My name is Matija Vincek and I’m a travel and street photographer based in Zagreb, Croatia. I like to travel light, and my choice of camera and lenses reflects this. I was fortunate enough to test the FE 24-50mm f/2.8 G recently and was very impressed with the performance and flexibility, but the nature of my work often requires a wider-angle perspective. I was delighted when Sony announced a sister lens – the FE 16-25mm f/2.8 G – and I took the opportunity to visit Austria to capture the breathtaking vistas in the mountains and the stunning architecture of Salzburg and Hallstatt.

The lens itself looks very similar to the FE 24-50mm f/2.8 G and the weight is about the same. I particularly liked the build quality and for such a small lens, it feels very solid and robust. The zoom ring is super smooth, and the manual aperture ring has a satisfying click (although this can be turned off – a perfect feature for filmmakers).

On my first morning, the sky was clear, and the light was perfect, so I grabbed my Alpha 7CR and headed out to see how it would perform.

At f/2.8 it’s extremely sharp across the entire frame and stopping down to around f/5.6 added only a little extra bite to the sharpness.

The close focus is very impressive too and I was able to capture this friendly swan as he came looking for food!

After an hour or so, the cloud cover rolled in but I wanted to see how the lens would cope with flatter light, so I kept moving around the lake.

One of the reasons I particularly like the Alpha 7CR is that the 61 megapixel sensor gives me so much flexibility when it comes to cropping, without losing any detail, so I’m not afraid to reframe shots in post-production. There were a couple of situations where I wanted a slightly longer focal length than 25mm, so I simply cropped in to give the effect of shooting on a 35mm lens. I’m also a big fan of switching to APS-C mode on the camera if I want to preview the crop before capture.

A fairly recent inclusion in the new Sony lenses has been the focus breathing compensation feature which is especially useful for filmmakers. I had my ZV-E1 with me and shot some test footage to see how well it performed. I needn’t have worried as it was barely noticeable, even racking from the closest focus point (just 18cm at the 16mm end) to infinity. The autofocus speed of this lens was also super-fast and I tried to catch it out by switching subject quickly (I failed miserably!).

As the light dropped I headed back to the hotel to review what I’d shot during the day and made plans to explore the city that evening.

The lens paired well with my love of candid street photography and with such a compact set-up, I was able to photograph unnoticed.

In such low light I always shoot wide open but having seen how the lens performed at f/2.8 I wasn’t bothered in the slightest.