18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Zoom Lens

Pros: Machined Alloy Feel. Well Built

Cons: Plenty of barrel distortion and pincushioning at each end of lens

Overall, I like this lens. It is well built with a nice, machined type feel to it's metal surface. It zooms in and out smoothly and accurately. Seems to take nice photos with sharp, accurate colors.

Excellent normal lens

Pros: lightweight, precisely machined, sharp, good contrast

Cons: too much pincushion at 55mm

I use the lens with the NEX-5N. In the normal range, around 24 to 40 mm, this lens competes well with prime lens I have from other excellent manufacturers. Typical of zoom lenses, the extremes are not quite as good, but fine for non-critical use. At the wide end, barrel distortion is normal for the focal length; the corners are softer than I would like; but the lens is still excellent pretty far out from the center. Toward 55mm there is too much pincushion distortion and the corners are too soft; the excellent portion in the center does not extend as far out as at 18mm. For JPEG images, the camera body does a good job of correcting both barrel and pincushion distortion. For raw images you need to use an editing program. I assigned 4 instead of 5 stars because the lens could be better at 55mm. When I mention softness, I am viewing the image at pixel size. For normal viewing I don't notice it. Similarly, when I mention distortion, I am referring to architecture. For subjects without straight lines, it isn't a factor. For general purpose photography, where you don't need specialized lenses, this lens is an excellent choice. The body and lens make a really good, compact, lightweight kit for general photography and travel.

Poor Sharpness

Pros: Small & light weight

Cons: poor sharpness & barrel distortion

I use this lenses with my NEX 5N camera and have been somewhat disappointed with it's performance. Most of the photos with this lens lack clarity and sharpness throughout the photo. I do a lot of landscape and cityscape so many of my photos are at infinity focal length. This seems to be where the lens performs at it's worst. The resulting photos are very dull focus throughout, even with an aperture above f22. The barrel distortion is excessive on this lens which is expected at 18mm but the distortion continues throughout almost the whole zoom range. I wish Sony would offer a wider range of Zeiss prime options or even some G series lenses in E mount as it makes my camera very limiting unless I choose to use the A mount adapter which kind of negates the whole reason I bought this camera (compact size).

Fantastic kit lens

Pros: Graet images, image stabilization & feel

Cons: Some distortion at wide angles

This is a wonderful kit lens capable of producing excellent images of professional quality. Now I'm not comparing this lens to the Carl Zeiss $1,000 lens (I can't compare since I don't own one and don't plan on buying such an expensive one since I'm happy with the kit lens), but considering the cost of this lens ($100 with the kit or $300 retail) you can't do much better. Machining, fit, and feel are excellent as well.

Reviewer Images: (click to see full-size image)

good but not gr8

Pros: Stabilization, low light performance

Cons: lack of sharpness, cant focus well in long distance shots

This is the lens I took almost 80% photos with my sony nex 5N... but I feel now it is not a best lens. good but not gr8.

Poor Lens with NEX-7

Pros: None

Cons: Borders are terrible.

This lens under certain conditions will get center sharpness with the NEX-7, but overall the lens is overwhelmed by the 24meg pixel sensor. Anything beyond the center has little to recommend, since the lens has no sharpness. If doing it over, I wouldn't bother purchasing this lens for the NEX-7, because it's not worth the money.

Decent Lens

Pros: Sharp at mid apertures, well built, stabilized

Cons: Soft wide open at long end

A much aligned lens, but in daily use does the job you expect of it. Assuming your not a pro, using this as your only lens, but rather the family memory keeper or amateur photographer, the vast majority of us, it provides reasonable sharpness, nice color and ok bokeh. The build quality is top notch, it handles well and is perfectly sized for the Nex 7. Looking at the whole package I would say one of the better 18-55mm lenses on market. Yes I can tell the difference between this and the 24mm Zeiss, but that lens costs 5 times this one. Use a good editing program like Lightroom 3 or 4 to get the best out of this lens. I would have voted 3.5 if I had the option.

Reviewer Images: (click to see full-size image)

Not Bad

Pros: Useful zoom range, stabilized, excellent at F5.6-8

Cons: Soft at wide apertures, slow

For a kit lens this one is far better than average. This lens came bundled with my NEX5n and I have used it to create some some very nice images. That said, it does not excel for the types of photography I tend to favor, which are portraiture and travel. For travel, its decent, provided there is adequate light. Daylite street and landscapes are outstanding as this lens appears to be optimized for sharpness for F8. F5.6 is good at the wide end, but soft at the long end. Stopping down to F11 introduced diffraction, though not too badly at the long end. For portraits, however, the lens just doesn't have a fast enough maximum aperture. Even wide open at 55mm background elements don't fully defocus, though the out of focus areas are very pleasantly rendered (bokeh). I would say that the bokeh is very nice, but can only be achieved with fairly close subject distances and distant backgrounds. Of course, every kit lens for every camera system has these same limitations. Optical quality of this lens appears better than most such zooms, and is noticeably better than the SAL 18-55 I had briefly. If you don't print large and don't do much low-light handheld photography, this lens is fine, and may be all that many casual photographers need. Critical comments aside, this is a MUCH better lens than what you get on the usual point-and-shoot camera.