Pros:
- Auto Focus: The lens focuses quickly and quietly, though the speed can not keep up with current MFT cameras, especially in non-optimal lighting conditions, but this is mainly due to the camera and not on the lens, with new camera models, the autofocus will surely be even better.
- Optical Quality: The picture quality is very good, even at full aperture, the center is very sharp and is dimmed by something a great sharpness achieved over the entire image, including the bokeh is very pleasant for a light Weiwinkel. The resolution on the 16MP sensor leaves nothing to be desired.
- Processing: The lens is Sony typically very well-made, high-quality plastic with a sort of metal finish, like the other NEX lenses also.
Cons:
- Dimensions / Weight: While unpacking, I was quite amazed: for Mirrorless Lens Sony Zeiss 24mm is absolutely huge, it's even a bit bigger than the already not already compact 18-55mm.
I own a Zeiss ZE 35mm f2 for Canon full-frame (same effective focal length and almost the same light intensity), this has 24mm very similar compared to the Sony Zeiss dimensions, the purpose of a mirrorless system (great weight and size savings) misses Sony this lens so completely. The comparison with the mirrorless competition looks even worse: If I Sony 24mm with the Panasonic 20mm F1.7, the Samsung 30mm f2 or the lens in the Fuji X100 compare (all very similar focal lengths (35 -40mm small picture) + light intensities) , then I wonder what Sony has really thought with the development of the NEX system, because the 24mm is twice as heavy and more than 2 - 3 times as large as the above-mentioned objectives.
The NEX cameras are tiny for the sensor size, but the lenses destroy this advantage completely - a Fuji X100 or Olympus Pen with Pancake fits in a coat pocket, with the NEX + 24mm can forget that.
- Price: This point soured me the soup most: My above Zeiss has cost me 200 less than the Sony 24mm, and that's an original Zeiss Lens - extremely high quality and made entirely of metal and because of the full-frame capability, it has also more glass installed - Sony Zeiss is not a genuine Zeiss, but a Sony lens made of plastic (albeit very high-quality plastic) with blue sticker! So why this high price? For 1000 you get with the Fuji X100 or MFT + Pancake an entire camera with lens of comparable quality ...
Bottom line: if NEX is your single system and / or you have no problem with the size / weight and the comparatively high price, you can safely access - visually the objective is really very good and for the NEX there are currently simply no other fast aperture standard lens. Personally, I find the price but compared to the competition is not justified and the dimensions of the lens make the meaning of a mirrorless camera destroyed.
