Question about 16-50mm Sony E-mount lens

Hello,

I currently use a Sony RX-100 I in a Nauticam housing employing natural light only. I am considering upgrading to A Sony A-6000 w/16-50mm kit lens in a Nauticam housing with a flat port.

The question I have for users of the Sony E-mount lenses is. How does the 16-50mm kit lens compare to the 28-100mm lens, on the RX, as far as sharpness and auto focus speed are concerned?

I am a freediver and my subjects, 90% of the time, are Pelagic fish approximately 24” to 72” in length & normally do not come any closer to the camera that 5-10ft. I do not need a large wide-angle lens with a dome but I do want a lens that focuses fast & has good depth of field. I fear that a wide-angle lens with a dome will make the subjects appear too small. As my bottom time is limited to one breath and when the fish come in-things can happen very quickly-it is important to have an automatic camera system with minimal settings. I shoot aperture priority most of the time so I can only concentrate on focusing and composure. The Nikonos lenses are manual and changing f-stops & shutter speeds by hand would introduce steps that I believe would be cumbersome & slow, thus missing many opportunities, so I have discounted those lenses.

I have read & researched all of the post concerning the E-mount lenses that I could find but most of the subject posts pertain to Macro and Close focus wide-angle lenses, which do not suit my purpose, hence my inquiry.

Thank you everyone for you responses in advance.

D

I believe the 16-50mm was largely panned as a poor lens with lots of distortion and required a lot of cropping when correcting the profile. I don't have any experience to compare it directly to the rx -100.'

You may want to reconsider the nikonos 15mm. It might actually be a good option for you. at f8, it has great dof (so less fiddling with focussing, etc). you can still leave your camera on aperture priority and get metering to change shutter speed/iso. I think the downside is more likely weight (forward pitch) than settings. 15mm = c. 23mm on full frame equiv whihc would work out well with the subjects you were thinking.

another option would be e-mount 16mm + wide angle converter which is c. 12mm (non fish eye) which would give you 18mm in full frame equiv. the 4.3in dome isn't hard to move around at all.

Thank you very much for your reply. From the very few posts about the 16-50mm that I have read your observations are spot on. It appears as if I may have to give more consideration to the Nikonos lenses. I really want to retain as much of the compact features of the RX-100 hence the A6000 without a dome.

Thank you once again,

D

Look again at the 4.3 dome option - on the housing it has a pretty small footprint. The 15 mm Nikonos + adapter has about the same projection and weighs about the same.

The 16-50 is not that bad, but at its best between 20mm and 40mm. Sharpness at 16mm is nothing to call home about, and with the flat port, a real problem (and on top of that, distortion is pretty bad). At 50mm, it's actually less sharp than somewhere around 40mm, but no big problem as long as you don't crop like crazy. Don't know about AF speed; on my NEX-6 it's ok, never handled a A6000. It's said to be quite a bit better. 18mm equivalent gives you a really big angle of view, from your description I'd say a 15mm Nikonos might be too wide. With my Z12 (18mm equivalent on the NEX-6), I can fit a whole nurse shark into the picture that is actually kissing my dome port. Even as a Sony aficionado, I think the Olympus 12-50 is the better allround lens than the SEL1650...

Thank you very much for all your replies. I greatly appreciate each of them!! It appears that I have to do more research as to what lens will work for my particular situation and to think-I thought this would be easy & simple-ignorant me!!! As of now the idea of a dome still does not feel right for me. My main problem is that I live full time in Baja and there are no shops here that will allow me to view what is available and what will work for the A6000, it’s E-mount system & my dive style.

A question for all of you Sony mirrorless users: What medium size wide-angle lens (range 16mm to 20mm) would you recommend for sharpness and speed? My first choice is to go with a zoom but I am not married to this lens configuration. I will also consider a fixed lens. Please remember that purchasing a $1000 lens is not within my budget.

Thank you once again,

D

I certainly will look at the Oly 12-50mm zoom.