This long-telephoto Sony zoom lens provides high magnification and a broad 14X zooming range in compact, lightweight design that makes it easy to carry -- and its 35mm-equivalent range of 27mm wide-angle to 375mm telephoto excels at capturing faraway subjects, sports events, dramatic landscapes and intimate close-up views.

Technical Details

-Excellent wide-angle to long telephoto shots
-Fast Internal Focusing -- lens length does not change
-16 Lens Elements in 13 groups for wide-ranging accuracy
-ED Glass Elements for sharp, clear long shots
-Circular Aperture for pleasing defocused effects
See more technical details

 "Amazon needs to watch the price" 2010-05-24
By sabari (NC USA)
Surprise !!! Amazon used to be my favorite place to buy good stuff at competitive prize eyes closed.....but no more !
amazon is getting expensive day by day. guys this lens is over priced !!


 "Sharper than I Thought it Would Be" 2010-01-24
By Dave Mayer (Huntington Beach)
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.


 "Don't Leave Home Without It!" 2009-12-09
By M. Reid (Alexandria, VA USA)
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.


 "Review of the Sony SAL18250" 2009-11-14
By Sergei V. Nelson (Mendocino)
This is a very good lens! I recomend it for everyone, very good lens for the price.


 "Versatile basic lens" 2009-10-30
By Jackal (Singapore)
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.




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