Zoomed-out to its shortest focal length, the DT 16-80mm clearly suffers from softness in the corners when shooting subjects at close range; indeed you need to close the aperture significantly before the result becomes sharp. Interestingly this is pretty much the same result found with the kit lens, although the Carl Zeiss model leaps ahead in terms of corner sharpness when dealing with more distant subjects as seen in our Sony DT 16-80mm outdoor results page.

Zoom both lenses in and the corner sharpness at close range is greatly improved, and respectable even with the aperture wide open - and again the optical characteristics of both lenses remains quite similar here too. Our next results page tests the Sony DT 16-80mm fringing and macro performance.