Sony
True to its high-end G Lens heritage, the SELP18105G lens features two ED glass elements and three aspherical elements for high resolution and contrast throughout the entire zoom range. The first Sony G Lens created specifically for E-mount cameras is true to its heritage, achieving outstanding resolution and contrast throughout the zoom range thanks to an advanced optical design incorporating two ED glass elements and three aspherical elements. From wide-angle to medium telephoto, this power zoom lens covers approximately a 6x zoom range with a constant F4 aperture.
When changing your aperture to defocus the background, the light sources appear blurred. This ‘bokeh effect of the blurred background can be enhanced with circular aperture blades used in this lens. Conventional aperture blades have flat sides creating unappealing polygonal shaped defocussed points of light. α lenses overcome this problem through a unique design that keeps the aperture almost perfectly circular from its wide-open setting to when it is closed by 2 stops. Smoother, more natural defocusing can be obtained as a result. As focal lengths get longer, lenses built with conventional optical glass have difficulties with chromatic aberration, and as a result, images suffer from lower contrast, lower color quality, and lower resolution.
ED glass dramatically reduces chromatic aberration at telephoto ranges, and provides superior contrast across the entire image, even at large-aperture settings. Super ED glass provides enhanced compensation for chromatic aberration. Aspherical lens design dramatically reduces spherical aberration while also reducing lens size and weight. Spherical aberration is a slight misalignment of the light rays projected on the image plane. This is caused by differences in refraction at different points on conventional spherical lenses which degrade image quality in large-aperture lenses. Specially shaped “aspherical” elements near the diaphragm restore the alignment of light rays at the image plane, maintaining high sharpness and contrast even at maximum aperture and can also be used at other points in the optical path to reduce distortion.
Well-designed aspherical elements can reduce the total number of elements required in the lens, thus reducing overall size and weight. Advanced Aspherical (AA) elements are an evolved variant, featuring an extremely high thickness ratio between the center and periphery. AA elements are exceedingly difficult to produce, relying on the most advanced molding technology to consistently and precisely achieve the required shape and surface accuracy, resulting in significantly improved image accuracy and quality.
Gyro sensors built into the lens detect even the slightest movement, and the stabilization lens is precisely shifted to counteract any image blur that might occur. The use of precision, quiet linear motors, and technology inherited from high-end Sony professional camcorders results in exceptionally quiet, effective image stabilization that contributes to high-quality movies as well as stills. Only the middle groups of the optical system move to achieve focus, so the overall length of the lens does not change. Other important benefits include fast autofocusing and a short minimum focusing distance. Also, the filter thread at the front of the lens does not rotate, which is convenient if you’re using a polarizing filter.
