A very negative review of Sony 16-50mm

My first DSLR was a Canon 20D with an 17-85mm lens. The distortion at 17mm was similar to what I've seen in raw files from the 16-50. My experience is that wide angle zooms in general tend to have a lot of barrel distortion at the short end. Fortunately. the distortion is readily correctable in raw files using software. And JPEG shooters with an NEX-6 never even see the distortion, because the camera corrects it (unless you turn the correction off in Settings).

Further, distortion in these lenses becomes much less severe quite quickly. Wit the Sony 16-50, it pretty much disappears at around 24mm.

Barrel distortion at the short end is the price you pay if you want a wide-to-medium-tele lens and it's no surprise to see it in the Sony lens. You "lose some pixels" correcting the images, but that's the trade-off for the flexibility of 24-75 mm equivalency in a small package.

Lesson: Life and optics both require trade-offs.

Mike Sandman