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Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G Review

4.0
Excellent
By Jim Fisher
Updated December 14, 2017

The Bottom Line

The Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G captures images with an incredibly wide field of view, and is much smaller and lighter than lenses for full-frame SLR systems.

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Pros

  • Light, compact design.
  • Quite sharp.
  • Extremely wide field of view.
  • Integrated lens hood.
  • Focus Hold button.
  • Dust- and moisture-resistant construction.

Cons

  • Omits filter thread.
  • No stabilization.
  • Muddy corners at wide apertures.
  • Noticeable vignette.
  • Distortion throughout range.

There are wide lenses, there are ultra-wide lenses, and there are lenses like the FE 12-24mm F4 G ($1,699.99), which is at the extreme end of coverage when paired with a full-frame image sensor. It's not the widest rectilinear zoomCanon's EF 11-24mm f/4L USM ($2,999) captures images with a slightly broader scopebut it's a lot less expensive and about half as heavy. To meet its price and come in at a reasonable size it makes some optical compromises, but no more than you get with costlier ultra-wide zooms. It's a strong performer, and a better option than adapting the Canon or Sigma equivalents for Sony shooters who want the widest lens available.

Design

The 12-24mm ($1,773.00 at Amazon) is deceptively small compared with similar zooms for SLR systems. It measures 4.6 by 3.5 inches (HD) and weighs just 1.2 pounds. The Sigma 12-24mm F4 DG HSM Art ($1,599) measures 5.2 by 4.0 inches and weighs 2.5 pounds, which certainly makes Sony's take on the design easier to carry.

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You can use the Sigma lens on a Sony camera with the MC-11 adapter, and you'll get good imaging results. But I'd much rather use the smaller, lighter FE 12-24mm. Wide-angle lenses are easier to design for mirrorless cameras, as the rear element of the lens is closer to the image sensor than with an SLR, which makes a design like this possible.

Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G : Sample Image

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The barrel is polycarbonate, with ribbed focus and zoom rings. The lens hood is integrateda large slip-on cap is included to protect it, along with a soft drawstring pouch and rear cap. The front element is bulbous, so there's no way to add a front filter. If you want to use filters, you'll need to invest in a system to attach external glass ones. Landscape photographers are used to this, as they often employ graduated neutral density filters to balance exposure between sky and land.

The lens itself doesn't change length when zooming. The front element does move back and forth, but it stays well within the confines of the lens hood. There is a Focus Hold button, which halts the autofocus system when pressed. It can be remapped if desiredI like to set it to activate Sony's Eye AF system, which prioritizes focus on eyes and faces. The other control is a toggle switch to change between AF and MF operation.

Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G : Sample Image

The 12-24mm focuses as close as 11 inches (0.28-meter). The wide field of view means you're not going to magnify subjects in the same way that a longer macro lens would if it focused this close, but it does give you some freedom in composing images. You can get close to a subject and still capture the environment behind, though you'll certainly exaggerate proportions when getting up close and personal—that's inherent to an ultra-wide lens.

The lens doesn't include optical stabilization—some ultra-wide APS-C lenses do, but you won't find it in a full-frame lens wider than 16mm. It's not a huge deal, even if you have a first-generation a7 camera without in-body stabilization, as it's possible to capture crisp, wide images at longer shutter speeds than at telephoto focal lengths. But if you're considering this lens for video, be aware that you'll want a body with integrated five-axis stabilization to steady handheld footage.

Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G : Sample Image

A lens this wide is a specialized tool, but also a very useful one. Shooting with it can be challenging, but also rewarding when done well. It's great to have on hand for travel, as you can really get a feel for an environment, and for working in tight spaces. Because of its zooming design, you can also set it to 24mm, a more moderate wide angle, for more general use.

Image Quality

I tested the 12-24mm in the lab with Imatest software and the full-frame a7R III body. At 12mm f/4 it puts up strong sharpness numbers, 3,392 lines. That's notably better than the 2,750 lines we want to see from a high-resolution body like the a7R III. Sharpness is strongest at the center (4,292 lines), but drops off as you move toward the periphery. The edges of the frame are in the very good zone, 3,057 lines, but you can expect corners to be blurry when shooting at f/4.

Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G : Corner Crop

Narrowing the aperture improves corner and edge performance, bringing the average score up. At f/5.6 the lens shows 3,560 lines and at f/8 it nets 3,667 lines; edges approach 3,200 lines at both f-stops. Corners performance also improves vastly when stopped down; the crop above shows what the extreme corner of the frame looks like at 12mm f/4 (left) and at 12mm f/8 (right).

Image quality is maintained at f/11 (3,592 lines), but diffraction cuts into resolution at smaller settings when paired with the a7R III. At f/16 resolution drops to 2,998 lines and is just 2,018 lines at f/22. For best results, keep the aperture at f/11 or wider.

Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G : Sample Image

At 18mm f/4 resolution is strong through most of the frame, showing an average of 3,344 lines. But edge performance dips to a noticaebly soft 1,944 lines. Edges get a little better at f/5.6 (2,148), and the average improves to 3,568 lines, but you don't get strong sharpness throughout the entirety of the frame until f/8. There, the average is 3,705 lines, and edges show about 2,800 lines. At f/11 the edges move from acceptable to very good (3,450 lines), lagging just behind the average score (3,740 lines). We see the expected drop in clarity at f/16 (3,211 lines) and f/22 (2,175 lines).

At 24mm f/4 we see strong peformance through most of the frame (3,415 lines), but again, the far edges are on the soft side (2,212 lines). They enjoy a jump in clarity at f/5.6 (2,027 lines), and are as sharp as you'll get from this lens at f/8 (3,589 lines); the average score is about the same at both f-stops, just around 3,750 lines. At f/11 the average drops just a bit (3,679 lines), before dipping more at f/16 (3,260 lines) and f/22 (2,238 lines).

Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G : Sample Image

Those are a lot of numbers. In practical terms, the 12-24mm nets images that are very sharp through most of the frame when shot wide open at any focal length. You'll notice softness at the corners of the frame at f/4 at 12mm, and both edges and corners suffer at wide apertures when zoomed in a bit. At f/5.6 and f/8 those problems mostly disappear, so if you're shooting a huge swath of landscape and want the absolute most detail out of your shot, shoot at f/8. If you want the absolute most resolution, and don't mind a slightly tighter field of view, the FE 16-35mm F2.8 GM is sharper at comparable apertures, but it's also more expensive and doesn't cover angles wider than 16mm.

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You can use both the Canon 11-24mm and Sigma 12-24mm ($1,079.86 at Amazon) on a Sony body, with autofocus, using the appropriate adapter. (We recommend the Sigma MC-11.) We've tested both on a high-resolution camera, the 50MP Canon EOS 5DS R, so we can make a ballpark comparison in image quality, but the numbers are not directly comparable. They both received high marks when we reviewed them, and are strong performers. But they're really big when compared with the FE 12-24mm, which is par for the course when it comes to ultra-wide zooms designed for SLR systems.

Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G : Sample Image

We look at other optical qualities aside from sharpness. Distortion is one, and the FE 12-24mm is not immune to its effects. At 12mm it shows noticeable barrel distortion, about 3.7 percent. Barrel distortion gives straight lines the apperance of an outward curve. As you zoom the distortion shifts in the other direction, pushing lines inward. We see pincushion distortion at 18mm (1.4 percent) and 24mm (1.6 percent). Both the Canon and Sigma alternatives show about 6 percent barrel distortion at their widest, but don't give way to the pincushion effect when zoomed. If you shoot JPGs with your Sony camera you can set it to automatically remove distortion, although you'll lose a little bit of your field of view on the wide end. Raw photographers will need to compensate for the effect in software—Adobe Lightroom Classic CC includes a lens profile to fix it with a single click.

The lens also shows a vignette, another expected shortcoming of ultra-wide lenses. Corners and edges don't receive as much light as the center, giving photos a natural darkened frame. At 12mm we see a 3-stop (-3EV) drop in the corners at f/4, which lessens at f/5.6 (-2.5EV) and hovers around -2EV at narrower apertures. It's not as noticeable at 18mm f/4 and 24mm f/4, about -2EV in both cases, and is cut about -1EV at those focal lengths at f/5.6 and smaller. Like distortion you can enable in-camera correction for the effect when shooting JPGs, and you can compensate for dimmed corners using the same Adobe lens profile that fixes distortion when shooting in Raw format and processing using Lightroom.

Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G : Sample Image

Flare is very well controlled. It's tough not to get the sun in your shot when working at 12mm. I did my best to try and induce flare and ghosts, and only managed to get one small streak of light visible in a shot where a subject was partially blocking the sun, which was at the far edge of the frame.

Conclusions

The FE 12-24mm F4 G fills a gap in Sony's mirrorless camera system—it's a full-frame lens that's as wide as any you can get for a Nikon SLR, and comes very close to matching Canon's costly 11-24mm ($2,099.00 at Amazon) in coverage. It has an attractive price, a bit more than half that of the Canon and just slightly more than Sigma's recent 12-24mm F4 Art offering, both of which can be used on a Sony camera with an adapter. But the FE 12-24mm is much smaller and lighter than either.

The lens is a strong performer, with some caveats. It's an ultra-wide zoom and it suffers some some of the shortcomings we see in almost every lens of its type—notably some distortion, a noticeable vignette, and a lack of clarity toward the periphery when shot at its maximum aperture. But it comes in at a reasonable price, and you really will enjoy its size when compared with similar lenses for full-frame SLR systems. There are a pair of solid alternatives for Sony shooters who don't need to go quite as wide, the less expensive Zeiss 16-35mm F4, and the high-end 16-35mm F2.8 GM. But if you want the widest shot you can get with the system without entering the realm of fish-eye, the 12-24mm doesn't disappoint.

Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G
4.0
Pros
  • Light, compact design.
  • Quite sharp.
  • Extremely wide field of view.
  • Integrated lens hood.
  • Focus Hold button.
  • Dust- and moisture-resistant construction.
View More
Cons
  • Omits filter thread.
  • No stabilization.
  • Muddy corners at wide apertures.
  • Noticeable vignette.
  • Distortion throughout range.
View More
The Bottom Line

The Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G captures images with an incredibly wide field of view, and is much smaller and lighter than lenses for full-frame SLR systems.

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About Jim Fisher

Lead Analyst, Cameras

Images, and the devices that capture them, are my focus. I've covered cameras at PCMag for the past 10 years, which has given me a front row seat for the DSLR to mirrorless transition, the smartphone camera revolution, and the mainstream adoption of drones for aerial imaging. You can find me on Instagram @jamespfisher.

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Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G $1,773.00 at Amazon
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