Here’s a collection of sample images I’ve shot with the Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM E-mount lens to give a sense of how it performs in real-world shooting conditions. All of these were shot on the Sony a7iii 24MP full-frame camera.
This collection of sample images from the 16-35mm goes along with a more detailed review of the lens that I’ll be posting separately. But, briefly, the Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM lens is an E-mount lens designed for Sony’s full-frame cameras. It has an aperture range of ƒ/2.8 to ƒ/22 (with apertures constant throughout the zoom range), an 11-blade circular diaphragm, three aspherical and two XA elements, and is ruggedized with dust- and moisture-resistant construction.
I’ve included a range of shots at different spots on the zoom range and at different apertures. I’ve also included a range of focusing distances, shots to show up any barrel distortion or chromatic aberration, and some that show general sharpness.
All of them were only lightly processed in Lightroom. Because the whole point is to see how the lens performs, I’ve deliberately done very little to them. And I haven’t done any extra correction for the usual lens issues like chromatic aberration, distortion, or lens vignetting. I also haven’t applied any extra sharpening beyond the Lightroom default (amount: 40; radius: 1.0; detail: 25). They were all shot in RAW, so they haven’t had any of the in-camera processing magic applied.
I should also note that some of these were deliberately shot at very high ISOs because I was also testing the a7iii’s low-light performance at the same time (you can see those tests here).
Sample Photos Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM Lens
If you’d like a closer look at a high-resolution version, you can click on each image to open the full-size photo.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 27 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 8.0. Shot with Sony a7iii.
The focus point was on the far end of the tunnel. Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 4.0. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Wide aperture with the focus on the close tulip in the center. Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 19 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 35 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 5.0. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 8.0. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 5.0. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Testing for both corner sharpness and chromatic aberration. Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 5.6. Shot with Sony a7iii.
This was shot an exceptionally high ISO (160000), so the image quality is degraded. But I’ve included it here as an example of the starburst effect on the lights when using ƒ/22. Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 35 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 22. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Even at this wide aperture and with the high-contrast lines near the edges, there’s very little chromatic aberration. You can see a little blue fringing along the highlight edges of both windows, but it’s certainly well within normal amounts and is easily fixed in something like Lightroom or another app that has chromatic aberration correction tools. Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 7.1. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 35 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 7.1. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 24 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 5.0. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 17 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 35 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 35 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 4.0. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 35 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
I took this shot mostly to push hard on chromatic aberration in the sharp edges in the skylight. I’m impressed with how well it’s handled it–most lenses don’t fare nearly so well. This version hasn’t had any chromatic aberration correction applied to it. Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 8.0. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 7.1. Shot with Sony a7iii.
I shot this one mostly for the skylight lines to test for chromatic aberration. Most lenses struggle with this, but this lens handled it just fine. Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 35 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 35 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 35 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
What looks like blurriness are reflections off the glass. Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 34 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 19 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 22. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 19 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 11. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 19 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 19 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 8.0. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Again, there’s very little in the way of chromatic aberration in the windows to the right of the frame. And lots of straight verticals. Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
You can see a reasonably about of barrel distortion in this shot. It was taken head on from around 20 feet away. The lens profile in Lightroom CC Classic does a nice job of correcting for it (this version is uncorrected). Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 35 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 8.0. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 7.1. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 19 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 5.0. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 22 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 24 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Even wide open, you can get an idea of the sharpness with the detail through the depth, including on the signs on the display cases in the distance. Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
This is a good example of how sharp this lens is even wide open. The focus is on the statue, so the trees and buildings in the background are out of focus, but the detail in the monument is very sharp. There’s also no real lens vignetting to speak of. Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 30 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 31 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 8.0. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Again, there’s quite a bit of barrel distortion, this time at 16mm. But Lightroom’s lens profile correction does a good job of fixing it (this version is uncorrected). Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 18 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
I was testing the high ISO settings on the Sony a7iii with this shot, so the image quality is quite poor in terms of grain, detail, and color rendition, but I’m including it here because it’s still useful for giving a sense of the wide-angle perspective and how it handles straight lines angled away from the camera. Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 6.3. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 19 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 35 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 24 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 9.0. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 18 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 5.0. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
The grain and washed-out colors in this are due to the ridiculously high ISO (204800) on the Sony a7iii. Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 16 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 2.8. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Taken with a Sony FE 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 GM lens zoomed to 31 mm and with an aperture of ƒ / 22. Shot with Sony a7iii.
Where to Get It
The Sony 16-35mm ƒ/2.8 retails for around $2200, and you can find them at B&H Photo.
Questions & Comments