What’s New. This update sees improved image quality, reduced image flare and ghosting, weather-sealing, and vastly improved autofocus performance.

Fast Aperture. The constant f/2.8 aperture makes it a great choice for low-light use, key for wedding and event shooters. This also enables great control of depth-of-field.

SSM Motor. The SSM motor provides fast, silent, and highly accurate focusing. A key improvement with this updated model is focus tracking support with cameras, such as the a99, offering roughly 4x faster performance. Like its predecessor, there’s a focus hold button towards the end of the barrel for quick focus locking, as well as full-time manual focusing capability.

Advanced Optics. The Sony A 16-35mm f/2.8 ZA SSM II features three aspherical elements, one extra-low dispersion element, and one super extra-low dispersion element that minimize aberrations and distortions throughout the zoom range while providing good corner to corner sharpness. Additionally, the Carl Zeiss T* anti-reflective coating eliminates lens flare and ghosting while providing the famous high micro-contrast Zeiss look. Its nine-blade aperture diaphragm gives images smooth out-of-focus areas when you desire a shallow depth of field.