Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony SAL18250 Alpha DT 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 High Magnification Zoom Lens w/Lens Hood

I've read a lot about super zooms and in a lot of reviews I've read that they are not very sharp. I wasn't expecting tack sharp, just a good lens that I could take with me when I didn't want to tote a camera bag, but I got a great lens. I don't know if it's just my copy, but I get great sharp shots throughout the len's range, with accurate and good color. Okay, it's not a prime, but it's as good or better than the kit lens that came with my Alpha 550 and that had no range at all.

Yes the lens isn't as fast as others, but to go from the equivalent of 27 all the way up to 375 in one lens that is this compact is quite an achievement. And it focuses fairly fast, not as fast as some of my shorter zooms, but fast and accurate enough for me and it has no problem keeping its focus tracking moving subjects.

The build quality is what you'd expect from Sony, better I think than the Sigma lens I almost bought instead. It feels good on the camera, well balanced, and that's important when you're holding a lens that weighs about a pound, pointing it at a soccer star, for any length of time. I didn't use this lens all that much on my Alpha 100, because of the noise issue at ISO 800 and above, but I've got an Alpha 550 now and noise isn't an issue for me at higher ISOs so I find that I'm keeping the lens on my camera much more than before. I can't recommend this lens highly enough.

The Sony SAL18250 is a great everyday lens that will do 99% of what the average enthusiast needs a lens to do. It's fast, light, and versatile. I've owned this lens for just two months now, but have taken over a thousand pictures with it, and it does not disappoint. I currently own 6 high-quality (Sony and Tamron) lenses, and this is the one I always return to. It is not perfect, but what is? I couldn't be happier with a lens with so great a range as the 18-250mm Sony.

This is a very good lens! I recomend it for everyone, very good lens for the price.

This is a very versatile 27-375 35mm-equivalent lens. I'm using it on the A550. Image quality is pretty good as verified by independent reviews if you make a search on the web.

The drawbacks I've noticed are (1) a high minimum aperture and (2) a somewhat noisy autofocus function. However,the only real alternative would be to go for f/2.8 lenses that cost around USD2,500 each and you would need two or three of them to cover the same focal range. Alternatively you could go for very sensitive (f/1.4) fixed length lenses, something that wouldn't be so bad because you can crop using Photoshop. However, Sony has no wideangle lens of this nature available for the APS-C format. In that case you would have to buy a full-frame Sony camera.

Sony also has an 18-200 lens. Since it is almost the same price as the 18-250, the choice of the latter seems obvious.

I give this lense five stars for the good all round character and the good value-for-money ratio. There are cleary other lenses out there with better techical performance.

Great lens when you need to go lite and want to be able to cover wide angle and close ups at the same time.