July 2013 - If you are looking for an ultra wide angle lens for Sony NEX APS-C sensors based cameras, meanwhile you have an "embarras de richesses" between the new Zeiss Touit Distagon T* 12mm f/2.8 and the Sony 10-18mm F4 OSS zoom lenses. This article will provide you an in-depth comparison between these two lenses.
Before we go into details, let's take a look at the lenses themselves:
Both lenses are surprisingly lightweight and compact. The Sony wide angel zoom weighs about 260g, the Zeiss prime about 300g including lenshood and caps. If you compare that to a full frame ultra wide angle like the Zeiss Distagon T* 15mm f/2.8 (730g) or the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 zoom (about 1kg), these lenses will burden you (and your wallet) significantly less than their full frame equivalents for the price of about one F-stop less low light performance and DOF options than a comparable fullframe combination.
Before comparing sharpness and bokeh, let me just give you some more examples taken with the Zeiss Touit 2.8/12. that show you typical application areas and compositions for such a kind of lens: