Sony’s travel zoom lens for its Alpha 7 series of cameras has a complex design, but how well does it partner with a full-frame sensor? Richard Sibley finds out

Product Overview

Sony FE 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS

Product:

Sony FE 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS Review

Manufacturer:

Price as reviewed:

£929.00

Test Results: Shading and Distortion

Shading

Sony-24-240mm-24mm-f3.5-shading-copy

Vigentting at 24mm, aperture set to f/3.5

Sony-24-240mm-240mm-f6.3-shading-copy

Vignetting at 240mm, aperture set to f/6.3

Our tests show that vignetting is quite severe at both 24mm and 240mm, although it’s much lower in the middle of the range. Obviously, it is easily reduced and removed in Camera Raw or similar software. Indeed, if in-camera compensation is enabled, it will be removed almost completely from JPEGs. However, if you don’t correct for distortion at wideangle in raw images, you’ll still see darkening in the extreme corners of the frame.

 

Distortion

Sony-24-240mm-24mm-raw-Distortion-copy

24mm, raw (SMIA TV = -6.2%)

Sony-24-240mm-240mm-raw-Distortion.tif-copy

240mm, raw (SMIA TV = 2.5%)

The 24-240mm is designed around software corrections, and camera JPEGs are essentially free of any distortion. However, in raw files barrel distortion is present until about 50mm, beyond which it turns to pincushion. Correcting this distortion is easily done, but the slight stretching of the image doesn’t help the sharpness.

  1. 1. Features
  2. 2. Build and handling
  3. 3. Image quality
  4. 4. Test Results: MTF (Sharpness)
  5. 5. Test Results: Shading and Distortion
  6. 6. Verdict
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