exposed I think it is a decent representation (23mm, f4, 0.5s, ISO100, Tripod mounted, no edits just straight export from RAW to JPEG). I did comparison shots between the 16-70mm and the Zeiss 24mm prime of this picture at f4 and I looked everywhere for loss of color and detail and the 24mm prime at f4 barely edged out the 16-70mm with ever so slightly better corner detail.