When I bought my A6000, that was the intention of avoiding the purchase of a A7R and save. In addition, the A7R is very expensive, very slow, ruinous accessories ...
With make the A6000 one of my main camera, I have therefore sought appropriate targets.
As my modest means did not allow me to buy Zeiss, I started by Kit-Zooms 16-50 and 55-210, in total for about 400 Euro.
But we must admit that these bicycle pump type goals respectively f / 5.6 and f / 6.3 and their relatively small lenses are not the dream of the photographer and long term not really worthy of a good camera like the A6000.
I then bought the adapter LA-LE4 and a Tamron 18-200 cheap, with the intention of adapting objectives Tamron, Sigma and with a Minolta mount A.
This failed because it is difficult to find good Minolta f / 1.4 and not expensive Tamron was a disaster: No switch for stabilization or for the AF in auto or manual mode. In short, he looked fine on the E bayonet of the camera, but virtually inpossible to use the AF or to conduct a manual focus.
So I returned all my supplier and ordered that Sony G SEL18105 PZ from Amazon Germany because I had coupons for gifts limited value 60 Euro late October.
Thus, after comparing Amazon fr, de and gb, that was the most favorable price throughout Europe. Currently the price is around 500 Euro.
The meaning of the letters of designation:
- PZ = Power Zoom (absolutely silent, slow motor, quick manual zoom with the ring, possible at any time)
- G = game high designation that dates back to Konica-Minolta times. Indeed this objective has 3 aspherical elements and 2 ED glass in very expensive (low dispersion)
- OSS = steady shot optical stabilization (not switch)
This objective is interesting from several points of view:
- First of all because all the mechanical components are internal and the lens has a constant length regardless of the focal length. So no stove pipes or bicycle pump that absorbs moisture, dust etc. and constantly slides vertically. The objective lens is fixed which also allows use of polarizing filters.
- A front lens of a professional dimension diamêtre The thread is 72mm 52mm unlike the usual cheap goals. It goes without saying that this abjectif absorbs roughly double light from the usual targets.
- Mechanical, materials and a flawless finish, as it upscale. It is heavy, massive and everything sounds like metal. The two metal bands are broad and rotate as butter, the ratio of the focus ring allows an extremely precise adjustment.
The ring Zoom is really necessary, because the engine is very slow. It's good for the videos but not for pictures.
In short, a beautiful object that radiates value and inspires professionalism, not a view as we find more and more often plastic, light and fragile.
The optical characteristics must be differentiation:
First, wide angle, the hugely SEL18105G product geometric distortions. In architecture the vertical lines at the edges of the images meet somewhere in the sky. This phenomenon appears in RAW mode. If the JPEG mode is stored, the A6000 has a correction software and settings that goal and almost completely corrects these nuisances in the camera.
At maximum zoom, I'm not excited about the accuracy, sharpness and contrast. To give an example: The hours of lifting a box for letters to 75m are absolutely unreadable. The text does not appear in black and white but gray medium etc. It is neither more nor less than an ordinary lens. But things change if one goes down to 80% or less of the maximum focal length and the iris closes slightly. I can not describe the quality of the image for all combinations, say it is excellent for the mean values and good ends. This is superb: I have not managed to produce AC or lilac or mustard fringe at the edges of high contrast objects.
Normally, the minimum specified distance is 0.95 m. In practice, using the zoom, I could do without problems very close shots of objects like insects and flowers as if I had an optical Macro.
With this, you can play on without reservation depth of field: You can, if necessary, obtain a depth of field of a few cm and a total blur in the background as if one had a camera with a full frame sensor .
The A6000 with SEL18105G is ready to fire after about 2.5 seconds from startup, including development, even em low light. AF is very fast. But there are problems if a fence or branches are located in the visual field in the foreground. This is why I prefer a manual focus and peaking with magnifying viewfinder.
The magnifier connects automatically when I turn the focus ring, but it's still difficult to work with the viewfinder because it is really feeble in terms of accuracy. Compared with my Olympus OEM-EM1 or my Fuji X-T1, the viewfinder of the A6000 is rather a toy. I would have paid more for a larger viewfinder and detailed because it is in my view an essential element for a good camera. But you can get used to it and if we concentrate well with the A6000 SEL18105G are accurate and precise shots.
The ojectif is so massive that it creates a shadow at the bottom left of the image if the camera flash is used. It covers 25% of the surface with the hood and another 15% without.
To use the qualities of this lens on the A6000, it is necessary to experiment with different modes according to the situation and gain some potential and habits.
It is not a combination for beginners or as a Lumix FZ1000 RX100 with which to fotografier virtually anything without experience.
In summary, the SEL 18-105 G is very versatile and covers about 80% of situations. It represents very good value and quality is indisputable: It's worth the money!
But when I take off one star for early performance declines and runway end, there or optics is proving rather average.
This objective needs a camera with software and correction parameters, so do not try to use it on old und camera. In addition, it is only for APS-C sensors, so the newest or NEX Alpha as 6000. It does not pass the Sony DSLR (A-mount) or A7.
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EVALUATION PROPERTY (remained intact and without corrections)
If you carefully read the comments and feedback, you will find that it is very disputed:
Some of the users denigrates, especially because of the geometric deformations, the rest are very satisfied.
The reason is that this recent target is designed for use on cameras with APS-C sensor with an internal correction software such as A6000.
It is equipped with a Sony E-mount (NEX, A6000, A /, A7R, A7s ...), but you can not use it on a A7 because they have a 24x36 sensor (full frame) and this lens is designed for APS-C size (NEX, A6000).
To be more specific, you can mount it on the camera and use it but will get a black circle on the outskirts of the photos.
The second important information is that this objective greatly deformed at the edges, especially in wide angle.
But it's not important, because the camera has software and specific information such deformation and correct before saving the photo.
Now, if you step on a fairly old camera that does not have this process and parameters specific corrections of this goal, and although you are cated and it only remains you 'to make these corrections manually on your computer the lightroom 5 software.
Little detail is significant: These internal corrections of the camera are performed only for photos and JPEG files. If you store in RAW format, the camera does not perform a correction.
PZ means Power Zoom OSS optical stabilization. The letter G goes back to Konica-Minolta ancient times and is synonymous with top game, which seems confirmed by the presence of 3 aspherical lenses and two ED glass low dispersion dearly.
In summary, this lens works very well on the A6000 and probably on the NEX 6and 7, for the rest, I can not tell you anything except that it must be expected to unpleasant surprises.
That said, the Sony 18-105 Zoom has a very quiet motor 3 speeds, good AF response and excellent quality.
It offers a bit less contrast than the Zeiss 18-70 but costs half. For me it is not a problem as I always slightly alters my photos before publishing them.
I use the 18-105 with the A6000 which allows me to avoid costs of approximately 2,000 Euro per A7R and an even higher amount for adequate objectives. This is not entirely done the same quality, the same angle, the same sharpness etc. but the results are quite similar.
I also have the 16-50 and 55-210 Kits that are very cheap and the Zeiss Touit 32mm f / 1.8 is equivalent to a standard 50mm lens, but does not macro.
To be honest, the image quality is not the same throughout the range of focal length and aperture: It is excellent between 50 and 90mm and f / 5.6 and 8. From f / 11 it deteriorates gradually (normal and known to all objective).
The end performance of focal range between good and acceptable. On a comparative scale of 1 to 10 which includes the legacy Zeiss Lenses to thousands of Euro, I would situate the 18-105 about 7-8, which is absolutely outstanding for the price ..
The price of 18-105 is very affordable. Personally, I buy a lot from Amazon France, UK and Germany and compares prices. For this one I paid 441.80 at Amazon Germany (including port), with my Visa-card Amazon, given good discount.
Regardless of the price, I attribute 4 stars, considering the price, the 18-105 deserves the fifth.
