Sony 12-24mm Real world images:
Sony 12-24mm f/4 G lens review:
The Sony 12-24 is an ambitious offering by Sony and a rather unique lens. There are very few zoom lenses nearly as wide. Such ultrawide shooting is not for everyone but some people, including me, absolutely love it.
You can see a ton of real world shooting with the Sony 12-24mm F/4 at Universal Studios in this post.
For their a-mount lineup, Sony never did a lens wider than 16mm. Within the Nikon brand, the widest zoom is 14mm. So the only true competing lenses are the Canon 11-24/4 and the Sigma 12-24/4. The Sony 12-24 truly stands out compared to those lenses though because of size and weight. The Canon 11-24/4 currently retails for $2699 and weighs a hefty 1180 grams. The Sigma 12-24/4 is currently selling for $1599 and weighs 1150 grams.
As of this writing, the Sony 12-24 is on sale for $1599 and weighs a mere 565 grams. So it is practically half the weight of the competition, while being much cheaper than the Canon lens and priced the same as the third party Sigma lens. Combined with a Sony mirrorless camera, it makes for a light weight ultrawide system that no other brand can currently match. The question is whether the lens can perform.
Body and Handling
Like most lenses this wide, the 12-24 has a rather bulbous front element meaning it cannot use traditional filters. It includes a built-in hood and snap on lens cap. It includes a Focus hold button and AF/MF switch. The focus and zoom rings are rubberized making them easy to hold. The lens has a high quality plastic feel to it. As a result, the lens does not feel heavy but still feels well built.
[If you do want to use filters, the best reasonably priced option is probably the WonderPana system, click here to see it on Amazon]
The lens is practically the same size and shape as the Sony 24-105, which has caused me some confusion when reaching for one of the lenses.
Overall, the lens feels good in the hand and balances well on the Sony A7riii. The weight is very reasonable, especially for a fixed aperture ultrawide angle lens. The inability to use filters may turn off some people but it is the norm for lenses so wide.
The lens lacks optical stabilization but benefits from Sony’s internal stabilization system in cameras like the A7riii. This immediately creates an advantage over other systems as it opens up handheld night landscape shots that would require ultra high ISO on other cameras.
With IBIS on the Sony A7riii and shooting at 12mm, I have gotten an occasional sharp image even as slow as 1 second but I wouldn’t really rely on anything that slow. Each person’s results will vary depending on their hand holding technique, but I’m comfortable using this lens at around 1/3rd of a second.
These are 100% crops of handheld examples at 1/2 and 1/3rd of a second. At 1/3rd of a second, my hit rate is over 50%.
Autofocus is completely silent and is usually pretty quick. I did occasionally have a little hiccup with autofocus, more than other lenses. Because it’s so wide, the focus subject is often very small. Even when using flexible spot AF, it sometimes has trouble focusing on such a small area and either focused on the background or hunts if it can’t find enough contrast. This is more of a camera issue than a lens issue, but brought forward with this lens as the subject is often small.
Image Quality
For the most part, the image quality is deserving of the “G” moniker. I did not notice purple fringing or chromatic aberration being especially problematic in high contrast shots.
Vignetting is rather severe at 12mm, even when stopping down but it is a very gradual shading that is easily corrected:
Vignetting is far less severe at 24mm F4, and very mild at 24mm F8.
When stopped down to around F16, the 12-24 can make truly brilliant sunstars:
The Achilles heel of this lens may be flare. Looking at the below examples, when the light is in or near the frame, you see some rather minor flaring at wide aperture but some pretty severe and ugly flares at small aperture.
Distortion
I recently saw a vlogger complaining about the distortion of this lens, but the individual clearly did not understand distortion of wide angle lenses. All ultra wide angle shooting will exaggerate perspective if horizontal and vertical lines are not kept straight. As in this example, where shooting from an angle created exaggerated perspective at 12mm:
This is not a lens defect but a normal effect of shooting ultrawide. In reality, the distortion of this lens isn’t bad at all for an ultrawide angle. As we would expect, distortion is worst at 12mm with some barrel distortion:
As long as the horizontal and vertical lines are kept pretty straight, we can see how minimal distortion really is. The barreling is easily corrected:
Sharpness
The really good news, this lens is tack sharp in the center and near center, wide open at all focal lengths. Let’s take a look at this image at 12mm and F4:
While this image was processed to taste, only default lightroom importing sharpness was applied, no additional sharpening. Looking at a close crop of the off center plaque:
That’s what I call sharp. Below are off center crops at 16mm F4 and 24mm F4.
At 16mm, I would continue to call this tack sharp in the off center crop. The 24mm crop is just very slightly softer. Still completely acceptable at F4, but you can see the 24mm crop does sharpen up a little at F8. Though I don’t intend to post a crop from every aperture and focal length, in my experience the 24mm was completely sharp in the center and off center at F5.6.
The real challenge for sharpness, especially in an ultrawide lens lies in the corner. Let’s start with 12mm corners at F4, F5.6 and F8:
At F4, it is fairly sharp, certainly usable. Just stopping down slightly to F5.6 you get the extreme corner now tack sharp. But oddly, this is the peak of sharpness. While most lenses reach their peak around F8, here we see the F8 corner is a bit softer than F5.6. Basically, diffraction is kicking in very early.
We see the same pattern at 16mm. Fairly sharp at F4, tack sharp at F5.6, but starting to see diffraction at F8:
At 24mm, the corner doesn’t quite reach peak sharpness until F8 but it is completely usable corner to corner at F5.6:
In sum, this is a very sharp instrument and is surprisingly sharp at F4 and F5.6. If there is a downside, it is that diffraction kicks in early. You will get your sharpest images at F5.6. If you need to stop down more for depth of field, you will start to get diffraction. I would avoid going smaller than F11 unless you are prioritizing sunstars over optimal sharpness.
Usefulness — 12mm to 16mm to 24mm
Until recently, there were very few choices wider than 16mm. Nikon has had their 14-24mm. Sigma had an older mediocre 12-24mm. A few years ago, Tamron came out with a 15-30mm. But the last couple of years has seen a proliferation of even wider lenses. Sigma introduced a new 12-24mm/F4, Canon introduced a premium 11-24mm/F4. There have been a number of ultrawide primes from Sigma, Venus, Irix and others.
The question is whether you need something wider than 16mm. Many people will never need anything wider than 16mm. 16mm lenses tend to have the advantage of accepting filters. Perspective distortion is easier to control on a 16mm lens. But I will say that there is a world of difference between 12mm and 16mm. So below find a couple of examples comparing 12mm, 16mm and 24mm:
Overall:
This is a game changing lens. If you love ultrawide shooting and you’re not already shooting Sony, this is a lens that could make you consider switching systems. Canon has their 11-24/4 which is far more expensive and far heavier. Sigma has a 12-24/4 which is priced about the same but is far heavier. Nikon has their 14-24mm/2.8 which is heavier and not nearly as wide. And none of these lenses have stabilization. While the Sony 12-24/4 does not have optical stabilization either, it benefits from Sony’s internal stabilization. So the Sony 12-24/4 gives you the benefit of shooting a stabilized lens at far less weight than the competition, at a very reasonable price. I love to shoot ultrawide when I travel, and I’d much rather carry the 565 gram Sony 12-24 as opposed to a 1 kg lens from the competitors.
Meanwhile, the quality of the lens is mostly stellar. Between the sharpness at F4 and the benefits of IBIS, you will get low light handheld landscapes that you couldn’t get with other lenses. Distortion and vignetting are very reasonable for a lens such as this. You will get corner to corner tack sharpness at F5.6. Do be careful to watch for flare depending on the position of the light. Further take note that diffraction kicks in a bit early.
Rating (1-10): Score: 9
I debated how to rate this lens. On pure optics, the flare reduces the score. But I give this lens extra points for being so unique and reasonably priced. If you have interest in extreme ultrawide, then this lens really should be in your bag. If you are shooting Canon or Nikon and you love shooting ultrawide, this lens is a reason to consider switching systems.
(About my scoring: 9-10 is a superb lens which could have a place in the bag of almost every photographer. 6-8: recommended with caveats. 3-5: A compromised lens that may still be suitable for some shooters and situations. 1-2: Just stick to your phone camera)
As of February 2018, the lens is on sale for $100 off. If you’re interested in purchasing this lens from Amazon.com, please consider using this link to help support this site:
Need to use filters on the 12-24:
I’ll also be reading the following book upon its release, to further improve my wide angle photography:
