Best travel lenses: 8 tested

best travel superzoom lenses sharpness

The Sony lens acheived a high score for centre sharpness, followed by the Pentax optic. The Nikon and Olympus lenses did well at their widest and middle focal lengths, but drop at 200mm and 180mm respectively.

The Olympus lens has good edge sharpness at the mid-point of the focal range, but results for the widest and longest focal lengths were more average.

The tests reveal interesting relationships between lenses and manufacturers. The Canon EOS 7D produces softer details in its JPEG images compared with the Nikon, Olympus, Sony and Pentax camera bodies.

best travel superzoom lenses distortion

At 18mm, all lenses show barrel distortion, changing to pinch distortion at the mid-point of the focal range. All lenses showed increased pinch distortion at the mid-point.

best travel superzoom lenses fringing

All but the Canon, Nikon and Sigma 18-200mm lens showed heavy fringing at the edges at the longest focal length.

The Nikon comes out on top for its consistency.