Best budget telephoto for Sony Alpha?

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Dannnn

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Hey all :)

Looking to upgrade from my A200's 18-70mm lens to somthing with a bit more reach, but i'm really struggling to find the best available.

So far i have considered going for a second hand Minolta such as the infamous 75-210 F4 'Beercan' or something new with a warranty and a bit more length such as the Sigma 70-300 APO DG or the Sony 70-300mm.

Now having read various reviews on all the lenses i realise they all have their pro's & con's such as softness at longer focal lengths and CA.

So i'm having a really hard time making a decision and would greatly appreciate some advice :) I'm also open to new suggestions and i am on a budget of around £150.

Thank you in advance.
 
Minor correction - the Sony 70-300 is not a budget lens since it is > £500, the Sony 75-300 is the cheap lens.

The only one of those you list that I've owned is the Minolta 70-210/4 (aka "beercan"). For the price you can buy one s/h (about £100-120) it is an absolute steal IMO. this picture taken with it on my old A300 shows it's output at 210mm and f/4.

I only replaced it as I needed something faster. I'm seriously considering getting another one for when I don't need the speed and don't want to lug an f/2.8 lens around all day.
 
onomatopoeia said:
Minor correction - the Sony 70-300 is not a budget lens since it is > £500, the Sony 75-300 is the cheap lens.

The only one of those you list that I've owned is the Minolta 70-210/4 (aka "beercan"). For the price you can buy one s/h (about £100-120) it is an absolute steal IMO. this picture taken with it on my old A300 shows it's output at 210mm and f/4.

I only replaced it as I needed something faster. I'm seriously considering getting another one for when I don't need the speed and don't want to lug an f/2.8 lens around all day.
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Another vote for the beercan BUT you need to decide if you need the 200-300 reach or need the faster lens, as unfortunately you wont get both for the money. Despite also having a 70-200 f2.8 I cant bring myself to sell my beercan. However there is no point getting one if you need the extra 90mm zoom of a 300mm lens (unless you can afford a teleconverter to go with it!)
 
Don't know if you've looked here already, but when I had my A200 I found dyxum.com useful when I was planning my next purchase.
 
For the £120 or so you'll pay for a Beercan I'd go for one of those.

Don't worry about warranty - these lenses are 20+ years old and still going strong.
 
And the beercan will hold its value, so if you do decide to sell it again you will lose very little.
 
If you do need the extra reach to 300 over the beercan's 200, then the Sigma 70-300 APO is generally the best price / IQ wise(for a budget lens).

The Sony 75-300 currently has £50 cashback (on the earlier link to Jessops) so is quite cheap.

A s/h Minolta version (75-300d) will be cheaper still, and a reasonable copy will give good results until you start yo push it's limits.

Have a look at the Dyxum lens DB (http://www.dyxum.com/lenses/index.asp) for peoples thoughts on the various lenses available in that range.
 
Beercan definitely.
I've got one on my A100. Also have a Sigma apo 300 mm zoom, a minolta 70 to 300mm zoom, a minolta 400mm prime etc.

The beercan is built like the proverbial brick out house and has great optics. I find that you can't beat the older AF minolta lenses for quality unless you spend big bucks and this seems to be reflected in the used prices on Ebay and elsewhere.

If you want to get a fast lens, they sell 200mm apo minolta zooms on Ebay for circa £ 850 and you could always get a matching 1.4 teleconverter for about £ 200. You might need to revise your budget depending on what you are after. The latter two are on my wish list and I think they will be there a while. !!!
 
Hijacking this slightly, further to my "don't want to lug the 2.8 around all day when I don't need the speed" comment above I'm pondering what the options are. I don't mind spending to get good IQ and I already have the 70 to >400 range covered with the 70-200/2.8 and 300/4 plus sony 1.4tc, it's just that while great for motorsport when pottering around doing landscapey stuff that lot weighs a ton - last weekend in North Devon I was using my 35mm lens mostly but there were times when a lot more reach would have been ideal. I hadn't bought anything long due to the weight of the lenses that I own.

So is there anything under 1kg that competes with the beercan on IQ? 70-200, 70-300, that sort of range. Price and max aperture are relatively unimportant.
 
So is there anything under 1kg that competes with the beercan on IQ?

The 100-200 f/4.5 is excellent. I have a beercan and a 100-200 f/4.5 and the mini-beercan is half the size and seems as good optically.
 
Ok thanks you for the replies guys, has helped me greatly :) I'm going to go and have a think for a while :D When my chosen lens arrives i will post some sample pics and give you my thoughts.
 
The Sigma 70-300mm APO and non-APO models had a reputation for stripping the AF ring gear with the A700. I don't know if the latest models of this lens still suffer from this or whether it's a problem on the A200, but I would be very reluctant to buy one of these second hand.
As for me, I'm another beercan fan. It can tend to give a slight soft-focus effect at full aperture, but at f5.6 and up it's very sharp with nice colour rendition and bokeh. Look for one with a hood as OEM hoods can be hard to find on their own.
 
Yeah i had read that too, though i have not seen any reports of it happening on the A200.
 
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