Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G Lens Review

The FE 16mm F1.8 G Lens slots nicely between two highly favored Sony lenses, the FE 14mm F1.8 GM and the FE 20mm F1.8 G.

The reasons for the 14 and 20's favorability carry over to the 16, including a desirable ultra-wide-angle focal length, wide aperture, quality build, compact form factor, and low price. The overall excellent performance of this lens also mirrors that of the siblings.

I usually have an ultra-wide-angle zoom lens with me, and that lens usually has a 16-35mm (or similar) focal length range. While I use the zoom lens's entire range at times, I often find the zoom ring set to the widest focal length available — 16mm. Additionally, a general-purpose zoom lens that includes about half of the ultra-wide-angle zoom lens's focal length is frequently in my bag.

What if you could take a compact prime lens to cover the widest-angle needs, with the general-purpose zoom lens handling the rest? The space, weight, and cost savings are big, and the f/1.8 aperture is a bonus.

Another logical kit building approach is to collect the set of Sony FE f/1.8 primes to cover a range of ultra-wide-angle needs. The above-pictured set of prime lenses creates a solid, lightweight, affordable, and overall, high-performance general-purpose kit.

Let's find out what the Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G Lens is all about.

Focal Length

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The ultra-wide 16mm angle of view is the first reason to purchase this lens or select it for use. Focal length drives subject distance decisions for subject framing considerations, and the selected distance determines perspective.

When moving back is not an option, 16mm may be a great choice. With even modestly longer focal lengths, you sometimes can't move back far enough to fit everything in the frame that 16mm takes in. When you want a foreground subject emphasized, rendered large relative to other subjects in the frame, 16mm is a great choice.

The 16mm focal length finds frequent use in architecture, real estate, landscape, and night sky applications.

Architecture subjects are frequently large, and fitting large subjects in the frame often requires an ultra-wide-angle focal length. Therefore, photographers chasing architecture will likely require 16mm focal length coverage.

Real estate is also large, and in the real estate world, larger generally means increased value. With an ultra-wide-angle lens, you can make real estate appear larger, using perspective to push the background deeper in the composition, a technique that hopefully generates more walk-throughs that sell more properties. The latter point is what gets both realtors and photographers paid.

In a sense, real estate and architecture are products, and 16mm is useful for some product photography applications, such as vehicle and aircraft interiors.

Extreme wide angles can differentiate your work from the crowd, but care must be taken to create compelling extreme wide-angle compositions. An ultra-wide-angle of view pushes the background away, making it considerably smaller in the frame relative to close foreground subjects. Ideal compositions will incorporate an interesting close foreground subject and a complementary midground and supporting background to complete the composition. The 16mm focal length is extremely useful for landscape photography, and implementing the attractive foreground subject against a beautiful background concept creates stand-out imagery.

The 16mm focal length combined with an f/1.8 aperture qualifies this lens for quality night sky imagery. The wide angle of view takes in a vast portion of the visible Milky Way, and the deep depth of field at this focal length encourages the inclusion of foreground elements, a differentiating factor for a starry night image.

All focal lengths are useful for photographing people, but don't let this lens's ultra-wide angle of view tempt you to get too close, as it will enlarge noses via perspective distortion. Use it for environmental portraits. Also, remember that a person closer to the camera can appear much larger than a person farther away. Although this effect may sometimes be desired, use caution when photographing groups at 16mm.

Wedding photographers will love how this lens enables the capture of the entire venue. For example, photograph the bride and groom coming down the aisle, large in the frame, with the rest of the ceremony small in the frame behind them.

This lens is an excellent option for attaching to a remote sports event camera to capture the start and finish of a race, goal and basket activity, etc. This lens will also capture the big image of the arena and will work for the overhead shot of the MVP sports figure being mobbed for interviews after a big game.

Vlogging and self-recording are good uses for 16mm.

The 16mm angle of view promises to spur creativity, and this focal length can produce intriguing movie footage.

The following images illustrate where 16mm fits the 14-24mm focal length range:

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At ultra-wide angles, a small change in the focal length imparts a big angle of view change.

Utilizing a smaller portion of the image circle means that APS-C sensor format cameras see a narrower angle of view, and 1.5 is the multiplier for Sony's lineup. When used on an APS-C format camera, this lens will show a 24mm full-frame angle of view equivalent. While not as ultra-wide angle on the small format imaging sensor, this angle of view is extremely popular, works great for landscape use, and has increased portrait photography benefits.

Max Aperture

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For the 16mm focal length, the f/1.8 max aperture is extremely wide, with few lenses wider than 20mm exceeding it. Wider apertures allow more light to reach the imaging sensor, allowing action (subject and camera) stopping shutter speeds in low light levels. The wide focal length and wide aperture combination facilitate handholding this lens in low light levels.

Another advantage of a wide aperture lens is the background blur it can create. This lens set to f/1.8 and focused closely creates a shallow DOF (Depth of Field), drawing the viewer's eye to the in-focus subject. Wide-angle lenses make background details smaller, and that makes it harder to diffusely blur the background, but an f/1.8 aperture can do that.

Here is a max blur at the stated aperture comparison example.

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Compare the widest aperture you have in your 16mm lens with f/1.8.

Due to the increased diameter of lens elements required, wide-aperture lenses have an increased size, weight, and price. This lens lacks all those issues.

Videographers will especially appreciate this lens's iris ring, which permits a manually selected aperture. The camera controls the aperture setting with the ring in the A (Auto) position, while all other settings electronically force the aperture to the chosen opening. A 2-position switch on the lower right side of the lens toggles the aperture ring between 1/3 stop clicks and smooth, quiet, non-clicked adjustments, ideal for video recording.

Aside from a slightly more complicated design, inadvertent aperture changes are the primary disadvantage of an aperture ring (especially when photographing in the dark). The Iris Lock switch, not included on the 14 or 20, eliminates that problem, holding the ring in the A position or within the manual range.

Sony impressively integrated the two iris-ring-related switches into the lens body, remaining functional but staying out of the way.

Image Stabilization

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The 16mm and f/1.8 combination is often handholdable without ultra-high ISO settings, and the Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G Lens does not feature optical image stabilization. Omitting the optical stabilization system reduces the size, weight, complexity, and cost. However, image stabilization is a very useful feature.

Sony addresses that omission with Steady Shot IBIS (In-Body Image Stabilization) in their Alpha cameras. In addition to reducing camera shake, the stabilized imaging sensor provides a still viewfinder image, enabling careful composition. Furthermore, sensor-based AF systems use the stabilized view for improved accuracy.

With no IS switch on the lens, the camera menu must be used to enable or disable IBIS or check the current settings. This extra step impedes working quickly, moving from tripod mounted to handholding, for example.

Image Quality

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The FE 14mm and 20mm F1/8 G lenses produced excellent image quality, so we expected to do the same. It does.

In the center of the frame, f/1.8 details are razor-sharp. No improvement is needed, but stopping down to f/2.8 increases sharpness to an extreme level.

Lenses typically produce decreased sharpness in the periphery of the image circle, where light rays are refracted to a stronger angle than in the center, and this one shows a modest sharpness decline from the center to the corner, where images show still-good resolution. Stopping down to f/2.8 results in reduced peripheral shading and increased resolution, and f/4 provides slight additional gains.

The resolution chart is merciless on image quality, so let's take the testing outdoors, next looking at a series of center-of-the-frame 100% resolution crop examples. These images were captured in RAW format using a Sony Alpha 1 and processed in Capture One using the Natural Clarity method. The sharpening amount was set to only "30" on a 0-1000 scale. Note that images from most cameras require some level of sharpening, but too-high sharpness settings are destructive to image details and hide the deficiencies of a lens.

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These results illustrate impressive performance.

Next, we'll look at a series of comparisons showing 100% resolution extreme top left distortion-corrected corner crops captured and processed identically to the above center-of-the-frame images. The lens was manually focused in the corner of the frame to capture these images.

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Count on samples taken the outer extreme of the image circle, full-frame corners, to show a lens's weakest performance. Still, these wide-open results are quite good. Stopping down decreases the modest peripheral shading, which increases contrast for an even better result.

This lens does not exhibit focus shift, the plane of sharp focus moving forward or backward as the aperture is narrowed (residual spherical aberration or RSA). Many modern lenses automatically correct for focus shift, though focus breathing (more later) can create slight angle of view changes.

As usual and as mentioned, this lens produces peripheral shading at its widest apertures when used on a camera that utilizes the full-frame image circle. However, the about two stops of f/1.8 corner shading is relatively low.

Want less corner shading? Stop down. Corner shading is slightly over a stop at f/2.8. Diminishing peripheral shading ends at f/4, with about one stop remaining through the narrower apertures.

APS-C format cameras using lenses projecting a full-frame-sized image circle avoid most vignetting problems. In this case, the under one-half stop of corner shading showing at f/1.8 will rarely be visible.

One-stop of shading is often considered the number of visibility, though subject details provide a widely varying amount of vignetting discernibility. Vignetting is correctable during post-processing, with increased noise in the brightened areas the penalty, or it can be embraced, using the effect to draw the viewer's eye to the center of the frame. Study the pattern shown in our vignetting test tool to determine how your images will be affected.

Lateral (or transverse) CA (Chromatic Aberration) refers to the unequal magnification of all colors in the spectrum. Lateral CA shows as color fringing along lines of strong contrast running tangential (meridional, right angles to radii), with the mid and especially the periphery of the image circle showing the most significant amount, as this is where the most significant difference in the magnification of wavelengths typically exists.

Lateral CA is often easily correctable (often in the camera) by radially shifting the colors to coincide. However, it is always better to avoid this aberration in the first place.

Color misalignment can be seen in the site's image quality tool, but let's also look at a worst-case example. The image below is a 100% crop from the extreme top left corner of a Sony a1 frame showing diagonal black and white lines.

This image should only contain black and white colors, with the additional colors indicating a modest lateral CA presence.

A relatively common lens aberration is axial (longitudinal, bokeh) CA, which causes non-coinciding focal planes of the various wavelengths of light. More simply, different colors of light are focused to different depths. Spherical aberration, along with spherochromatism, or a change in the amount of spherical aberration with respect to color (looks quite similar to axial chromatic aberration but is hazier) are other common lens aberrations to observe. Axial CA remains somewhat persistent when stopping down, with the color misalignment effect increasing with defocusing. The spherical aberration color halo shows little size change as the lens is defocused, and stopping down one to two stops generally removes this aberration.

In the real world, lens defects do not exist in isolation, with spherical aberration and spherochromatism generally found, at least to some degree, along with axial CA. These combine to create a less sharp, hazy-appearing image quality at the widest apertures.

The wide-open aperture example below compares the fringing colors of the defocused specular highlights in the foreground to the background. The lens introduced any differences from the neutrally colored subjects.

Only a minor color difference shows in this example, a good performance.

Bright light reflecting off lens elements' surfaces may cause flare and ghosting, resulting in reduced contrast and sometimes interesting, usually objectionable visual artifacts. The shape, intensity, and position of the flare and ghosting effects in an image are variable, dependent on the position and nature of the light source (or sources), selected aperture, shape of the aperture blades, and quantity and quality of the lens elements and their coatings. Additionally, flare and ghosting can impact AF performance.

Thanks in part to the non-descript "optimized coating", this lens impressively avoids nearly all flare effects, even at narrow apertures, in our standard sun in the corner of the frame flare test, and it is not difficult to get the sun in the frame at this angle of view.

Flare effects can be embraced or avoided, or removal can be attempted, though that process is sometimes challenging. Thus, this lens's high flare resistance is a welcome trait.

Two lens aberrations are particularly evident in images of stars, mainly because bright points of light against a dark background make them easier to see. Coma occurs when light rays from a point of light spread out from that point instead of being refocused as a point on the sensor. Coma is absent in the center of the frame, gets worse toward the edges/corners, and generally appears as a comet-like or triangular tail of light that can be oriented either away from the center of the frame (external coma) or toward the center of the frame (internal coma). The coma clears as the aperture is narrowed. Astigmatism is seen as points of light spreading into a line, either sagittal (radiating from the center of the image) or meridional (tangential, perpendicular to sagittal). This aberration can produce stars appearing to have wings. Remember that Lateral CA is another aberration that is apparent in the corners.

The image below is a 100% crop from the top-left corner of a Sony a1 image captured at f/1.8.

I would like to see less corner star stretching in this test.

This lens has extreme barrel distortion. The geometric distortion is so strong that Sony forces correction in the camera (EVF, LCD, JPG images, movies), regardless of the lens correction settings. Processing this lens's distortion test images using third-party software with correction disabled reveals the true image captured.

The squares in the test chart filled the viewfinder during capture, but there is a lot of extra subject in the frame, and the straight line created by the top of the chart is rendered as a strong curve.

Every lens is a compromise, and the reasons for designing a lens with uncorrected geometric distortion include lower cost, smaller size, lighter weight, reduced complexity, and improved correction of aberrations that are not software-correctable. Geometric distortion can be corrected, including in-camera, using software and a correction profile, and once properly corrected, it is no longer a differentiator between lenses. However, the stretching required for correction can affect the final image quality. Base your evaluation on the corrected image quality shown in all other test results shared for this lens.

As seen earlier in the review, it is easy to illustrate the strongest blur a lens can create, and wide-angle lenses are inherently disadvantaged in this regard. Due to the infinite number of variables present among available scenes, assessing the blur quality, bokeh, is considerably more challenging. Here are some f/11 (for diaphragm blade interaction) examples.

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The first 100% crop example shows defocused highlights that are rather smoothly filled and well-rounded. The second f/11 100% crop shows outdoor details beautifully blurred, and the "Full" example shows an entire frame reduced in size.

Except for a small number of specialty lenses, the wide aperture bokeh in the frame's corner does not show round defocused highlights, instead showing cat's eye shapes due to a form of mechanical vignetting. If you look through a tube at an angle, similar to the light reaching the frame's corner, the shape is not round. That is the shape we're looking at here. These results show the upper-left quadrant.

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The wide aperture corners are not so nice, but as the aperture narrows, the entrance pupil size is reduced, and the mechanical vignetting diminishes, making the corner shapes rounder.

An 11-blade diaphragm will create 22-point sunstars (diffraction spikes) from point light sources captured with a narrow aperture. Generally, the more a lens diaphragm is stopped down, the larger and better shaped the sunstars tend to be. Wide aperture lenses tend to have an advantage in this regard, and this lens can produce beautiful stars, as illustrated below.

This example was captured at f/16.

The design of this lens is illustrated above.

[1] Advanced Aspherical lens (AA lens)
[2] Aspherical lens
[3] Super ED glass
[4] ED (Extra-low Dispersion) glass

"Two AA (Advanced Aspherical) lenses minimize field curvature and astigmatism for stunning image-wide resolution at all apertures. One Super ED (Extra-low Dispersion) glass element and three ED elements suppress chromatic aberration right out to the image periphery." [Sony]

This lens's strong barrel distortion requires correcting, and some of the corner results are imperfect, but central image sharpness is impressive, wide aperture peripheral shading is relatively low, and overall, the Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G Lens produces excellent image quality.

Focusing

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As with the 14mm and 20mm siblings, dual XD (extreme dynamic) linear motors drive AF. The Sony FE 16mm f/1.8 G Lens internally focuses smoothly, quietly, accurately, and quickly. This lens mounted to an a1 focuses (slowly) in dim light scenarios when sufficient contrast is present.

An AF hold button is available. While in continuous focus mode, this button can be pressed to lock focus at the currently selected focus distance, permitting a focus and recompose technique. This button also acts as a custom button (C5) and can be programmed to another function using the camera's menu (note that not all models support this).

FTM (Full Time Manual) focusing is supported via Sony's DMF (Direct Manual Focus) AF mode.

The ribbed-rubber-coated manual focus ring is modestly sized, optimal for the small lens size. It turns easily, slightly more easily than I prefer. This ring turns smoothly, and the 150° of Linear Response MF rotation is just right for precise manual focusing at all distances, providing a good manual focus experience.

It is normal for the scene to change size in the frame as the focus is pulled from one extent to the other. This effect is focus breathing, a change in focal length resulting from a change in focus distance. Focus breathing impacts photographers intending to use focus stacking techniques, videographers pulling focus (without movement to camouflage the effect), and anyone critically framing while adjusting focus.

As seen below, this lens produces a modest, normal change in subject size through a full-extent (worst-case) focus distance adjustment.

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This lens has a minimum focus distance of 5.9" (150mm), and it generates a remarkable, especially for the focal length, 0.25x maximum magnification spec. Switch to MF mode to improve the numbers to 5.2" (130mm) and 0.30x. This close focusing capability at 16mm enables highly creative perspectives.

Model	Min Focus Distance		Max Magnification
Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM Lens	5.1"	(130mm)	0.26x
Sigma 14mm F1.4 DG DN Art Lens	11.8"	(300mm)	0.08x
Sony FE 14mm F1.8 GM Lens	9.8"	(250mm)	0.10x
Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G Lens	5.9"	(150mm)	0.25x
Sony FE 20mm F1.8 G Lens	7.1"	(180mm)	0.20x
Sony FE 24mm F1.4 GM Lens	9.4"	(240mm)	0.17x
Sony FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM II Lens	8.7"	(221mm)	0.32x

At this lens's minimum MF distance, a subject measuring approximately 4.3 x 2.9" (109 x 73mm) fills a full-frame imaging sensor.

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The individual USPS love stamps measure 1.19 x 0.91" (30 x 23mm).

I shared a wide-open aperture and f/11 to illustrate the peripheral blur at f/1.8 and the excellent corner performance at f/11. While this lens produces sharp center-of-the-frame details at minimum focus distance with a wide-open aperture, expect the image periphery to be soft due to field curvature. F/11 brings on increased depth of field that significantly improves corner image quality.

This lens's minimum focus distance seems usable until the working distance is calculated. Removing the imaging sensor plane to the end of the lens measurement from the specification leaves 0.8" (20mm) in front of the hood and 1.7" (43mm) in front of the bare lens. Expect the lens to obstruct lighting when the subject is that close.

This lens is not compatible with Sony teleconverters.

Design & Features

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From a design standpoint, the Sony FE 16mm f/1.8 G Lens is like its 14mm and 20mm siblings. Sony G lenses all feature high build quality.

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The AF/MF switch is slightly recessed, avoiding inadvertent change and increasing the effort to change it with gloves on.

This lens is dust and moisture-resistant, and the front lens element has a fluorine coating that repels fingerprints, dust, water, oil, and other contaminants and makes cleaning considerably easier.

The Sony FE 16mm f/1.8 G Lens is small and light, especially for its class. It is a pleasure to carry and use for extended periods, including on a gimbal when recording movies.

Model	Weight oz(g)		Dimensions w/o Hood "(mm)		Filter	Year
Canon RF 16mm F2.8 STM Lens	5.8	(165)	2.7 x 1.6	(69.2 x 40.1)	43	2021
Sigma 14mm F1.4 DG DN Art Lens	41.3	(1170)	4.0 x 5.9	(101.4 x 149.9)	n/a	2023
Sony FE 14mm F1.8 GM Lens	16.2	(460)	3.3 x 3.9	(83.0 x 99.8)	n/a	2021
Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G Lens	10.7	(304)	2.9 x 3	(73.8 x 75.0)	67	2025
Sony FE 20mm F1.8 G Lens	13.2	(373)	2.9 x 3.3	(73.5 x 84.7)	67	2020
Sony FE 24mm F1.4 GM Lens	15.7	(445)	3.0 x 3.6	(75.4 x 92.4)	67	2018

View and compare the complete Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G Lens Specifications in the site's lens specifications tool.

Here is a visual comparison:

Positioned from left to right are the following Sony FE lenses:

14mm F1.8 GM
16mm F1.8 G
20mm F1.8 G
24mm F1.4 GM

Use the site's product image comparison tool to visually compare the Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G Lens to other lenses.

This lens's narrow width enables using common, mid-sized, and affordable 67mm filters. A standard thickness circular polarizer filter does not increase peripheral shading. Still, a slim model such as the Breakthrough Photography X4 is recommended.

Sony includes the petal-shaped semi-rigid plastic EW-73E hood in the box. This hood features a matte interior finish but does not feature a push-button release to make bayonet mounting easier. Though not big, the size of the hood affords the front lens element reasonable protection from contrast-robbing, flare-inducing light and from impact, including from light rain.

A lens case is not included, but the caps are.

Price, Value, Compatibility

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The usefulness and performance of this lens for a relatively low price make it a great deal.

As an "FE" lens, the Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G Lens is compatible with all Sony E-mount cameras, including full-frame and APS-C sensor format models. Sony provides a 1-year limited warranty.

The reviewed Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G Lens was on loan from Sony.

Alternatives

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The two siblings mentioned in this review are the closest Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G Lens alternative lenses. I'll start with the Sony FE 14mm F1.8 GM Lens.

The image quality comparison shows the two lenses performing similarly, with the 16mm lens having a slight mid-frame sharpness advantage. The 16mm lens has considerably less peripheral shading, including at narrow apertures, and strong barrel distortion vs. mild.

The Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G vs. 14mm F1.8 GM Lens comparison shows that the 16mm lens is moderately smaller and significantly lighter. The 16mm lens has 11 aperture blades vs. 9, an iris lock vs. none, and filter threads vs. none. With a longer focal length and shorter minimum focus distance, the 16mm lens has a considerably higher maximum magnification, 0.25x vs. 0.10x. The 14mm focal length is considerably wider than 16mm (see the comparison in the focal length discussion), but the 16mm lens costs about half as much.

The Sony FE 20mm F1.8 G Lens is the other lens that should be compared.

The image quality comparison shows that the 20mm lens is sharper in the mid-frame and periphery. The 16mm lens has considerably less peripheral shading, including at narrow apertures, and strong barrel distortion vs. slight pincushion distortion. The 20mm lens showed slightly more flare effects in the f/16 test.

The Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G vs. 20mm F1.8 G Lens comparison shows the 16mm lens is slightly smaller and lighter. The 16mm lens has 11 aperture blades vs. 9, an iris lock vs. none, and a slightly higher maximum magnification, 0.25x vs. 0.20x. The 20mm focal length is considerably narrower than 16mm, but the 16mm lens costs moderately less.

Use the site's tools to create additional comparisons.

Summary

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It is not hard to justify adding the Sony FE 16mm F1.8 G Lens to the kit.

This affordable, wide-aperture lens is little, lightweight, nicely built, and high performing.