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With Sony having bought Minolta's camera and lens part of the business, the new Sony Alpha series incorporated Minolta Camera's technology into their Digital Cameras. Best outcome of this is that all the Minolta Maxxum lenses can fit perfectly onto the new Sony Digital Cameras. Two great advantages of these : 1. 20 year's worth of Maxxum Lenses are instantly available to be purchased for the Sony Cameras. 2. The Maxxum lenses, like this one, are superbly made glass lenses, with great optics. (Many of the current lenses are suprisingly not made of glass!). 3. A really wide range of used Maxxum lenses are available on ebay for excellent prices ! While most Minonlta Maxxum lenses are nice, be careful when buying used. Be willing to pay extra for those that come with the original box - as this means they were properly cared for, and spent most of their life safely stored in the original box. Look patiently for someone selling clean Maxxum lenses, like this one, for a good price. The 75-300mm lens is great for Portrait Photography and for Nature photography. For Portraits, you will get very sharp focus of the subject, while the background & foreground will be blurred. To maximize this effect, stand a little further back from the subject, and zoom in. This is a beautiful lens, and I am thoroughly enjoying using it with my new Sony Alpha A55 ! Thank You for reading and rating my review.Read full review
This Minolta Lens has the perfect range if you want to take great portrait pictures, and still have the abillity to get close to your subject without spending alot of money. The picture quality and function is as good or better than most expensive aftermarket lenses costing considerably more(excluding the APO versions). APO lenses are the sharpest but will cost you 4 to 5 times the price of this lens. Like all Zoom lenses it wanders a bit on the top end in auto focus mode,this is usually due to lighting factors since the camera uses contrast of distant subjects to focus in certain conditions and focal lengths.The use of manual focus is best when shooting subjects at great distances and in less than optimal lighting. Also sharpness tends to be lost at max zoom, but this is pretty common of all non-fixed focal lenses.The solution IMO would be to overlap your lenses by at least 5-10mm so you won't be at the max focal length of your lens. This should preserve image quality and sharpness of any lens. This is a Macro lens with a 1:4 magnification. IMO it is near impossible to use for this purpose since min. focus distance is 1.5 meters, unless you want close-ups of larger objects. A fixed lens with a shorter min. focus distance would be more appropriate for true macro photography. I rated this lens 4/5 because it's a good all around lens for most photography situations. It didn't score 5/5 because its not an APO version. Pros Quality,design and performance at a realy good price. This(D)lens works (with Film /Digital camera if equiped) to meter lighting when using a (D)flash unit. Focal length is further multiplied by 1.5-1.6 crop factor making this lens a 110-450mm when used on a 5D or 7D. Cons Loss of sharpness at top end of zoom range. Not an APO. I have been a long time fan of Minolta since my first camera (SRT 201) which I still use, and it works like it did the day I purchased it.To me that says alot about quality. They have never let me down. That is why I continue to use their cameras and lenses. Minolta has put much effort into the design of their products, and quality control is consistent throughout production. Though not considered by most photographers to be professional level gear,they still have the reputation and credit of being the first at many new design innovations and features long before their competitors.It is sad to see them leaving the consumer imaging market.Read full review
I wanted a lens for taking still life photos for a trip we are taking to Alaska later this year. I had done research on this lens and it fit well with what I wanted on a mid priced telephoto lens for my Sony Alpha 1 camera. The lens is pretty heavy as compared to some of the newer lens however the quality is superior to the newer lower priced 300 MM lens on the market. I would have loved to have had the 2.8 lens that are out there but I did not want to spend $2,000 to $6,000 for a lens. E-bay allowed me to find the lens I could afford. The individual I purchased it from was great to work with, it was even better than he described and was packaged very well. Thanks e-bay for the great lens, I am sooking forward to great pictures of Alaska in August.
just tried the lens on my Sony A 33 SLT camera...the old Minolta lens are a bargain..way cheaper than the Sony Lens of comparable range and speed...and the build is way better unless you spend a whole lot of money for the faster glass or brand....affordable photo fun.... It was really nice of Sony to incorporate the older style Minolta-Konice lens mount into their new Sony Alpha SLR line of cameras...seems most companies just change everything to make older gear obsolete...and sell more product... So for this reason I bought Sony---for the lens adaptability... Ps..from what I can tell without using my new Minolta lens..it's going to be just fine for my needs--- SteveWb
The Big Beercan as it is so called, is an excellent value for a long lens. The autofocus is fairly quick in good lighting. It takes beautiful pictures with amazing color. The autofocus does tend to slow down in low lighting situations, however it has a focus limiting switch on the side. This can come in handy to reduce the amount of time spent searching for focus. Pitfalls of this lens are the large size and heavy weight in comparison to other lenses of this focal length. It is extremely well built however, and I would choose it over any other lens in its price range and focal length.
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