18-105G -- Good or Great?

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Vidgamer
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18-105G -- Good or Great?

Unread post by Vidgamer »

I've seen some discussions on DPR about this lens, but not as many as I would have expected. Most of the examples looked really good, so now, in a horrible fit of GAS, I have one too. :lol:

The executive summary is that it covers a great range using a smooth powerzoom that people are either going to love or hate. Color and bokeh are pretty good. It seems better than the kit lenses in sharpness, but I'm not sure how it holds up to primes. The sharpness seems to be good near the center even at f4. It seems like a really good kit lens upgrade, if nothing else.

When you view the photos in RAW, they are scary at first. The distortion is really pronounced, and I'm surprised at how good the results are given the distortion correction that needs to be applied. But, sharpness seems really good. I wonder if this is some sort of tradeoff where the lens design is much more efficient and it's made up for in software; perhaps optical correction would introduce its own problems and soften the results? So, in the end, it's probably just something to accept -- test the after-conversion results, and if they are good enough, then that's that.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: 18-105G -- Good or Great?

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The lens is interesting (covers a nice range and constant f4) one that would suit A mount well ;-)
And the current price seems quite fair too.

I have seen some pretty wild distortion on some shots, correction can help though I'm not sure there are no compromises though.
Having said that images I've seen look good so if you can deal with that side of it I'd give it a go.

I don't think it's the range myself the 18-135mm has it's share of distortion too (and larger range) but its far far less pronounced than the samples I've seen on the 18-105mm, the pincushion is monstrous on the E mount lens. I think it comes down to the very small sensor to lens distance distortion was always a far bigger issue on range-finder designs than normal SLR ones.

The worst lens I've used distortion wise was the Tokina 24-200mm which had some pretty crazy barrel at the wide end and downright nasty pincushion tele end, even that looks mild compared to the samples I've seen on the 18-105mm, but if you can deal with it, looks like a decent lens.
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Re: 18-105G -- Good or Great?

Unread post by Wes Gibbon »

bfitzgerald wrote:I think it comes down to the very small sensor to lens distance distortion was always a far bigger issue on range-finder designs than normal SLR ones.
I think it's Sony policy now to use software rather than expensive glass elements to correct distortion, at least on E-mount lenses. I believe Hasselblad have been doing this for some time, and I think it will probably become standard practice over the next few years.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: 18-105G -- Good or Great?

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I'm not sure I can agree with that strategy surely it's best to try to get as good as you can optics wise off the bat, so to speak?

If lenses got a lot cheaper I might have some time for it, but a lot of those newer E mount lenses are pretty saucy price wise.
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Re: 18-105G -- Good or Great?

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bfitzgerald wrote:I'm not sure I can agree with that strategy surely it's best to try to get as good as you can optics wise off the bat, so to speak?
Well, yes but that is rather purist! All lens designs have to be a compromise. As well as reducing cost, reducing the amount of glass reduces weight and size, which is partly the selling point of the E-mount systems. Besides, most if bot all wide-angle lemses, particularly zooms, have some distortion anyway which may benefit from correction later.

The 16-50mm kit lens is remarkably compact. When switched off it scarcely extends further than a pancake and is just about pocketable when mounted on a NEX body. Without software correction I doubt if the distortion would be acceptable.
bfitzgerald wrote:If lenses got a lot cheaper I might have some time for it, but a lot of those newer E mount lenses are pretty saucy price wise.
I agree with you about the price of some E-mount lenses.
They seem to fall into three groups:
a) Kit lenses when sold separately are overpriced (DK recons it's a cynical ploy to make the kit seem better value!)
b) The more commonly purchased lenses are reasonable though not actually cheap e.g. 55-200, the Sony f1.8 primes, pancakes, and 30mm macro)
c) the less popular lenses are horrendous (e.g. Zeiss and the 10-18mm). Probably Sony are squeezed here because they don't have the market share that Canon & Nikon have so they have to include more of the development costs in the selling price. Of course that reduces demand even further but it's probably a tricky balancing act to play - although you may make a profit on each unit sold if you don't sell enough to recoup the development costs you end up making a loss
Vidgamer
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Re: 18-105G -- Good or Great?

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Wes Gibbon wrote:
bfitzgerald wrote:I'm not sure I can agree with that strategy surely it's best to try to get as good as you can optics wise off the bat, so to speak?
Well, yes but that is rather purist! All lens designs have to be a compromise. As well as reducing cost, reducing the amount of glass reduces weight and size, which is partly the selling point of the E-mount systems. Besides, most if bot all wide-angle lemses, particularly zooms, have some distortion anyway which may benefit from correction later.
Yes, you still end up needing to correct distortion if you want perfection, even WITH the additional glass in place. Introducing additional lenses in order to correct optically introduces various distortions, so you solve one problem and introduce others. Software correction is a valid, if a bit risky, solution.

One advantage I can think of that I don't see other people mention is that with some photos, you might not mind the distortion and you can dial in less correction and perhaps gain additional resolution in the process.
The 16-50mm kit lens is remarkably compact. When switched off it scarcely extends further than a pancake and is just about pocketable when mounted on a NEX body. Without software correction I doubt if the distortion would be acceptable.
The distortion of the 18-105 seems pretty strong, and I'm not sure it'd be acceptable most of the time, but I did try experimenting with the above trick -- applying less correction -- and while it might be an option, most of the time, I'd expect to use the corrections.
bfitzgerald wrote:If lenses got a lot cheaper I might have some time for it, but a lot of those newer E mount lenses are pretty saucy price wise.
I agree with you about the price of some E-mount lenses.
They seem to fall into three groups:
a) Kit lenses when sold separately are overpriced (DK recons it's a cynical ploy to make the kit seem better value!)
b) The more commonly purchased lenses are reasonable though not actually cheap e.g. 55-200, the Sony f1.8 primes, pancakes, and 30mm macro)
c) the less popular lenses are horrendous (e.g. Zeiss and the 10-18mm). Probably Sony are squeezed here because they don't have the market share that Canon & Nikon have so they have to include more of the development costs in the selling price. Of course that reduces demand even further but it's probably a tricky balancing act to play - although you may make a profit on each unit sold if you don't sell enough to recoup the development costs you end up making a loss
I would think economies-of-scale would be the main reason the lens prices are a bit high, but perhaps we're spoiled from A-mount. The past couple of times I went lens-shopping with a Canon-owning friend, I found Canon to be expensive. They have like a couple of cheap primes (and, IMHO, 40mm is an awful focal length for APS-C), and everything else seems to be hundreds of dollars.

Sony needs to do what they feel they need to survive, and we can buy into the brand that gives us the features we prefer. I prefer the smaller package, nice handling, DMF, and really, Sony lenses just seem really well built.

But the bottom-line is, how does it look? I did a quick test, but it's notoriously difficult to put together a really good test. So, it may be imperfect, but it is what it is. My conclusion thus far is that it's better than the 16-50, but not as good as the 20mm pancake. I've gotten fine photos from the 16-50, so I hope to get better results overall from the 18-105. But I think the flexibility of the bigger zoom range combined with f4 will make the lens useful, even aside from sharpness differences. The color and bokeh seem better than the kit lenses as well, which is another thing that is strikingly noticeable even in photos that aren't zoomed into 100% view.

So, use the kit lens or use primes, but if you want a better zoom, they are now available. Whether or not it's worth it is up to each individual.
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Re: 18-105G -- Good or Great?

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If you are tied down to a budget on A mount there are always Minolta lenses to look for, this is the only reason I stay with A mount.
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Re: 18-105G -- Good or Great?

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Vidgamer wrote: One advantage I can think of that I don't see other people mention is that with some photos, you might not mind the distortion and you can dial in less correction and perhaps gain additional resolution in the process.
I agree. Recently I used the 16-50mm at 16mm to take some people pics in the tourist trap that used to be the Covent Garden market. The people looked OK but the building's supporting columns were alarmingly curved in the raw files. Applying the lens correction sorted out the curvy columns, but near the corners people's heads were painfully stretched. Torture by Adobe?

I don't see the problem with correcting distortion using lens profiles. Maybe you lose a bit of resolution but if you have 24mp files for most purposes you will have more resolution than you need.

Could I put in a good word for the 18-55 E-mount kit lens?. On my NEX7 it is starting to rival my A900 for resolution, though I still prefer the latter's colour rendition.
Vidgamer
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Re: 18-105G -- Good or Great?

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Wes Gibbon wrote:
Vidgamer wrote: One advantage I can think of that I don't see other people mention is that with some photos, you might not mind the distortion and you can dial in less correction and perhaps gain additional resolution in the process.
I agree. Recently I used the 16-50mm at 16mm to take some people pics in the tourist trap that used to be the Covent Garden market. The people looked OK but the building's supporting columns were alarmingly curved in the raw files. Applying the lens correction sorted out the curvy columns, but near the corners people's heads were painfully stretched. Torture by Adobe?
Yes, that's how it works at those wide angles. To straighten the lines (for architecture) you must stretch the heads out of all proportions. That's one reason I didn't mind the barrel distortion of the 18-55 that much -- it actually worked out ok when photographing people, and you could always correct it if you wanted to. The distortion of the 18-105 is more concerning, as it affects all focal lengths. I'm not sure that I want pincushion distortion as a rule.
I don't see the problem with correcting distortion using lens profiles. Maybe you lose a bit of resolution but if you have 24mp files for most purposes you will have more resolution than you need.
True, as the cameras have more than enough resolution, we can afford to give a bit of it up for this manipulation. I think I can see where Sony is going with this. They're just going to give us more than enough resolution, sort out distortion in software, and maybe in the future, curved sensors will react better with some of these lenses, needing less correction. Well, maybe. We'll see. That'd be pretty neat, though, if something like that happened. You heard it here first. Make a note of the date. ;-)
Could I put in a good word for the 18-55 E-mount kit lens?. On my NEX7 it is starting to rival my A900 for resolution, though I still prefer the latter's colour rendition.
I liked the 18-55 fine, although I liked the compact nature of the 16-50, and couldn't decide that the 18-55 was much better (although maybe it is at some focal lengths -- the 18-55 is pretty hard to beat at around 24mm). People wondered why it was included with the Nex-7 -- certainly, in the center, it holds up pretty well. I think where it might start having problems are with things like the corners, particularly with a wide-open aperture at 18mm.
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Re: 18-105G -- Good or Great?

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classiccameras wrote:If you are tied down to a budget on A mount there are always Minolta lenses to look for, this is the only reason I stay with A mount.
Yeah, and Minolta lenses were always good bang-for-the-buck deals anyway. Now, it's like they fly under the radar, with everyone looking for Canikon or more snooty brands. For purely money concerns, I'd say stay with A-mount.

By the way, here's the test I made. It's not very rigorous, sorry, but it'll have to do:

http://www.computingbits.com/photograph ... /18105.htm
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bfitzgerald
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Re: 18-105G -- Good or Great?

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People tend to go with what's around friends wise not a bad strategy if I were using Canon I could lay my hands on a lot of stuff though I have played with quite a lot recently. In terms of bang per buck many of the A mount lenses are staggeringly cheap (even some well respected ones) and certainly cheaper than Canikon offerings. Even the old classics continue to tumble in price I didn't pay a lot for the 70-210mm or the 28-85mm or 35-70mm they're even cheaper now.

Onto the lens corrections thing I ran across this purely by accident but the poster is trying to analyse what's going on with the FZ1000 camera

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3710671

I suppose the point to make here is if you're applying such big corrections then you have to design a lens that covers an even wider field of view to compensate for the "corrected image" I don't expect optical perfection all lenses are compromises to a degree, but I'm not sure sloppy lens design fixed via software (either in camera or in raw suppport aka ACR etc) is the way to go. I don't see any particular reason why the 18-105mm has such wild distortion (esp pincushion) the Nikkor 18-105mm I had def did barrel and it did pincushion at the tele end (the 18-135mm more so mid focal lengths less so top tele end) that was noticeable but nowhere near as mad as the Sony E mount lens. I'm not sure the faster aperture is to blame either

It might hurt sales a bit some folks are disturbed by big distortion I'm ok with some (I expect it and in some cases it's not a major problem) I know video is important for some shooters and that might really put some buyers off the lens who are into that.
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Re: 18-105G -- Good or Great?

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bfitzgerald wrote:....In terms of bang per buck many of the A mount lenses are staggeringly cheap (even some well respected ones) and certainly cheaper than Canikon offerings. Even the old classics continue to tumble in price I didn't pay a lot for the 70-210mm or the 28-85mm or 35-70mm they're even cheaper now.
Fun lenses at decent prices. Part of the reason I got a Sony rather than Canikon, years ago.
...
I suppose the point to make here is if you're applying such big corrections then you have to design a lens that covers an even wider field of view to compensate for the "corrected image"
The 16-50 does this at the wide end. It's actually significantly wider than 16mm, but has heavy vignetting and distortion. The compensation stretches, then crops. This is probably part of the reason that the corner resolution is poor at the wide end, even though it's otherwise sharp.
I don't expect optical perfection all lenses are compromises to a degree, but I'm not sure sloppy lens design fixed via software (either in camera or in raw suppport aka ACR etc) is the way to go.
Your choice of words suggests that maybe it wasn't planned that way, like they accidentally came up with a design or something. Instead, I would expect that this was absolutely done on purpose. There's nothing "sloppy" about it. The lens is probably designed without over-compromising with additional elements that would attempt to correct the distortion while introducing other problems.

The question is whether or not the software compression introduced enough problems on its own to make it a worse choice.
I don't see any particular reason why the 18-105mm has such wild distortion (esp pincushion) the Nikkor 18-105mm I had def did barrel and it did pincushion at the tele end (the 18-135mm more so mid focal lengths less so top tele end) that was noticeable but nowhere near as mad as the Sony E mount lens. I'm not sure the faster aperture is to blame either

It might hurt sales a bit some folks are disturbed by big distortion I'm ok with some (I expect it and in some cases it's not a major problem) I know video is important for some shooters and that might really put some buyers off the lens who are into that.
How would you see the distortion in video? Isn't it automatically compensated?
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pakodominguez
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Re: 18-105G -- Good or Great?

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bfitzgerald wrote:I suppose the point to make here is if you're applying such big corrections then you have to design a lens that covers an even wider field of view to compensate for the "corrected image" I don't expect optical perfection all lenses are compromises to a degree, but I'm not sure sloppy lens design fixed via software (either in camera or in raw suppport aka ACR etc) is the way to go. I don't see any particular reason why the 18-105mm has such wild distortion (esp pincushion) the Nikkor 18-105mm I had def did barrel and it did pincushion at the tele end (the 18-135mm more so mid focal lengths less so top tele end) that was noticeable but nowhere near as mad as the Sony E mount lens. I'm not sure the faster aperture is to blame either
The Sony E 18-105 F4 is a compact lens. That is the difference with your SAM 18-135 or the Nikon 18-105. In order to achieve that, Sony "finished" the design taking in account the flexibility software correction give to them. A "better corrected" constant F4 zoom won't be the same size.
You can use as example to compare sizes 2 lenses you do know well: the Canon 24-105 F4 IS and the Minolta 24-105 3.5-4.5 -even if the Canon is a newer design, it is bigger and heavier and just slightly better than the Minolta.
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Re: 18-105G -- Good or Great?

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Wes Gibbon wrote:
bfitzgerald wrote:I think it comes down to the very small sensor to lens distance distortion was always a far bigger issue on range-finder designs than normal SLR ones.
I think it's Sony policy now to use software rather than expensive glass elements to correct distortion, at least on E-mount lenses. I believe Hasselblad have been doing this for some time, and I think it will probably become standard practice over the next few years.
I don't think there is any "cheap" on the newly designed Sony lenses. They are just using all the tech available (in camera correction included) in order to produce 'good results". Olympus and Panasonic started that "trend" few years ago, with their compact 4/3 lenses.
Sony is also using newer glass molding techniques that allow them to produce light and compact and high quality lenses. The 10-18 is a great example.
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Vidgamer
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Re: 18-105G -- Good or Great?

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I posted this photo to DPR:
http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/76338 ... c01259_dxo

I haven't had a chance to photograph in really good light, so just about everything has been f4 so far!
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