As an experienced hobby photographer, who takes the most portrait photos, this is an ideal lens for me. Why? You can easily achieve the right focal lengths for this with this lens, the area between 60 mm and 80 mm (not counting the magnification factor of aps-c). Add to this the constant aperture of F4 and this ensures fine portraits that deliver beautiful out-of-focus backgrounds. The advantage over a fixed focal length lens is that you also have a decent wide angle at your disposal. This makes this lens suitable for shooting landscapes, for example.
I experience the sharpness at every focal length as good to excellent. The edges at aperture F4 are also very usable. I also have a number of primes with F1.8 as the fastest aperture. When I compare the photos, you have to search very carefully at the pixel peeper level to see any difference in sharpness. The autofocus of the lens is simply super. Noiseless and lightning fast! The zoom button on the side is ideal for the videographers among us. It ensures thorough and precise zooming in and out when filming. I use the lens on a Sony a6000, which makes the combination of autofocus a real joy.
Many reviews on the Internet give as a negative point the strong pin cushion deviation or a distortion of the image. I actually didn't experience this that way because my camera automatically performs a correction for this. In fact, you can't even turn it off! That is, if you have the correct and most current firmware on your camera. If this is the case, then you don't have to worry about it. All e-mount cameras have this feature. This is a different story for video cameras, which makes this lens less suitable for this target group.
There are drawbacks. The lens is large for the average small e-mount cameras. It feels a bit out of balance because of that. For example, the 18-200 is smaller and lighter but has a longer range. That could be a second drawback, the maximum zoom is 105 mm (again without taking the demand factor into account). On the other hand, you do have a constant aperture of F4 at your disposal and candlestick 18-200 can't match that!
All in all, a POWERzoom that can rightly be called that.
