Sony E 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS LE

£580/$750 Smaller, lighter, new and improved

Compared with the original Sony 18200mm for E-mount cameras, the new LE edition shaves a couple of millimetres off the physical length; is 8mm slimmer; has a reduced filter thread of 62mm instead of 67mm; and sheds 64g in

weight. Even so, it looks a bit unwieldy on a svelte APS-C format mirrorless body like the A6300.

There’s a zoom lock switch on the barrel and markings for zoom length, but no other switches and buttons, nor a focus distance scale. Controls for auto/manual focusing and optical stabilisation are therefore handled by in-camera menus. The autofocus system itself is based on a near-silent stepping motor, with the usual electronically coupled manual focus ring.

Performance

Autofocus speed is a little pedestrian but highly accurate. Sharpness is good at the wideangle end but drops off progressively through the zoom range and is quite disappointing at 200mm.

Back at 18mm, there’s very obvious barrel distortion, but this can be corrected in-camera.