Product Reviews

The Sony E 16mm f/2.8 is a good, tiny lens that makes an extremely good job once you have learned how to use it for its best qualities. The quality at the centre of the image is awesome and becomes (quite fastly) softer towards the edges. The lens has some pleasant vignetting which I personally appreciate - yet you can correct it on camera. The only point you have to be aware of is that the lens has quite a noticeable amount of Chromatic Aberrations in specific lighting and framing circumstances. Overall, the quality is excellent for casual photography. I would probably not use this lens on professional assignments unless I knew it well. The build quality is flawless and I do really appreciate the extremely thin form factor.

The lens has an ugly glow around any lights that hits directly the lens. It's anoying for a wide angle lens.

Purchased the pancake lens for use on the Sony A6400.So I can use it for street photography. First time out not disappointed.excellent results on the camera.

I ordered this lens to pair with my a6000 for street shooting, and it serves that purpose very well. It’s incredibly small and discrete which is a huge advantage on the streets if you don’t want to stand out. It’s also pretty amazing that the whole camera can fit in my pocket with this lens, which allows me to bring it with me pretty much everywhere. As other reviews have mentioned, this is a very soft lens almost all across the frame, with the very center being okay and the corners being horrible at any given f stop. BUT this lens does produce some very nice colors and contrast, which was the only reason I gave the image quality an “fair” score instead of “poor”. I really think Sony dropped the ball a little bit with this lens... for street photography I can live with the softness, but I would never use this lens for my landscape work. It’s really a shame, because 16mm is such a useful focal range on apsc and this tiny lens would be legendary if the sharpness even reached a mediocre level. The AF isn’t great either. But even with its many cons, I love this lens. It’s a blast to shoot with and its size allows you to bring it almost anywhere — which is why I bought it.

I bought used in good condition.All sony lenses have medium quality, not high end.I have a selp 18105G and i’m not satisfied with the sharpness...

Got this lens to use on a gimbal. It's smaller than the kit lens with a wider aperture.

Sony SEL 16F28 and SELP1650 The design of the lens is such that if you put the Camera with lens down the focus ring on the end of the lens actually touches the surface. put it down a little hard and the focus ring bends and flattens, and the lens is not usable any more. so far I have had 3 of the SELP1650 lens all with the same focus ring squash problem, this is not a camera and lens you can put on your shoulder and use every day. excellent photo quality , not a very usable package, could not recommend it. probably best to buy a different Sony product

This 16mm was the first lens I purchased together with my NEX-5 about 14 months ago and was always a disappointment, a great focal length that fails to deliver on sharpness. The optimum aperture for sharpness turns out to be 6.3 or 7.1 and is still not great, which is a shame because Sony has created a great camera and an outstanding sensor in the NEX series. Otherwise settle for sharpness in the center but blurry or soft detail at the edge of the frame. And even at those apertures it's barely acceptable. Lots of chromatic aberration and color fringing that, yes, can be cleaned up in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw. I wound up getting the 18-55mm which I’ve used for about 9 months and turns in a much better performance at f8, both at center and edge of the frame. If you are into wide-angle lenses you may want to look into the Sony E 10-18mm.

Overall a bargain and my default lens while traveling. Fine for exterior architecture, and good for interiors when paired with the Ultra Wide Converter (VCL-ECU1). This is the lens I used the most during a three week tour in England this summer.

I use this lens on my FS100 Super 35mm. It is very sharp, with no CA and no noticeable distortion. The auto-focus is super quick, and low-light performance is excellent. I have also used this lens with macro diopter converter lenses with excellent results using manual focus. Works absolutely brillinantly with the VCL-ECU1 wide angle conversion lens as well.

I love my new NEX7 camera - it is the best I have ever had. I like the zoom lens that comes with the camera but it is big and often I just don't need the zoom. So I got this smaller lens and really like it. I think it takes great pictures. I also love the fact that the camera has a viewfinder and that it automatically switches around to macro, regular, backlit, etc., etc. - my other latest Sony camera has such features but you have to manually switch them around. So far I have not had any distortion that others have mentioned with this smaller lens.

This is a decent and inexpensive lens for landscapes and other wide-angle photos, but it's not a particularly good compact lens for everyday use. I'd really appreciate a quality compact lens for my 5N, but this is not a good general purpose lens. I hope Sony comes out with a lens similar to the "pancake" Panasonic Lumix G 20mm F1.7. My decision about which camera to purchase was a close call between a micro four thirds camera and the NEX, but I opted for the 5N because it offers better image quality, but the other offered more lenses and choice. If / when Sony comes out with a good general purpose, compact lens it will have a very respectable lens selection.

I excitedly moved to the NEX from micro four thirds and ordered the 5N with this pancake lens. I thought this lens would be like the Lumix pancake lens but it does not compare well in sharpness and color definition. Sony, please make this a better lens!

This is a good lens for scenery and landscape, and for the price, its a good bargain, but as for macro, its a no go obviously because its a wide angle.

Good day to day lens because its small so it fits in your pocket, but if you are taking a group shot, someone on the edge might get distorted.

I have no idea why this lens is very dark on indoor panaramic shots, thought this would be good for real estate photography, even when i adjust the f stop, its totally dark, others have complained online, but i dont see answers or dont know why.. its totally not useable in panarama mode unless its brightly lit.. a shame..

Very happy with the images i captured with this lens attached to my Nex 5 .Tack sharp images Beautiful colours Highly recommended

Great wide fast lens. I attach this to my NEX-5 and slide it in my pants pocket and go. I can always have it with me. The focus ring is by far the smoothest I have ever felt, I wish all my lenses had it. Sony has done a fantastic job with the A mount lenses. It's a very wide lens and ALL lenses have some distortion and fringing, the wider the more apparent it is, it is not a problem on this lens unless you are some nerdy pixel peeper. 99.999% of photographers will have no problem with this lens, the 0.001% who have a problem with this lens just have problems in general.

The best things about this lens are that it's small and light. The NEX cameras basically feel the same whether this lens is on the camera or there's no lens on the camera - which is great, because it's no secret that size and weight are pretty important with a system like this. That being said, this lens has some (noticeable) distortion that is unlike other wide angle lenses. It seems that this is in the RAW format as well, so it might be that some software correction is being applied in the camera, or the lens construction is a bit different than other wide-angle lenses. However, given the size and price, you really can't expect top shelf quality. The center is acceptably sharp - corners are not terribly sharp. Once I figured out the limitations of the lens, I found that I could get great results when working within its constraints. Overall, I'd recommend this lens, but I'm hoping that a comparably sized fast (f/2 or better) lens in the 24mm to 32mm range (36 to 48mm eq) comes out soon.

I can't recommend this lens. I couldn't achieve proper focus with either auto or manual focus modes. Also some of the worst purple fringing I have ever seen. Unfortunately, I had to return it. Will wait to see what others say before trying it again.