Sony 24-240mm F/3.5-6.3 Review

Sony SEL24240 FE 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS Real world images 

Real world images (click for larger and exif)

Sony 24-240mm Review:

Let me confess, I am not a fan of superzoom lenses.  If you love the convenience of having a single lens that can cover a huge range, then the Sony 24-240mm is the only game in town for the Sony full frame mirrorless system.   Stop reading, just go buy the lens.

All lenses are trade-offs.  When someone says a “no compromise lens,” they are often referring to image quality but size, price and convenience are traded for the top notch image quality.  I’ve previously discussed the trade-offs between zoom lenses and primes.  Superzoom lenses like the Sony 24-240mm take these trade-offs to another level.

I will not be reviewing this lens “compared to other super zooms.”  Instead, it will be evaluated along the same criteria as every other lens.   At the end, every photographer is willing to make different trade-offs.

Most certainly, a range of 24mm to 240mm is an extremely convenient and useful range.  As shown in the real-world shots, a single lens lets you get telephoto and wide angle shots without having to change lenses.  I was taking a walk doing some landscape shots when I saw a butterfly, which I was able to capture as I was able to extend the lens to 240mm.

So right away, we know this is a very convenient lens.  Priced currently just under $900, it is one of the more affordable lenses from Sony.  The Sony 24-105 f/4 (reviewed here)  costs $400 more and covers only half the focal range of the Sony 24-240mm.   Does that make the 24-240mm a great value?   Read on….

Body and Handling

Build quality is solid if unexceptional.  Feels like a mostly metal construction.  It is weather sealed with optical steady shot.   Thus, it will be benefit from the internal stabilization system of the newer Sony cameras, complimenting its internal stability system.

The barrel extends when zooming, making it a rather large lens.  It’s not lightweight — weighing 780 grams.  I did not feel it balanced particularly well on the Sony A7riii.  In comparison, the Sony 24-105mm F/4 weighs 663 grams and the extra weight could be felt.   It’s not just the weight but how the weight is distributed. ( I do feel the Sony 70-200mm F/4 balances fairly well on the Sony A7riii and it weighs a bit more at 840 grams).

Unlike many of Sony’s more recent lenses, there are no switches or buttons.   Especially as the lens is equipped with OSS (optical steady shot), I would have appreciated a switch to turn on and off SteadyShot instead of having to dive into camera menus.  Similarly, there is no focus hold button which is helpful when doing people shooting (and re-assigning the button to eye-AF).

Focus was silent.   Speed of the focus was extremely light dependent, more so than other Sony lenses.  That’s likely because the aperture of the lens becomes pretty slow, especially at longer focal lengths.   When shooting at 240mm, the maximum aperture is 6.3 — If you don’t have lots of bright light, don’t be surprised if the focus hunts a bit.

Image Quality

My Sony A7riii brings 42 megapixels of goodness.   The Sony A7iii brings incredible dynamic range and low light performance.   If a lens can’t get great image quality then you are wasting the potential of the camera.   As noted above, this is already a slow aperture lens and therefore most of my testing is with the aperture wide open.   If you need to stop down to F8 just to get useful images, you can shoot with any camera and lens.  Not every lens necessarily has to deliver the image quality perfection of a Zeiss Otus, but is the Sony 24-240mm good enough?

Vignetting

Vignetting is always correctable either in-camera or in lightroom but correcting vignette will add noise in the corners.  As shown above, vignetting isn’t much of an issue in the mid-focal lengths.  At 24mm, vignetting is rather severe wide open at F/3.5.  While not as extreme, vignetting is pretty poor at 240mm.

Flare – Back lighting – Chromatic Aberration/Purple Fringing

First the good news, flare is well controlled.  You see a bit of flare in the 24mm F/22 image, at the bottom of the frame.  I’ve seen far worse flare from premium lenses.

The bad news:  Purple fringing is usually an issue with fast aperture lenses, when used at wide aperture.  I wasn’t expecting purple fringing to be an issue with a slow aperture zoom.  While it’s not extreme, you see it in the corners.  Below see corner crops with the purple fringing even at F8.

Distortion

Because of the complex construction necessary to achieve such a huge focal range, I was expecting pretty significant distortion in uncorrected files:

At the widest agnle of 24mm, there is rather severe barrel distortion.  It is correctable, but correcting distortion requires stretching the image and therefore making it less sharp.  At other focal lengths, you get moderate pin cushion distortion, a bit easier to correct.

Sharpness

For the most part, sharpness was tested wide open and at F8.  Being a slow aperture lens, my hope was that you could get sharp images wide open.

Starting with 24mm center crops:

At 24mm, the aperture of the lens starts with a reasonably fast F3.5, and therefore I tested at F3.5, F5.6 and F8.  At F3.5, the crop is a tad soft.  When not pixel peeping, it will certainly look acceptably sharp.   At F5.6 and F8, the center is tack sharp.

Borders at 24mm:

Corners at 24mm:

The good news is that sharpness never gets totally unusable.  If you’re not printing massively or pixel peeping, you can get ok looking images at all apertures at 24mm.  Unfortunately, the borders don’t truly become sharp until F8.   The corners never really become tack sharp.

Center crops at approximately 50mm:

By the time we get to 50mm, maximum aperture is already smaller than F4, at F4.5.  So the aperture of the Sony 24-240mm is slowing down pretty quickly as you zoom.  At f4.5, the center is just a bit soft but it doesn’t improve much at F8.  When not pixel peeping, the image will certainly look alright but you’re certainly not using all of the resolution of the Sony A7riii 42 megapixels.

Borders at approximately 50mm:

Corners at approximately 50mm:

Borders and corners are pretty poor at F4.5 and need to be stopped down to F8 just to get acceptable sharpness.

Let’s look at 70mm, the long end of many standard zoom lenses:

70mm crops:

70mm centers:

70mm border crops:

70mm corner crops:

At 70mm, things are getting pretty soft wide open, which is F5.  At F6.3, the center is tack sharp.  The borders need to be stopped down to F8 to get a sharp image while the corners are never truly sharp.

Moving to 100mm:

100mm center crops:

100mm border crops:

100mm corner crops:

At F5.6, the entire image is looking pretty poor.   At F8, the center manages to be tack sharp but the borders and corners never get beyond borderline acceptability.

Moving to maximum zoom, 240mm:

240mm center crops, tested twice:

240mm border crops, tested twice:

240mm corner crops, tested twice:

240mm was both better and worse than I expected.   It’s never tack sharp, whether at F6.3 and F8.   Even the F8 center isn’t really tack sharp.   Things don’t even improve very much at F8.  Centers are acceptably sharp at F8.   The borders and corners will generally be usable for snapshots but I can’t call them critically sharp.

Overall:

As an optimist, I would say that the Sony 24-240mm can conveniently give you usable images over a wide focal range.   Unfortunately, those images will often be more “snapshot” quality as opposed to fine photographs.   When attaching this lens to a high resolution camera like the Sony A7riii, you are wasting the potential resolution of the sensor.

I cannot recommend the Sony 24-240mm as a general purpose zoom.   If you use it as your general walk-around lens, you end up carrying more weight than if you used a normal zoom.  Yes, it’s less weight than carrying a normal zoom PLUS a telephoto zoom but you wouldn’t need to always carry both lenses around your neck nor would do you need to always carry both lenses.  Meanwhile, lenses like the 24-105 F/4, 70-200 F/4, and 70-300G will give you faster aperture and higher image quality.   Through most of the zoom range, the 24-105 F/4 will be one stop faster than the 24-240.  (Purchase the Sony 24-105mm F/4 from Amazon here).  Not to mention, that a lens like the 24-105mm F/4 is much sharper.  While it covers even less range, for less money than the Sony 24-240mm, you can get the much faster aperture Tamron 28-75mm F/2.8.  (Reviewed here).

If you truly hate the inconvenience of carrying multiple lenses or changing lenses, then I simply recommend not buying an interchangeable lens camera, certainly not a full frame model.   A camera like the Sony RX10iv will  actually give you far more zoom range than the Sony 24-240mm, it’s far cheaper than the Sony 24-240mm+camera body.  It’s going to be a fair bit lighter than a camera body + Sony 24-240mm.  And most importantly, the overall image quality will likely be comparable.

That’s not to say I would never recommend the Sony 24-240mm under any circumstance.  There may be times when it is particularly difficult to carry and change lenses.  For example, it could be very effective to bring this lens on a beach holiday, as the idea of changing lenses on a sandy beach is particularly dreadful.  Or any time you are traveling and will mostly be shooting in good day light, it can be particularly convenient to skip the camera bag and just go with one very versatile lens.   Similarly, if you’re not doing your most critical photography but want to take snapshots in good day light, carrying the Sony 24-240mm does indeed give you the ability to shoot a wide landscape one moment and then zoom in on some wildlife a moment later.

In the end, the Sony 24-240mm is a passable daylight snapshot lens and therefore I score it:

Rating (1-10):  Score: 4

(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)

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I hope to eventually review every Sony FE lens.  I’m half-way there as this is my twelfth Sony branded FE lens review.  (Coming soon, Sony 35mm F/2.8, Sony 70-200mm F/4 and Sony 70-200 F/2.8).  To make sure you see all my posts and reviews, please follow me on twitter using the button on the top right and/or subscribe to notifications.

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