Introduction

The Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G is an ultra-wide-angle prime lens for the Sony Alpha full-frame mirrorless camera system. It can also be used on Sony APS-C sensor cameras where it provides a 24mm equivalent focal length.

It features 15 elements in 12 groups including two AA (advanced aspherical) elements to help minimise field curvature and one Super ED element and three extra-low dispersion elements to help reduce chromatic aberrations and color fringing. There is a Nano AR Coating to help eliminate flare and ghosting.

It offers a minimum focusing distance of 0.15m / 0.5ft with a maximum magnification of 0.25x and has an 11-blade circular aperture which creates an attractive blur to the out-of-focus areas of the image.

There’s also a manual aperture ring with and an iris lock switch that can also be de-clicked for silent video shooting, a customisable Focus Hold button, two XD (extreme dynamic) linear motors for fast auto-focusing, a flourine coating and built-in dust and moisture resistance.

The Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G lens is available now priced at around £849/ $900 in the UK and the US, respectively. This lens is made in Thailand.

Ease of Use

Weighing in at 304g / 10.8 oz., the Sony FE 16mm f/1.8 G is very light for an ultra-wide-angle full-frame lens that offers such a fast maximum aperture, and it’s also compact too, measuring 73.8 x 75mm / 3 x 3 in., making it even smaller and lighter than the similar Sony FE 20mm f/1.8 G lens.

It’s overall size and weight really complements a small camera body like the Sony A7CR that we tested it with, as shown in the photos below.

Build quality is very good, not quite up to the standard of the flagship GM lens range, but not too far off.

The Sony FE 16mm f/1.8 G has a sealed dust and moisture resistant design, although Sony stop short of saying that it’s 100% weather-proof.

There’s also a a fluorine coating on the front lens element to help repel water, oil, and any other contaminants, as well as making it easier to clean.

This lens has a metal lens mount. It accepts 67mm filters via plastic threads.

There is a fairly wide, ridged focus ring. Manual focusing is possible by using the focus mode switch to toggle between AF and MF.

There are no hard stops at either end of the range, making it a little more difficult to set focus at infinity. Polariser users should be pleased that the 67mm filter thread doesn’t rotate on focus.

The lens utilizes not one, but two XD Linear Motors to provide quiet and smooth auto-focusing, making it very well-suited to shooting video, with the overall lens length remaining constant during focusing thanks to an internal design.

When it comes to auto-focusing, the Sony FE 16mm f/1.8 G proved to be an almost silent, very quick performer on the Sony A7CR camera that we tested it with. We didn’t experience very much "hunting", either in good or bad light, with the lens accurately focusing almost all of the time.

Sony’s near flawless Eye AF worked perfectly with this lens, quickly locking onto and tracking the subject’s eye despite the ultra-wide-angle of view.

The Sony FE 16mm f/1.8 G lens features an aperture ring that has 1/3EV stops ranging from f/1.8 to f/22 and an Auto setting.

The Click switch on the bottom-right of the lens barrel lets you select whether the aperture ring clicks into place at each aperture stop or rotates smoothly for silent operation during movie recording.

Using the Iris Lock switch on the lens barrel, it can also be locked to either the Auto or F1.8-F22 settings to prevent accidental movement of the aperture ring.

The lens has a customisable focus hold button which keeps the lens locked to the current focusing distance, useful if you’re auto-focusing and don’t want the lens to try and find focus again. It can also, amongst other things, be usefully set to Eye AF.

This lens does not feature optical image stabilisation, so it relies on the camera body’s own built-in stabilisation, which is fine unless you’re an owner of an early Sony Alpha camera.

The Sony FE 16mm f/1.8 G lens is commendably supplied with both a soft case and a good quality plastic petal-shaped lens hood (ALC-SH184).

Focal Range

The Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G’s focal length provides an angle of view of 107°.

Chromatic Aberrations

Chromatic aberrations, typically seen as blue or purple fringes along contrasty edges, were not really apparent in our test shots, only appearing in very high contrast areas.

Vignetting

With the lens set to its maximum aperture of F1.8, there is some mild light fall-off in the corners, requiring you to stop down by at least 2 f-stops to completely prevent it.

JPEG

RAW

Distortion

Barrel distortion is very well controlled for such a wide-angle lens, commendably for both JPEG and Raw files, with near-identical results.

Note that Distortion Compensation is set to Auto on the A7RC and can’t be turned off, perhaps indicating that the camera is automatically applying some level of correction.

JPEG

RAW

Sunstars and Flare

The Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G is capable of creating some very nice sunstars when stopped-down to f/22, as shown below, although there is some flare evident even when shooting directly into the sun.

Macro

The Sony FE 16mm F1.8 GM certainly isn’t claimed to be a macro lens, but you can at least get pretty close to your subject thanks to a minimum focusing distance of 0.15m / 0.5ft, with a maximum magnification of 0.25x.

Bokeh

Bokeh is a word used for the out-of-focus areas of a photograph, and is usually described in qualitative terms, such as smooth / creamy / harsh etc.

In the FE 16mm F1.8 GM lens, Sony have employed an iris diaphragm with 11 rounded blades, which has resulted in very nice bokeh in our view for such a wide-angle lens.

We do realise, however, that bokeh evaluation is subjective, so we’ve included lots of examples below for your perusal.

Sharpness

In order to show you how sharp the Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G lens is, we are providing 100% crops on the following page.

1. Ease of Use
2. 16mm
3. Sample Images
4. Lens Specs
5. Rating & Conclusion
6. Main Rivals
7. Review Roundup