Sony SELP1650 16-50mm Power Zoom Lens

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Product Specifications

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POWER ZOOM for smooth zooming with superb operability and quietness
ED glass and Aspherical lens elements for excellent performance with reduced aberrations
Built-in image stabilization
This lens is designed for Sony α camera system E-mount cameras. You cannot use it on A-mount cameras

Product Description

*:Black | Style:Retail Packaging Product Description Compact and lightweight design for excellent portability thanks to retract-ability down to a mere 29.9 mm

From the Manufacturer

E PZ 16-50mm F3.5-5.6 OSS Power Zoom Lens This 16-50mm retractable zoom lens is super compact and easy to carry and the ideal lens for traveling and other scenarios that require a lightweight, compact camera and lens combo.

Technology

Circular Aperture When changing your aperture to defocus the background, the light sources appear blurred. This ‘bokeh’ effect of the blurred background can be enhanced with circular aperture blades used in this lens. Conventional aperture blades have flat sides creating unappealing polygonal shaped defocussed points of light. α lenses overcome this problem through a unique design that keeps the aperture almost perfectly circular from its wide-open setting to when it is closed by 2 stops. Smoother, more natural defocusing can be obtained as a result.

ED (Extra-low Dispersion) glass As focal lengths get longer, lenses built with conventional optical glass have difficulties with chromatic aberration, and as a result images suffer from lower contrast, lower color quality, and lower resolution. ED glass dramatically reduces chromatic aberration at telephoto ranges, and provides superior contrast across the entire image, even at large aperture settings. Super ED glass provides enhanced compensation for chromatic aberration.

Aspherical lens elements Aspherical lens design dramatically reduces spherical aberration while also reducing lens size and weight. Spherical aberration is a slight misalignment of the light rays projected on the image plane. This is caused by differences in refraction at different points on conventional spherical lenses which degrade image quality in large-aperture lenses. Specially shaped “aspherical” elements near the diaphragm restore alignment of light rays at the image plane, maintaining high sharpness and contrast even at maximum aperture and can also be used at other points in the optical path to reduce distortion. Well-designed aspherical elements can reduce the total number of elements required in the lens, thus reducing overall size and weight. Advanced Aspherical (AA) elements are an evolved variant, featuring an extremely high thickness ratio between the center and periphery. AA elements are exceedingly difficult to produce, relying on the most advanced molding technology to consistently and precisely achieve the required shape and surface accuracy, resulting in significantly improved image accuracy and quality.

Distance encoder The distance encoder plays an integral part in ADI flash metering, which delivers high precision flash metering that is unaffected by the reflectance of subjects or backgrounds. The distance encoder is a lens component that directly detects the position of the focusing mechanism, and sends a signal to the CPU in order to measure distance to the subject. During flash photography, this data is very useful in calculating how much flash output is appropriate to the scene.

Lens-based optical image stabilization Gyro sensors built into the lens detect even the slightest movement, and the stabilization lens is precisely shifted to counteract any image blur that might occur. The use of precision, quiet linear motors and technology inherited from high-end Sony professional camcorders results in exceptionally quiet, effective image stabilization that contributes to high-quality movies as well as stills.

Additional Features Internal focusing Only the middle groups of the optical system move to achieve focus, so the overall length of the lens does not change. Other important benefits include fast autofocusing and a short minimum focusing distance. Also, the filter thread at the front of the lens does not rotate, which is convenient if you’re using a polarizing filter.

SELP1650 not recommended for use with NEX-3, NEX-5, NEX-C3

2012 Sony Electronics Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Sony is not responsible for typographical and photographic errors. Features and specifications are subject to change without notice.

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Product Reviews

Ignore the disparaging reviews - this is a fine kit lens

I’ve been motivated to write this review because I’ve used this lens on my NEX-6, and find many of the negative reviews here more a statement of photographer competence or expectations than valid criticism of the lens. Like so many people claiming competence to judge photographic equipment, they are big on technical gobble-de-gook, but are unwilling or unable to produce images that demonstrate the strengths or weaknesses of the equipment they review. My philosophy is, if you’ve captured a defect or an asset that impacts images, show it!I’m a simple guy who’s sort of new to this game - I’ve been shooting professionally for only 53 years, since I got a driver’s license - from 4x5 Speed Graphics through Leica M4P and Hasselblad, up through a pair of D7000s today. My video work has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, local TV and many medical web sites; my stills have been on the business and feature pages of magazines and newspapers worldwide. I bought my NEX-6 to use my languishing Leica M mount lenses, and they are spectacular on the NEX-6. I bought the 16-50 with my NEX-6 because it was cheap when the combination was selling at $200 less than it is today.Now, for this lens. Let’s be aware of what this lens is: A small, very light and very inexpensive lens spanning a wide range at a cost that has no parallels in size/weight/cost/quality. It’s not a Zeiss or Leitz. It’s a lens designed to produce good images in an essentially pocketable camera-lens combination, at a sub-$1000 price (NEX-6).And it does precisely that. It’s a relatively slow (aperture-wise) compromise, and yes, it does require in-camera jpeg or post-processing (RAW images) to correct distortion at its widest setting.But it’s really sharp. Can you hand-hold a 50mm lens at 1/15th, and get reliably sharp images? Well, thanks to the optical stabilization in this lens, you can. I uploaded a sample image of mountaineer-photographer Ed Webster at a book signing (you can buy it on Amazon), and as you will see, the image is SO SHARP you can read the manufacturer’s branding on the inside right (your left!) earpiece of his reading glasses. I also submitted a shot of the Manhattan skyline from Hoboken - produced from a RAW image with no post-processing - and you can see every window detail on all the buildings, even across town to the Empire State building - across the frame.I can beat it with my Leica M lenses, which are faster by far. I can beat it with my 24mm f2 Canon FD. But not by much, and not that you would notice in a print 16x24 inches or smaller at normal viewing distance.If you buy a NEX camera of any type, I would strongly suggest you consider buying this lens with your selected body.When you are out to shoot a cover for National Geographic or Sports Illustrated, take it off and use a $1000-3000 prime lens.For everything else, like family and travel, it’s more than competent for the task. I give it 4 stars only because, like all kit zooms, it’s a compromise - but a VERY competent one that’s likely to please you, and all who see its images.

A great little lens

I tried to use this lens on NEX-7 body and hated it - the vignetting, color fringing, and smeared unsharp corners made it unusable. I gave it along with my old NEX-5N to my daughter and forgot all about it. Then I sold NEX-7 (good riddance, it was truly an awful camera, as I now know!) and got the A7RII. One day I was looking for a small lens to take on a trip with me. My little girl suggested I take this lens. At first I brushed her aside - come on, I am not putting this thing on my precious A7RII! I’ll be wasting more than half of that magnificent 42MP sensor, this thing will never live up even to the remaining 18MP, blah, blah, blah… But then I thought, what the heck, listen to the kid, she may have the right idea. She sure did! When I came back from my trip and examined the files, I almost fell off my chair - the images were absolutely superb! Tack sharp across the frame at every aperture, no vignetting, no color fringes, no distortion - just perfect! The color rendition and contrast is fairly close to my Zeiss Contax G 45mm F2.0 Planar. It left my wife’s Nikon D3200 with Nikkor 18-140 in the dust. AF is silent and right on every time, the OSS is superb. This lens makes A7RII pocketable and weighs almost nothing. And as my little girl showed me, my sample of this lens works great on NEX-5N as well, definitely better than the original kit 18-55 lens with which that 5N came (make sure to upgrade your 5N firmware to the latest version available before using this lens on it).I could go on, but the bottom line is - for those times you can not or don’t want to carry your professional gear, but still want to enjoy your A7RII and 18MP is sufficient for your needs, this is definitely the lens to take with you. Street photography comes to mind, or dusty/wet places where you do not want to change lenses often. It can easily be used for serious work anywhere, and because it is so compact and light, you can carry it in your pocket at all times - I do. It feels great on A7RII body and looks cool also. I wish Sony would bring out something compact and good like this in the 55-200 range.

I really like this lens as an all around general lens

I really like this lens as an all around general lens, but keep having problems with it. The first one I got came as a kit lens with a Sony Nex-6. It worked for 3 years before giving me an error that the lens could not be recognized and to reattach it. It was out of warranty so I tried some of the things suggested by others with the same issue, but it didn’t fix it. I decided to replace it since the repair cost is almost as much as replacing it. The new lens came and was working fine at first. It was hardly used at all. I got a new Sony camera for Christmas and tested it on that body and it worked at first, but then gave me the same error my first lens gave me on the Nex-6 that said the lens could not be recognized and to reattach. I took the lens off the new camera and tried it on the Nex-6 and got the same error. It’s barely 3 months old and used very little. There are several complaints with this same exact same issue so it seems to be a problem with this specific lens. It’s unfortunate since it has so many great features. The lens was never bumped or dropped or damaged in any way. As it’s the second lens of this model that I’ve had this same problem with, I cannot recommend it.

Nice Power Lens

This turned out to be better than I expected, it zooms really easily and the AF/DMF/FM functions still work perfectly. It is super compact, but still gives about the same quality picture as the manual zoom lens I had.

Meh, but not many good alternatives

Not very sharp and has a lot of barrel distortion and very noticeable vignetting, though the distortion and vignetting can be dealt with by photoshop. Very compact and flexible range of focal lengths is its strength. Would recommend as a starter lens.

Small and Sharp

I bought this lens as part of a kit with the Sony a6300. It’s small and sharp. Nice lens.

very good lens

The lens is very however the price is a bit to high

Five Stars

Great

Nice compact lens

This a fine lens. It’s silent with the zoom and focusing and very compact. I use it to shoot video on my A6300 and it works like a charm.

I suggest to let pictures do the talking. 1 …

I suggest to let pictures do the talking. 1 …I suggest to let pictures do the talking.1. Check out this flickr accounts (e.g.

Very sharp and great value for money

I manual-focus legacy lenses on my Sony Nex-6 for nature photography with satisfying results, but realise I needed an AF lens for children and pets.Sony SELP1650 16-50mm Power Zoom Lens

Four Stars

It’s nice

Do not buy

This lens IS NOT COMPATIBLE with Sony cameras. When I try to use my camera, an error message appears on the screen and the camera freezes up. I cannot take photos.