Contents
Image Quality
With an upper-tier pricetag and professional credentials, my hopes were high for the optical performance of the 16-50mm f/2-2.8, and I wasn’t disappointed. Let’s dive into the specifics:
Sharpness
The 16-50mm is a very sharp lens. Central zone sharpness is already very high throughout the zoom range right from the maximum aperture. The outer third of the frame is a bit softer at these wide apertures, especially at f/2 and the wide end of the zoom range, but I never felt held back by image sharpness if I chose to shoot wide open for depth of field considerations.
Stopped down, the lens is very sharp across the frame, with only the slightest bit of softening in the corners. Overall, it’s an excellent lens for most any type of photography with regards to resolution. The 16-50mm was able to provide plenty of resolution to meet the needs of the NX1’s very dense 28 megapixel sensor. I was very pleased to see that while the wide end was slightly weaker than the long end, the overall performance was quite even at most any setting.
Click the image to the right to open a full-size sample to see the resolution you can expect out of the 16-50mm. Click on the green arrow at the bottom of the screen after the image loads to view at 100%. (Note, the file is large and may take some time to download.)
Bokeh
The Samsung 16-50mm has a very wide aperture for a standard zoom lens, with the lens starting at f/2.0 at the wide end and proceeding to f/2.8 at the long end. As a result, the lens is capable of good subject isolation in many circumstances, and overall it performs fairly well in this regard. Focusing closer up wide open at the 16mm setting produces a very pleasing look to the out of focus areas, with generally neutral edges to highlights. At the long end, things remain quite nice. It’s not going to produce super creamy images, but the bokeh produced by the 16-50mm is very good for a standard zoom lens.
Color, Contrast and Chromatic Aberration
The 16-50mm f/2-2.8 produces images with very nice contrast and excellent color. The tonal response isn’t overly harsh, but provides good tonal separation and smooth gradations in areas of more subtle color change. The color comes out of camera with moderate saturation that takes postprocessing very well. It renders somewhat similarly to how many Fujifilm lenses render, which was a nice thing, since I tend to really enjoy that drawing style.
Unfortunately, one area where the 16-50mm is weak is in chromatic aberration. The lens can show rather significant red and blue lateral chromatic aberration, especially towards the corners of the frame. The CA can mostly be corrected with Lightroom’s CA correction tools, but some mild residual chromatic aberration remains even after software correction. Longitudinal CA is also present in the right circumstances, but I didn’t find it generally field relevant.
Distortion, Flare and Vignetting.
The Samsung 16-50mm does a fairly good job with distortion considering the very wide to short telephoto focal range. There is some barrel distortion at the wide end and some minor pincushion distortion at the long end, though neither are objectionable unless your scene features lots of straight lines, and even in those situations it can be corrected fairly easily.
With regards to flare, I found the 16-50mm to be generally quite resistant to ghosting and contrast reduction when bright light sources were in the frame. Even the sun near a corner produced minimal flare. However, the lens isn’t perfect in this regard. Bright light at the very edge of the frame, or just out of frame can produce strong linear ghosts that appear to shoot in from the edge of the frame. It isn’t a common problem, but it’s something to keep in the back of your mind when shooting around a lot of lights.
The 16-50mm does a great job with regards to vignetting. Some mild vignetting is visible at maximum aperture, but it’s not objectionable and it essentially disappears when stopping down a bit.
The 16-50mm f/2-2.8 is a lens that produces excellent image quality in most any scenario. It’s very strong wide open and is excellent stopped down. It’s an extremely versatile lens that provided confidence when shooting, which allowed me simply to focus on getting the shot I wanted.
Nice review! Do you have any comments on how this fares optically against their pancake primes? It’s faster than just about all of them I think, and though huge by comparison, it’s like 3 for the price of 1, assuming the optics are as good. If it has prime character then it just means I don’t have to change lenses as much 🙂
This lens and the NX1 are seriously giving me pause… I was looking strongly at the X-T1 but am worried about the lower resolution and X-Trans sharpness. I rented one for a weekend in fact, with a plethora of XF glass, and liked the results, but was not blown away. The handling was great and I feel it would be a great personal fun camera, but I think it doesn’t punch at the same level as the higher res DSLRs, and the AF was surprisingly disappointing for me. Fine for personal use but I’d be scared to shoot a wedding with it. Don’t get me wrong, I love the “look” of the photos SooC, but I worry about how it would hold up in the extremes (high speed/low light situations)
The samples from your NX1 shoot have been mighty impressive. Really astounding resolution, noise handling, and an insanely well thought out feature set on the camera. I am trying to think of reasons NOT to like the NX1 and its lenses, but I’m coming up short. The elephant in the room is obviously the question of samsungs future in this arena and whether it is wise to invest heavily in them so early. But at the rate they’re innovating, I don’t feel too nervous. The NX1 trumps every competitive DSLR (in criteria that matter to me anyway), and one ups the mirrorless market in a big way. It’s the camera I was hoping for, a mirrorless that isn’t afraid to be DSLR sized and focused. It’s like a present day Sony A99.
I know it isn’t perfect — your details about its poor highlight range on the FM forum come to mind — but seriously, this camera is just checking all the right boxes. Even the lens selection is great for my needs. Way more realistic and affordable than, say, Sonys FE lineup.
Jordan, after your time with it, how do you think it compares to the heavyweight prosumer DSLRs like the D7100 or even D610? Sony A7?
Thanks,
Jesse