telephoto lens for sony alpha, I am confused !!

wildman

wildman

wildman

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I have had my a200 for a while now and the kit lens is ok, but I am finding that its pretty limiting in the reach department. I was looking at some of the telephoto's available for a sony/minolta fit and I am getting more confused.

I have seen a 18-200 f4/5.6 which has macro capability and I have also seen a 70-300 f4.5/5.6. I was going to get the 18-200 due to its greater focal range i.e it goes down to 18 which would still be ok for some of the landscape / wide shots I want (obviously not as good as getting a dedicated wide angle like the 11-24 or 10-20). But then i was thinking that the 18-200 might be a jack of all trades but not really be that great in all situations ?

Anyone got any thoughts to put me on the right track here ?

I was after extra reach for sports / nature shooting but I also do a bit of macro work which is why I was considering the 18-200.
 
I reckon you should keep the kit lens and see if you can get a Sigma 70-300 DG APO Macro.

It will do 1:2 which is half life size so it's fairly competent macro wise and pretty sharp, it hasn't got the quickest AF in the world though.

Edit: Found it for £175.
 
I have found the sigma 70-300 APO and also a non APO version. I have tried reading up on what the differences are but I can't seem to find out. Judging from the price difference I can only assume tht the optics on the APO version are a lot better ? as all the specs appear to be identical for both versions.
 
The APO version is slightly sharper, and has basically no chromatic abberation. The non APO version gets really bad purple fringing at the high focal lengths. I have the APO version, and it is a very good lens.
 
wildman said:
I have found the sigma 70-300 APO and also a non APO version. I have tried reading up on what the differences are but I can't seem to find out. Judging from the price difference I can only assume tht the optics on the APO version are a lot better ? as all the specs appear to be identical for both versions.
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Make sure you get the APO version if you buy this lens. The non APO is pretty dire.
 
A very common first port of call for Sony users wanting their first telephoto lens is the Minolta 70-210mm F4, AKA the Beercan. This lens is not currently made so is only available second hand, but if you can find a good one they are cracking lenses and remain at F4 throughout the zoom range. I bought mine about 2 years ago on ebay for about £70, though prices will have gone up in the last year as Sony is becoming increasingly popular. Coupled with your 18-70mm kit lens you would have a wide focal range covered.
 
the Sigma 70-300mm DGs have a bad habit of suffering AF gear failure on Alphas due to the high torque in-body motor.
The Tamron 70-300mm LD Di isn't as good optically as the Sigma APO (it's main fault being CA but you can stop down or post process for it) but it's more reliable on Alphas & it's cheaper (£130).
If you could afford (£500) the Sony 70-300mm G SSM then it's in a different league from the above.

if you are looking at the 18- range then the Sony/Tamron 18-250mm is noticeably better than the 18-200mm. Unfortunately it's dearer but that's the way of the world ...
 
As I am new to this I went away and did some more research on the Tamron 70-300 and the sigma APO 70-300. After reading lots of reviews and looking at some pictures that had been taken with each lens I must admit I am still really not sure what one to go for.

From a price view the tamron wins as its cheaper but from an IQ view a lot of the pictures I saw suffered a lot from purple fringing, not really a big deal I guess as you could probably edit these out post production.

I read a fair few comments that if you use the sigma lens on an alpha you might end up having the AF gears striped due to the torque in the motor and I also read that the sigma lens is really soft in the 200-300 range, read a few reports that said the tamron was a bit on the soft side also but was still a little sharper than the sigma.

I still think that from the pictures I saw that the Sigma is overall the better lens as the colours produced by this lens seemed a lot better than the tamron one abd that the build quality of the sigma was better due to it having the 2 lens elements on the front to reduce chromatic aberations (sp), but again I can only make these judgements from the pictures I have seen online.

I know many of you here are experienced photographers and I was wondering if any of you have used both lenses on an alpha body before and which one fared better for you.
 
I was in a similar situation when I got my a200 - I decided to go with the Sigma APO. I found the Tamron has quite a bit of purple fringing, much like the non-APO Sigma - the APO version has some very slight purple fringing sometimes but nothing to the extent of the other two.

Some of the Sigma's have stripped their gears but this was mainly a problem on the a700 which has two AF speed settings, you need to set it to slow (which is still fast) for the Sigma - I haven't seen that many problems with the a200.

The Sigma is a little soft at 300mm, but as they say a picture is worth a thousand words - have a look at these photos, they were all taken with the Sigma, most of them at 300mm: http://www.flickr.com/photos/craiggilbert/sets/72157621845821646/

Craig
 
Kona* said:
Some of the Sigma's have stripped their gears but this was mainly a problem on the a700 which has two AF speed settings, you need to set it to slow (which is still fast) for the Sigma - I haven't seen that many problems with the a200.
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Sigma's stripping the AF ring gearing has been a problem on all APS-C Alphas (A100>).
I haven't seen any reports yet of it on an A900 but then I guess not too many people are pairing a £1600 body with cheaper lenses.
 
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