Being a 11x zoom lens I didn’t expect a lot, when I first put it on the Nex, but to say the least: I’m quite impressed of the image quality of this lens.

On a Nex this lens is big, of course. Its build quality seems very good, though zooming is not really smooth and easy. It takes some strength to handle the zoom ring. (Maybe I’m just a weak nansy-pansy )

Updated: Handling
The lens doesn’t really balance on the Nex. It’s too heavy for the small camera. When shooting, you don’t hold the camera anymore, you hold the lens. But when holding the lens instead of the camera, it gets harder to turn the zoom ring.
The Nex is pretty famous for its awkward menu. With a lens this big, the problem get’s even worth, because it’s hard to hold the camera only with the left hand, while the big lens draws it down.
By now you have maybe realised, that I like the IQ and the focal length flexibility of the lens, but I’m not a fan of the handling at least on the Nex-3 (maybe it’s better on the Nex-5 with its deeper grip):

The image stabilization works great. I was able to get shots sharp at 50mm at 1/8s.

Warning: If you use Auto-ISO on the Nex it will choose an exposure speed according to the focal length. So at 200mm it will choose an ISO-value to get 1/320s. That doesn’t really make sense, when using a lens with optical image stabilization. So I recommend to set ISO manually.

As you can see I also cherished the macro ability of the lens.

I really don’t want to go into detail about lens distortion, resolution and sharpness, because other sites have already covered those areas quite comprehensively. Instead I will leave you with a couple of samples I was able to get with this lens on my three day megazoom adventure (click on the images to enlarge). BTW, any vignetting you see comes from post processing.

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 18mm, ISO 800, 1/30s, f3.5

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 200mm, ISO 1.600, 1/60s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 200mm, ISO 200, 1/500s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 200mm, ISO 1.600, 1/250s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 200mm, ISO 1.600, 1/320s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 200mm, ISO 400, 1/320s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 200mm, ISO 1.000, 1/320s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 200mm, ISO 200, 1/1.250s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 200mm, ISO 200, 1/1.000s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 200mm, ISO 200, 1/640s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 172mm, ISO 800, 1/320s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 200mm, ISO 200, 1/30s, f8

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 36mm, ISO 640, 1/60s, f4.5

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 51mm, ISO 1.600, 1/8s (!!!), f5.6

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 200mm, ISO 400, 1/80s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 134mm, ISO 400, 1/60s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 88mm, ISO 400, 1/60s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 143mm, ISO 400, 1/60s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 50mm, ISO 400, 1/400s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 18mm, ISO 200, 1/200s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 18mm, ISO 200, 1/1.000s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 159mm, ISO 200, 1/640s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 128mm, ISO 200, 1/80s, f6.3

^ Sony Nex-3 with Sony E 18-200/3.5-6.3 OSS, 200mm, ISO 200, 1/60s, f6.3