New E-Mount lens for Sony NEX cameras

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Posted on 23 Jan 2013 at 18:14, by Seth Barton

Today Sony announced two new E-Mount lenses, primarily for its NEX series of cameras. The E 20mm F2.8 is a pancake lens for casual snapping, while the E PZ18-200mm F3.5-6.3 OSS is a monstrous zoom lens designed with video in mind as well as stills. Both lenses are compatible with some of our favourite CSC cameras such as the Sony NEX-6 and Sony NEX-5R (full review coming soon).

The first lens is likely to interest more NEX owners. The 20mm pancake has roughly a 30mm focal length (35mm equivalent) making it a good day-to-day lens for shooting on holiday or for ad-hoc group portraits. At F2.8 it's relatively fast, though the lack of optical stabilisation won't make it perfect for low-light work. That said, it will keep the price down and the NEX-series' impressive high ISO results should do the rest. It'll cost around $350 on release, that's about £200 plus tax.

The second lens is right at the other end of the scale, in every respect. The huge (for a CSC lens) and bulbous E PZ18-200mm F3.5-6.3 OSS weighs a considerable 649g and has a wide 27-300mm focal length (35mm equivalent). It's a power zoom design, so you can get nice smooth zooms across the range when shooting video, plus there's optical stabilisation to help keep things steady at the long end of the lens. It's an exciting prospect for NEX owners who like to shoot video, but it'll cost around $1,200, or about £750 plus tax.

It's always good to see more lenses for such an accomplished set of camera bodies, though the 20mm lens isn't far off the current 16mm F2.8 lens and the new zoom is going to be out of most people's budgets.