I have this lens on my camera most of the time. I must admit that I mainly shoot landscapes and use mainly f8 to f11 but in A1 prints I can't see any difference to this lens compared to my prime lenses. There may be a difference in larger prints, but for my purposes larger prints than this are not required. Its great advantage is its size and convenience. I now regard it good enough to be my only lens on trips out; especially as I can carry it with a few batteries and sd cards in a particularly small camera bag. Thanks Chris for another great review, my number one go to for lens reviews.
I was thinking of this while watching the video as well, for someone with your use case I bet this must feel really nice to carry around with you. also I feel like a beginner portrait photographer could use this as a decent studio lens
Was just looking at this lens in a webshop and thought, let's see if Christopher has a review online. What a crazy coincidence you just posted 2 minutes earlier.
Nice review. The merit of this lens is its compact size and light weight. It's not difficult to find an optically strong lens that is big and heavy. But the 28-60 is the lightest and smallest FF lens that is also decent. The center is always sharp already wide open, and if you shoot landscape, stop it down to f11 and you also get decent results.
It is the only small zoom lens that I know of. It balances perfectly with an A7C camera and makes it fit in the pocket of a coat/jacket. Great for bright places or tripod. Something like the Tamron 28-75 or Sigma 28-70 are significantly larger and may not necessarily balance as well (I didn't think the Tamron did at any rate). Though if you are always going to carry your A7C style camera in a bag then that point is moot. I agree with Chris regarding the zoom ring but as long as the thing doesn't break I'm fairly happy. I bought mine as a kit, the A7cii is horribly priced vs the A7iv in Europe as it is, kit or no kit : P
I had this lens, bought it on ebay for $200. sold it after i got my tamron 20-40mm, but do miss it sometimes for its size. awesome lens for street photography...may pick it up again!
Great review. I keep this tiny lens in my bag as a lightweight backup. It does very well when used with flash at around 60mm and F8, so not bad for studio portraits.
You skipped the APSC test this time. That's a pity, since for some it can be an interesting option. Starting at 42mm, a very versatile focal length, and then going all the way to 90mm. Combine it with the Sony 10-20 or the Sigma 10-18 and you have a super compact set from 15-90mm. However, I found it a bit lacking in sharpness on my Sony a5100 and somehow it struggled with strong contrasts in the scene. Never did a formal test though.
I think it makes more sense in crop mode on a higher resolution FF camera (A7CR, A7r4/r5). You get 28-90mm in a single lens and maintain a minimum resolution of 26mp. To me, it makes no sense using it with an APSC body as its more expensive, larger, doesn't go as wide and has a smaller max aperture than the 16-50mm APSC kit lens. The only reason IMHO you would pick either this or the APSC 16-50 is if you are prioritising compactness over image quality (which you might if you just want a "good enough" setup you can fit into a small bag/large pocket).
This lens is very comparable to the Fuji 18-55 f2.8-4 kit lens in terms of light gathering, depth of field and image quality, it has a bit less reach on the tele end but it makes up for it being half the size and weight. Pretty amazing achievement for a full frame lens.
Thanks for this review, I tried this lens today and WOW, fantastic image quality across the board, have the camera, A7c, set to apply lens correction. Really impressed.
At last this lens is reviewed. I got mine used a year ago and it's my default lens for taking it to the park for snaps as it doesn't lose central sharpness, but now I think I'll take my sony 28mm f2 instead and use it stopped down if I want a nicer landscape photo. It seems nikon's 24-50mm equivalent is a fair bit better in the corners though hmm.
I bought my copy used on KEH for $239 in like-new condition. I love having such a small lens that produces such great images. I don’t use it often but when I want to travel light…
It is very good lens for commercial studio work with flashes, nobody of my clients can’t see the difference at f/8 between it and 50 1.2 GM, it is good for gimbal, but the setup is still heavy, with a7s3 it can be used indoor at 12800 log iso, it is good for traveling, because camera can fit into 50 1.2 gm lens bag. Whole camera with lens.
I upgraded to a full frame camera last year and got the kit lens for pretty cheap, and for a while It was the only autofocus full frame lens I had. I ended up getting an adapter for Olympus OM to Sony e-mount and have been using some old film lenses I had lying around. Honestly, my mother's old nifty-fifty is getting a lot more legwork than the kit lens and takes up roughly about the same amount of space.
Haiyaa, here in Malaysia this lens is cheap enough for full frame and i bought it used. It will not be as blurry as F2.8 to create the bokeh you want. But it has some bokeh at 60mm for portrait. Guess what, i pair it with Sony ZVE1, and those lowlight issue is gone. This lens f4-5.6 is not dark anymore with the camera. Owh just for back up, i bought 50mm f1.8 and it is cheap. It is a lens for bokeh, portrait, brighter than f2.8 in lowlight, sharper and etc. Hahaha i really enjoy how sony make small lenses like 28-60mm and small camera for video, and cheap 50mm. What a great combo to shoot anything and everytime. 😊 GAS syndrome did came to me, knocking my head to buy Sigma 28-70mm or Sony’s 20-70mm. But i resisted. I want a small setup with max two small lenses. That’s it.
Thank you for reviewing this lens. Actually, I am considering this lens for my a7riii but not many people reviewing this lens with high megapixel camera.
Greetings Christopher, I trust you, your family and loved ones had a wonderful Christmas. Just want to say I have found your channel and its videos, educational, helpful, entertaining and inspiring; as a keen amateur photographer. May I wish you and your loved ones a Blessed, Peaceful and Prosperous New Year 🙏 🎉
I briefly owned this but found it made too many compromises to be a keeper for my A7C kit. The fiddliness of the collapsible design and the slooow variable aperture made the Sony 20-70 f4 or the Tamron 20-40 f2.8 much more valuable as compact but quality walkaround standards.
Great review! I think this is good compact lens and perfect for outdoor during bright sunny day and one need to keep subject in center to achieve razor sharp images.
My copy of the lens definitely have a weather sealing rear gasket and I can see yours have it too, it's tiny but it's the. I expected more sharpness on the corners, it seems it's not optimised for 42mp and beyond. On my A7iv I have no complaints stopping down a bit.
Paired with an A7C or similar this would be great for hiking. Image quality seems great for a very small plasticy lens. I have actually been thinking about switching to A7C (II) and this lens as the base of my next gear setup. Add a Tamron 20mm and Zeiss 55mm and possibly some longer tele zoom for a very compact and light setup.
I have this lens and it's pretty much exactly as described here. It will surprise you with it's center sharpness and fast autofocusing. The focus by wire is excellent as well when in manual mode. I don't see a difference to my G series 2.5 primes in that regard. Biggest letdown is the zoom ring. It binds so you have to be deliberate when you go to set the focal length. It's just not pleasant but workable. With that said, I've never had a kit lens that doesn't need stopped down on the long end. This doesn't. It's over priced for sure, but on the used market a real bargain.
This lens is a case of “Function follows Form” rather than “Form follows Function “. Sony has designed a light, compact zoom to match its compact full frame cameras. The result is a lens with a range & aperture suitable for suitable for street & travel photography: 28 - 60 @ f8. Want a zoom with more range or speed? No problem. Just buy something bigger & heavier.
Hi Christopher, I like the way you test the lens specifications and give an honest opinion pointing out the pros and cons. You seem trustworthy. I recently bought this lens second hand to go with a Sony A7c and for what I'm using it for it is perfect. I bought the Tamron 17-28 for wider ranges and was interested in what you thought of that. Would you do a review please as I could not find this lens on your channel. Thanks in advance.
Bought this lens in like new condition (with 2 filters) for $250 CDN (about $185 USD). Size and weight is ideal for video use on my Sony A7IV using a Crane M3 gimbal. Sure, it's on the slow side, but my main use for it is outdoors in good light. Zoom barely extends, meaning I don't have to rebalance the gimbal going from 28 to 60mm (or 90mm in crop mode). Focus is quick and responsive. Not a G lens for sure, but it checks many boxes. Inexpensive, compact, lightweight, useful range, excellent focus, decent quality images and better than decent for video use.
Thanks for reviewing this kit lens, Christopher. I've been considering this small lens for travel and street photography. I got the a7C and am also wondering if an upgrade to the a7C ii is worth it as a hybrid shooter.
I actually enjoyed this lens with my A7C because I need my whole setup to fit in a waist pack. I used it on a bunch of hikes this summer. Unfortunately the thing that drove me crazy about it was having to manually twist the zoom ring to "de-collapse" the lens before you could take a picture. That just didn't work well with the way I constantly put away and take out my camera. I don't imagine that would be a deal breaker for most people though. The lens was reasonably sharp and I miss having the zoom, so I definitely would have kept it if it hadn't been for that one design annoyance.
I just got mine open box condition on eBay for $150 & with tax & shipping it was 168ish. Not bad for the price. This will go nicely with an excellent condition Sony A7 III with less than 7K clicks for $650ish on eBay as well. Thanks to God, good deals can be had!
Actually the only real problem with this lens is that it suffers from a strong flare in day light. I bought it second hand as suggested in this review . In that case it is a steal. I use this zoom in many occasions.
Seems to me this was designed for use on the a7C type bodies in auto mode. The bundled price still hurts, but they could have done a lot worse given the size they chased.
Thank you for the review. I wonder though, how it compares to Canon RF-S 18-45mm f/4.5-6.3, IQ wise, considering 24MP sensor? Both have serious weaknesses in the corners. Which is worse?
I got a lot of good results in the field with this lens and an A7C that ultimately bit the dust. Received the Nikon 24-50 in a kit with a Z5 I got as a replacement, I realize this class of optic isn't likely to be a system seller but the Nikon feels a lot nicer in use and I think most of the time I'd rather have 24 on the wide end over 60 on the long end. Both are easy enough to find used for under $250 which I would say makes them must-haves for anyone that shoots in daylight and cares about weight.
I have always used Canon. And the durability is simply incredible. I'm afraid to use a Sony body because of the durability. Nikon is very well built like Canon. I was thinking about buying a Sony A7C. But since yours died, I was afraid to buy it. So, I'm going to buy a used Nikon Z5 + Z 85mm f1.8 S which is cheaper.
It's a bit callous, but honestly this kit lense doesn't have great resale value which actually makes it good to buy in the used market rather than new with your camera. I feel a little guilty, but I found a guy who was selling his damaged when he just had dust on his sensor. Picked it up for about a hundred bucks or something. I mean I was planning to clean it but didn't even have to do that much work
For sure this lens is not good enough for window landscape and wife’s portrait shooters, but for the rest it is good enough. Compact zoom makes a lot of sense to shoot press wall with flash, and even dance with flash. Wide aperture is not required, as well as great conner sharpness, and even short shutter speed. The main is the light, and camera should be lightweight to fit into bag with attached synchroniser.
Seems like Nikon did the best with these cheap little zooms. Canon's is the least sharp but also the cheapest. These are good if you can find them cheap used. Throw them in the bag when you're working with a telephoto, but think you might need the ability for some wide angle B-Roll or a spontaneous landscape snap. They are small and light enough not to worry about.
Looks like it exist to promote $700 Tamron 17-50mm f/4, $700 Sigma 28-70mm f/2.8, $800 Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 and maybe even $700 Tamron 28-200mm f/2.8-5.6.
I'm sorry, I'm only a minute in and I'm blown away by how expensive this is. I've only bought used EF lenses so far and I'd rather save for good expensive lenses than this. Is this a price anchoring trap?
A piece of garbage (LE: a kit lens that offers decent IQ, and good in the center, but that misses a lot of points that it could have checked...), but decent for a kit lens, better than the 28-70mm older kit lens. (LE2: The APS-C Sony 16-50 OSS kit is "gabage" by all means, in IQ, build quality, usage etc.) I loathed it as, at the same time it has a lot of bad things going on: - it's a collapsible design, so it's longer when in use - 28mm is not wide enough, 60mm is not very long; would have anytime preferred a 24-50mm - 4-5.6 is quite dark, even for full frame, given the short focal range - it has dreadful close-up performance, worst-in-class - the zoom is very stiff and jumpy, so video smooth zooms are out of question As for the advantages, it's much better optically than the old 28-70 kit lens, in sharpness all over, less CA; very good autofocus, including in video; and it's actually small and light.
Yeah it's better than the old kit lens, but that lens was often free with the camera or only €100 - €150. Sold mine for €150, for some reason someone wanted to buy it from me for the same price as new lol.
It's a decent lens, why would you call it garbage? Buying much more expensive 2.8 lenses won't make your videos/photos better. I can assume that you are some kind of a beginner, so can't really blame you.
@@DespotRus On the contrary, I have lots of years of shooting and gear experience. "Garbage" can be too much to say, as the is the Sony 16-50 OSS APS-C kit lens (from build quality to IQ), whereas the 28-60 has at least very good image quality in the center. But it doesn't have at least one thing that I would have liked to from this list: 24mm wide; smooth zooming; good close-up performance; 70mm tele; brighter max aperture(s). And I hate the idea of collapsible zoom, that you always need to "uncollapse" (extend) to shoot. A Tamron 20-40mm f/2.8 or 28-75 f/2.8 VXD, used, either give you a wider starting point, or a longer range, both with vastly superior macro performance, both with very smooth zooming, not to mention the constant f/2.8. I prefer the Nikon 24-70 f/4 Z (good range, great build quality) or Canon 24-50mm (small, mediocre build quality, but at least it starts at 24mm, which I prefer).
That lens is trying to compete for the incredibly poor APS-C 16-50 kit, but it's still better than that crappy lens. But the price of this one is absolutely ridiculous.
