Putting e=mount lenses in perspective

jtyoung wrote:

While I would assume that it was clear in my usage of the word from the next paragraph I would also point out that if the primary point of reference you are using is photozone.de, I should point out that the warning that test results cannot be compared across systems is plastered all over the site. So it would be disingenuous to suggest that the 16/2.8 can be quantitatively compared against similar lenses from other systems and found wanting.

I would assume that you are familiar with the problem of bar chart tops. Setting that and my first point about comparing across systems aside, the idea of the 16/2.8 being the "worst" focuses on one metric, optical quality. Now there are those who would argue that it is the only criteria that matters with lenses but I would disagree. And photozone does as well as they have 3 or 4 metrics depending on the lens.

If it were me looking at photozone's metrics, I'd probably favor the price to performance metric myself. If there were a single metric that best encapsulates the "worth" of the lens, that would be it for me. And in that field, if we were to compare the Samsung to the Sony to the Olympus in the approximate range, Sony comes out in the middle (3) not too far behind the leader Olympus (3.5) but definitely ahead of the last in the pack, Samsung (2). So we're not settling for the worst. Just average.

Y'know, I gave that a bit of thought and went back and looked at the photos I'd shot with the 16. Out of all the photos I've shot with the 16 (and I've had the lens about a year), there were not a lot that I'd discarded due to the distortion. Lightroom does a reasonable job of eliminating the distortion where I didn't want it and understanding the characteristics of the lens, I'd kept the distortion to maintain the character of the photo in many cases.

And honestly, the distortion/corner softness in the applications I've used it in is not that far off from my Canon EF 24-105/f4L IS which at 5x the cost, I'd have expected better performance.