fbpx
Features

Reviewed: 9 of Our Favorite Wide Angle Sony E Mount Lenses

Brett Day
No Comments
05/06/2019
4 Mins read
E Mount Lenses

These ultra-wide and wide angle Sony E Mount lenses will help you capture more with your Sony APS-C camera.

APS-C cameras are excellent overall, and they are loved by many for good reason. The extra reach due to the crop factor comes in handy for nature and sports photographers, and their smaller size makes them easier to carry around. As great as they are though, it can be difficult to find true ultra-wide, and wide angle lenses though which are needed for those who like to practice, astrophotography, landscape photography, street photography, and environmental portraiture. Fortunately the collection is growing on the Sony platform now. Some platforms are better than other when it comes to wide angle lenses for crop bodies, and it has to be said that this is not one of the strongest areas for Sony. Most of their attention is on their Full Frame lens offerings, but this doesn’t mean there aren’t some great first, and third party wide angle E Mount lenses on the market. Some of the ultra-wide and wide angle E Mount lenses we have listed are designed to be used with Sony’s Full Frame cameras, but even with the crop factor of x1.5 they will still fall into the wide lens category on their APS-C cameras. Here’s a quick look at some of the our favorite wide angle E Mount Lenses that we have reviewed over the years.

 

Rokinon 8mm f2.8 Fisheye

 

wide angle e mount lens

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

  • A joy to use with the aperture ring
  • Color rendering is spot on
  • No vignetting, hardly any distortion
  • Lightweight and well balanced

Cons

  • Needs to be stopped down to f5.6 for optimum sharpness
  • A bit soft wide open
  • Cannot use filters due to bulbous element

Buy now ($279): Amazon

 

Sigma 16mm f1.4 DC DN Contemporary

 

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

  • Fast aperture
  • Weather sealing to a point
  • Fast autofocus performance for the most part
  • Nice bokeh
  • Sharp, surprisingly sharp

Cons

  • To be honest, nothing

Buy now ($399): Amazon

 

Zeiss 18mm f2.8 Batis

 

wide angle e mount

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

  • Very sharp image performance
  • Low profile look on the outside
  • Fast to focus even on an old Sony a7 camera
  • Pretty nice bokeh
  • Weather sealing; it survived a downpour of rain and then tea being spilled on it
  • Distortion is fairly well controlled
  • Manual focusing amazingly doesn’t tend to drain the battery of the Sony a7 here

Cons

  • Expensive
  • The rubber focusing ring could use better gripping design

Buy now ($1,329): Amazon

 

Pro Tip: All of these wide angle E Mount lenses are fantastic, but they aren’t all weather sealed. If you want to be able to go out into the elements, and shoot no matter what Mother Nature is doing, you should keep some of these weather proof camera and lens covers with you. They are easy to use, they’ll protect your gear, and they’re incredibly affordable.

 

Sony 20mm f2.8 (APS-C E Mount)

 

 

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

  • Itty bitty size makes most E mount Alpha cameras feel like a point and shoot
  • Fast focusing
  • Really good color rendition
  • Pretty darned good sharpness for a pancake, but could be better

Cons

  • A bit more pricey than we’d like it to be

Buy now ($298): Amazon

 

Rokinon 20mm f1.8

 

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

  • A budget friendly lens with excellent performance
  • Smooth focusing
  • Feels nice

Cons

  • Big on the Sony E mount lineup of cameras
  • Though this won’t be a con to lots of people, it’s a very standard lens that is very clinical in its image creation
  • Why no depth of field scale?

Buy now ($449): Amazon

 

Tokina 20mm F2 FiRIN AF

 

wide angle e mount

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

  • Good image quality
  • Fast focusing abilities in good lighting
  • Nice bokeh
  • Small
  • Lightweight

Cons

  • Still trying to understand why there are two versions of this lens.
  • Why is there no weather sealing?

Buy now ($949): Amazon

 

Pro Tip: These wide angle E mount lenses will get dirty just like any other lenses out there. After a long day of shooting the last thing you want to do is spend hours in post trying to remove specs of dirt, water spots, and any other pieces of junk that may have been stuck to the front of your lens while you’ve been out and about. Keep a lens cleaning kit with you at all times and periodically clean your lens. You’ll be glad to have taken this extra step.

 

Zeiss 25mm f2 Batis

 

wide angle e mount

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

  • The best straight out of the camera color rendition we’ve seen with any single lens that we’ve ever tested. Tied right up there with the Zeiss 85mm f1.8 Batis lens
  • Pretty compact for what it is–a full frame wide angle prime lens
  • Weather sealing
  • Quite sharp with great bokeh

Cons

  • That display thing really is superfluous.

Buy now ($1,135): Amazon

 

Sony 10-18mm F4 OSS Wide Angle Lens

 

wide angle e mount

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

  • Solid metal construction
  • Fast AF acquisition
  • 4-stop image stabilization
  • Very wide

Cons

  • Small zoom range
  • There could always be less distortion
  • Someone would surely like it to be f/2.8

Buy now ($748): Amazon

 

Sony 12-24mm f4 G FE

 

Here are the pros and cons from our full review:

Pros

  • Lightweight and compact
  • Fun to use
  • Good image quality
  • Close focusing
  • Fast focusing
  • Slight weather sealing

Cons

  • Very difficult to use it with lens filters of any sort
  • We’re a bit puzzled as to why this isn’t an f2.8 lens to complete the professional trinity.

Buy now ($1,598): Amazon

You might also like
Screen Shot 2017-08-28 at 12.07.13 PM
Features

Opinion: Please Stop Wearing a Photo Vest if You Don’t Need to Be Wearing a Photo Vest

4 Mins read
07/09/2018

When I got into this industry years ago, one thing really confused me almost as much as how much certain older photographers tend to treat the younger generation of us: photo vests. I’m completely positive that you’ve all seen them: a photographer of a certain distinguishment (or trying to show off without having said distinguishment) wearing their vests that look a lot like safari vests. You know, almost as if they’re going to go out on an African safari at all times without being anywhere near something like a safari. Walking down the streets doing street photography? You’ll see a photo vest. In the studio? Photo vest! Hiking? Yup, A Photo vest!

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Canon RF 24-105mm f4 L IS USM review product images Canon EOS R
Features

Did Canon Miss the Memo That Says Mirrorless Lenses Are Meant to Be Smaller?

3 Mins read
12/26/2018

When Canon introduced their new Mirrorless cameras earlier on this year (The EOS R) one of the stand out features was that the lens mount was so huge. While other manufacturers like Sony have made all things Mirrorless smaller, the late comer to the Mirrorless party seems to have decided that bigger is better. In a recently released interview, Canon engineers seem to be having a sly dig at Sony by saying that lenses with smaller mounts are far less capable than those with larger mounts. Read on after the break to find out more about what the Canon engineers are wafting on about.

5.01
Features

What is Kodak Aerochrome? A Beginner’s Guide to The Confusion of Lomochrome Purple

3 Mins read
01/30/2013

Today’s exciting announcement from Lomography about Lomochrome Purple is bound to get some people excited and others totally confused. First off, know that it is based off of Kodak Aerochrome–an old infrared film developed for government surveillance. Since it is infrared, that means that there are no real purple fields in the Congo. So we’re here to answer a couple of big questions that you may have about the new film. Check out more information after the jump.