Sony sells this lens in kit with almost all DSLRs and kit price is very good. Body looks plastic and very cheap but everything works well. It has rubbered zooming ring and small focusing ring at the front. Front element rotates when focusing so usage of polarizer filter is little bit harder. Kit version is sold without hood but it's not problem to buy one.

Specification

Depth of field and precision of focus

I tried depth of field on focal lengths of 18, 35 and 55mm. The most interesting was 55mm because I use it for close-up photos. I have to say that these lens are focusing fastly and are very precise. Image quality is very high, lines are sharp and you can see the structure of paper.

18mm, f/8

35mm, f/8

55mm, f/8

55mm, f/5.6

Distortion and abberation

I tried distorsion for 18, 24, 28, 35 a 55mm focal lenghts. It has barrel distorsion at 18mm, it is much better at 24mm. There is very little pincushion at 55mm. You can see results at following images. Abberation is violet and is mostly visible at bottoms of image when shooting wide open. When you stop down one or two stops, abberation mostly disappears.

18mm

24mm

35mm

55mm

Conclusion

I am using these lens for long time and I am very satisfied with it. Image quality is very good. It is very wide so it can be used in small rooms and it has very short minimal focus distance so you can take very nice close-up pictures. Thanks to very low weight it can be carried everywhere. Rating 34/40.