Scott Nicol
Forum Enthusiast
I recently picked this up and am very happy with it as an all rounder lens on my a55 (410 GBP). Given the right settings and good light (typically stopped down to around f5.6 to 8) its very sharp across the frame at nearly the whole focal length range. It suffers from a bit of distortion / vignetting at the extreme ends but this is easily corrected PP (particularly if you have DxO Optical 6.5 as this is a supported lens on the a55 body). Colours are good, construction is solid and its reasonably compact. A great travel lens for the a55. I recently compared this to the Zeiss 16-80 zoom - whilst the Zeiss was sharper, it wasn't "OMG its so much sharper" - the 18-250 shots held up well compared to the Zeiss. That plus the greater versatility of the 18-250 range made this lens the keeper for me.
Problems:
A little visible distortion at the extremes (18 and 200mm ends).
Problems:
A little visible distortion at the extremes (18 and 200mm ends).