Sony DT 18-70 mm f/3.5-5.6 review - Distortion

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Sony DT 18-70 mm f/3.5-5.6

22 October 2010

Arkadiusz Olech

6. Distortion

A zoom lens, featuring 3.9x multiple ratio and a quite wide angle will always have some geometric deformations at the edge of an image. The whole feat consists in creating such a design which makes them the least pronounced. The Sony company managed that quite well. At 18 mm we get a significant barrel distortion, which level was measured as –4.1%. It is even slightly lower than in the case of the Nikkor 18-70 mm and the Canon 18-55 mm. The Nikkor 18-55 mm fares a bit better in this category but it had an easier task because its focal lengths range is narrower.

What you might like a bit less is the fact that with the increase of the focal length the distortion decreases slower than in the case of the competitors. At 30 mm it is still –1.3%, then it becomes zero and turns into pincushion only at 50 mm. After that it starts increasing very slowly and at 70 mm it reaches an imperceptible level of 0.37%.

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