The Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens is fast and tiny, making it a very attractive option for travel photography. Its pancake design means that it projects less than an inch from the camera’s body. Mounted on an APS-C format body such as the a6500, the lens’s 16mm focal length becomes the equivalent of what a 24mm lens would be on a full-frame camera. And that happens to be the sweet spot for my personal tastes when it comes to fast primes.
In the hope that it might be useful to see how it performs and what kind of perspective it gives in real-world shooting, here’s a selection of photos I’ve taken with this lens. They were all taken on a Sony a6500 body. I’ve included a range of apertures, although they’re heavily weighted towards large apertures—after all, if I’m using a fast lens, there’s a good chance I want to be using it wide open or close to that much of the time to take advantage of it. Otherwise, I might as well be using a slower (and often less expensive) lens.
These images were all shot in RAW and processed in Lightroom. I haven’t applied any of Lightroom’s corrections to them, such as the lens profile corrections for chromatic aberration or vignetting—but I did have the a6500’s automatic lens compensation feature enabled. So I’m not focusing as much on optical flaws as I normally would. So these are designed much less as a clinical lab test than to give a sense of what you can realistically expect to get out of the camera under real-world shooting conditions.
Sample Images Taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 Prime Lens
If you’d like a closer look, you can click on each image to open a full-size version.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/4.5 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/3.2 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/3.2 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/16 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/3.2 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/7.1 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/5.6 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/5.6 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/3.2 on a Sony a6500. Not taken while diving—it’s in an aquarium.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/3.2 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/3.2 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/3.2 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/3.2 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/5.6 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/4.5 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/3.2 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/3.2 on a Sony a6500. To be clear, this wasn’t taken underwater with a housing. It was taken of an aquarium.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/14 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/14 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/4 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/2.8 on a Sony a6500.
This photo was taken with a Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 lens at ƒ/3.2 on a Sony a6500.
Where to Buy
You can find the Sony E 16mm ƒ/2.8 Lens at B&H Photo, Adorama, and Amazon.
- Lens not Zoomable. Footnotes:"35 mm equivalent focal length (APS-C)" and "Angle of View (APS-C)" are with...
- Minimum Focus Distance : 0.8 ft (0.24 m)
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