In summary
Like other extended-range zoom lens, the FE 24-240mm can cover everything from wide-angle landscapes to telephoto close-ups – and everything in between. The variable f/3.5-6.3 aperture helps keep lens size and weight relatively low for a lens with a 10x zoom range.
Built-in optical stabilisation provides good control of unwanted blur caused by camera shake and the stabilisation in the lens can complement the sensor-shift IS in the camera body to maximise its effects. Internal focusing plus the linear AF motor make focusing quick, accurate and almost silent, making this lens ideal for use when recording video clips.
The 240mm focal length is long enough for sports and wildlife shooting. Dust- and moisture-resistant sealing make this lens usable in a wide variety of weather conditions and rubberised control rings make handling easier in low temperatures.
Full review
Announced in March 2015, the FE 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS is Sony’s first ‘all-in-one’ lens for its full-frame E-mount cameras. Spanning a 10x optical zoom range it comes with built-in Optical SteadyShot stabilisation and is dust- and moisture-resistant, making it ideal for travellers. Although it’s been designed primarily for ‘full frame’ FE mount cameras and we reviewed it on the new α7C body, this lens can also be used on Sony’s E-mount APS-C format cameras where it will provide an equivalent zoom range of 36-360mm.
Angled view of the Sony FE 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS (SEL24240) lens without the supplied lens hood. (Source: Sony.)
The optical design of the FE 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS lens contains 17 elements in 12 groups. One extra-low dispersion (ED) glass element is included to reduce chromatic aberrations and colour fringing while five aspherical elements reduce astigmatism, field curvature, coma and other aberrations. Internal focusing is driven by a piezoelectrically-controlled linear motor that provides fast and accurate autofocusing.
A seven-bladed iris diaphragm closes to produce a circular aperture that provides smooth bokeh. The lens is normally supplied with front and rear caps plus the ALC-SH136 lens hood, although it wasn’t provided with the review lens.
Who’s it For?
Like other extended-range zoom lens, the FE 24-240mm can cover everything from wide-angle landscapes to telephoto close-ups – and everything in between. The variable f/3.5-6.3 aperture helps keep lens size and weight relatively low for a lens with a 10x zoom range.
Built-in optical stabilisation provides good control of unwanted blur caused by camera shake and the stabilisation in the lens can complement the sensor-shift IS in the camera body to maximise its effects. Internal focusing plus the linear AF motor make focusing quick, accurate and almost silent, making this lens ideal for use when recording video clips.
The 240mm focal length is long enough for sports and wildlife shooting. Dust- and moisture-resistant sealing make this lens usable in a wide variety of weather conditions and rubberised control rings make handling easier in low temperatures.
Build and Ergonomics
Comparatively compact for its 10x zoom range, the FE 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS lens is labelled ‘Made in China’, where the company owns a number of factories. It’s worth noting that the α7C camera we used to review this lens also carries a ‘Made in China’ label. Sony’s Japanese design facilities would be responsible for the design of both products and Japanese staff would oversee the manufacturing processes.
The FE 24-240mm lens is solidly built and also dust- and moisture-resistant. Perhaps surprisingly, it feels comfortable on the small α7C camera body, largely because much of its weight is towards the camera end of the barrel.
The lens consists of an outer barrel plus two black polycarbonate inner barrels that extend when the lens is zoomed in. At the 240mm position, roughly 70 mm is added to the overall length. The front element does not rotate, allowing angle critical attachments to be used without hassles while zooming.
There are only two control surfaces on the outer barrel: a 50 mm wide zoom ring towards the front and a 13 mm wide focusing ring behind it. Both rings have ribbed rubber-like grip bands and the zoom ring ends in an unribbed, 5 mm wide band on which focal length marks for the 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 70mm, 100mm, 150mm and 240mm positions. These are lined up against a white mark on the 7 mm wide fixed section of the lens immediately behind the zoom ring.
As is usual with extended-range zoom lenses, the maximum and minimum aperture settings change as you zoom in, as shown in the table below. Diffraction is likely to reduce image sharpness from about f/16 on, so there’s no real advantage in using smaller aperture settings.
| Maximum aperture | Minimum aperture | |
| 24mm | f/3.5 | f/22 |
| 35mm | f/4.0 | f/25 |
| 50mm | f/4.5 | f/29 |
| 70mm | f/5.0 | f/32 |
| 100mm | f/5.6 | f/36 |
| 150mm | f/6.3 | f/40 |
| 200mm | f/6.3 | f/40 |
Because focusing is driven from the camera, the focusing ring turns through a full 360 degrees when power is shut off. This arrangement also means there’s not much tactile feedback when you use manual focusing.
Behind the focusing ring, the lens barrel slopes inwards to end in a straight section about 5 mm wide, which ends in the metal mounting plate. There’s no zoom lock but the lens assembly is relatively tight so it’s probably not necessary. No other external controls or displays are provided.
The inclusion of built-in optical stabilisation partly accounts for its 780 gram weight, although general build quality is better than average for this type of lens. The solid metal mounting plate fits snugly to the camera body.
One nice feature of this lens is the inclusion of a lens hood, which is often an optional extra with kit lenses. The petal-shaped hood is easy to fit and can be reversed on the lens for transport.
Performance
Extended-range zoom lenses are not expected to deliver top-quality performance but they will earn marks for consistency and a relative lack of aberrations. As tested on the α7C, the FE 24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS sample rated as slightly above average in both respects. The graph below shows the results of our tests across the lens focal length and apertures ranges.
As expected, JPEG files showed slightly lower resolution than would be expected for the 24-megapixel sensor in the review camera but resolutions were acceptably consistent across the zoom range. Edge softening was much as expected for a lens of this type.
Because our Imatest tests were conducted with all the in-camera corrections enabled, we also checked a selection of raw files captured simultaneously to identify areas that were potentially problematic. The raw files we measured turned in resolutions that ranged from slightly above their equivalent JPEGs to substantially higher. But they also showed chromatic aberrations required some correction.
Fortunately, lateral chromatic aberration is corrected automatically in the camera so low values are expected in JPEG files, although we found traces of coloured fringing in some JPEG shots in high contrast areas. The graph below shows lateral chromatic aberration in JPEGs remained well within the lower portion of the ‘negligible’ band for all focal length and aperture settings. (The red line marks the border between ‘negligible’ and ‘low’ CA.)
Because both vignetting and rectilinear distortion are automatically corrected by the camera’s JPEG processing, we had to assess these potential problems by looking at uncorrected raw files. Vignetting was obvious in uncorrected raw files, particularly at the 24mm focal length, where there was strong corner darkening. With all the other focal lengths, vignetting was less severe, although it declined with increasing focal length.
It’s common to see rectilinear distortion in lenses of this type so some degree of distortion was expected in uncorrected files. While severe barrel distortion was seen in uncorrected raw files at 24mm, it was relatively low by 35mm and at 50mm it had segued into slight pincushion distortion, which increased as the lens was zoomed in.
Backlighting was handled very well by the review lens, even though it was supplied without the regular lens hood. We found no evidence of flare artefacts and ghosting and flare were negligible, even when the light source was inside the frame. Unlike other aberrations, flare isn’t corrected automatically in the camera, so this is a good result.
Autofocusing was usually fast and accurate, including when the lens was used for recording movie clips. The only faltering we found was when moving rapidly from wide-angle to full telephoto position, where some hunting for focus occurred. This is understandable, given the distance range that had to be covered.
Bokeh at the widest apertures was much as you’d expect from a lens of this type. Defocused areas appeared relatively choppy at 24mm and we found some outlining around bright highlights at longer focal lengths.
Conclusion
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SPECS
Picture angle: 61 degrees to 6 degrees 50 minutes
Minimum aperture: 22-40
Lens construction: 17 elements in 12 groups (including 5 aspherical and one ED elements)
Lens mount: Sony FE mount
Diaphragm Blades: 7 (circular aperture)
Weather resistance: Dust and moisture resistant
Focus drive: Piezoelectric linear motor
Stabilisation: Optical SteadyShot
Minimum focus: 50 cm at 24mm; 80 cm at 240mm
Maximum magnification: 0.27x
Filter size: 72mm
Dimensions (Diameter x L): 80.5 x 118.5 mm
Weight: 780 grams
Standard Accessories: Front and rear caps, lens hood (ALC-SH136)
Distributor: Sony Australia; 1300 720 071
TESTS
Based on JPEG files taken with the α7C camera.
Based on CR3.RAW files converted into 16-bit TIFF format with Sony’s Imaging Edge Desktop software.
SAMPLES
Vignetting at 24mm f/3.5.
Vignetting at 35mm f/4.0.
Vignetting at 50mm f/4.5.
Vignetting at 70mm f/5.0.
Vignetting at 100mm f/5.6.
Vignetting at 150mm f/6.3.
Vignetting at 240mm f/6.3.
Rectilinear distortion at 24mm.
Rectilinear distortion at 35mm.
Rectilinear distortion at 50mm.
Rectilinear distortion at 70mm.
Rectilinear distortion at 100mm.
Rectilinear distortion at 150mm.
Rectilinear distortion at 240mm.
24mm focal length, ISO 100, 1/200 second at f/9.
240mm focal length, ISO 125, 1/400 second at f/8.
240mm focal length with 2x Clear Image Zoom, ISO 125, 1/250 second at f/8.
240mm focal length with 4x digital zoom, ISO 125, 1/500 second at f/8.
Strong contre-jour lighting; 24mm focal length, ISO 100, 1/1000 second at f/9.
Backlit scene; 24mm focal length, ISO 100, 1/400 second at f/9.
Crop from the above image magnified to 100% to show slight fringing and edge softening.
Close-up at 24mm focal length, ISO 125, 1/200 second at f/7.1.
Close-up at 240mm focal length, ISO 125, 1/320 second at f/7.1.
Bokeh at 24mm focal length, ISO 100, 1/1000 second at f/3.5.
Bokeh at 240mm focal length, ISO 100, 1/320 second at f/6.3.
Close-up at 240mm focal length; ISO 100, 1/320 second at f/6.3.
240mm focal length, ISO 100, 1/500 second at f/8.
240mm focal length, ISO 100, 1/250 second at f/8.
240mm focal length, ISO 100, 1/320 second at f/9.
240mm, ISO 640, 1/800 second at f/8.
240mm focal length, ISO 640, 1/500 second at f/6.3.
240mm focal length, ISO 800, 1/100 second at f/8.
200mm focal length, ISO 800, 1/1250 second at f/8.
240mm focal length, ISO 640, 1/800 second at f/7.1.
80mm focal length, ISO 640, 1/250 second at f/8.
35mm focal length, ISO 640, 1/640 second at f/8.
152mm focal length, ISO 64, 1/30 second at f/8.
Samples from video clips can be found with our review of the Sony α7C camera.
Rating
RRP: AU$1479; US$1050
- Build: 8.8
- Handling: 8.8
- Image quality: 8.8
- Autofocusing: 8.8
- Versatility: 9.0
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