Sony SAL55300 A Mount – APS-C DT 55–300mm F4 – Good optics, decent price Tele-zoom lens

I’ve captured some stunning pictures with this lens whilst i’ve been out and about. It’s not massively heavy for its size, and it collapses down reasonably small when you’re not using it. For someone who wants a good quality, yet moderately priced telephoto lens, i’d certainly recommend this one goes at the top of your list.

A great lens, bought it for a trip to iceland, paid itself back in thousands with the quality of image and magnification.

Does what it says on the tin.

Average iq, plasticky and cheap feel to it.

In the telephoto range, i started with the sony 75-300mm. The colours at its shorter end are very nice (thanks to its origin as the better built minolta 75-300mm?) but the colour fringing* especially at its longer end is very noticeable, to the point where its not really usable for anything with much contrast. Then i got the sony 18-250mm. It wasn’t nearly as cheap, but the extra range in the zoom was great. There’s really not much difference between 250mm and 300mm** but there’s a lot between 18mm and 75mm. The colour fringing was much better too. If i looked at the results at 100% in an image viewer, i could see that there was a very slight one. Unfortunately, it also showed the photo wasn’t particularly sharp. On the other hand, i don’t have a 6000×4000 monitor and the resizing sharpens up the gentle blurs nicely.

Excellent quality for the price. Great range for a telephoto zoom. Really works well with my sony a35slt camera.

• For someone who wants a good quality, yet moderately priced telephoto lens
• it is compatible with a290 sony cameras
• Good quality

Outstanding lens a must have for your sony camara.

Great lens with beautiful images.

First class delivery service and excellent value for money.

The len for me and works well.

I wanted a reasonable telephoto zoom for my sony nex. The native e mount zooms only reach to 200mm and only 2 (as of today) are telezooms ie don’t start as wide angles. The sony 70-400 a mount and tamron and sigma telezooms look nice but are expensive. This fitted the bill as reasonable quality with good price, and good test results from owners. 300mm at the long end means 9x magnification using an aps format camera. Pros: good range, price, quality of photoscons: storing lens hood on the lens causes focus ring to move, sensitive to filter quality (don’t go cheap)considerations: requires la-ea2/4 adapter for nex, aps coverage only may not be future proof long term (vs 35mm sensor)good for: long tele shots, birding, sports, airplane photosrecommended, although one might also check out the sony g 70-300 and tamron equivalent.

Features of Sony SAL55300 A Mount – APS-C DT 55–300mm F4.5–5.6 SAM Zoom Lens, Black

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• 55-300mm F4.5-5.6 A-mount telephoto zoom lens with 5x magnification. Smooth autofocus motor and extra low dispersion glass
• Telephoto zoom lens. Extra-Low dispersion glass reduces chromatic aberrations
• A-mount, APS-C
• Smooth Autofocus Motor

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From the manufacturer

Quiet, quick, all-purpose telephoto zoom

Compact, lightweight telephoto zoom lens offers smooth, silent operation and covers the all-important medium-to-long distance telephoto range.

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Product Features

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Compact and stylish interchangeable lens Designed for advanced performance at a range of focal lengths for all SLT and DSLR cameras featuring APS-C sensors	Shoot at a wide-range of focal lengths A 5.5x magnification range covers focal lengths from 55 mm to 300 mm, with the power to capture wildlife and fast action	Fast and quiet autofocus The whisper-quiet Smooth Autofocus Motor delivers fluid operation of the lens autofocus function – ideal for intimate shoots

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Higher image quality with ED glass Extra-Low Dispersion glass reduces chromatic aberrations to sharpen image quality at medium to long focal lengths	Maximise coverage with a standard zoom With a standard zoom lens (DT18-55 mm F3.5-5.6) you get even broader focal coverage, from 27 mm wide angle to 450 mm super telephoto	Say goodbye to blur Pair the lens with a camera by Sony featuring built-in SteadyShot image stabilisation and you’ll enjoy smooth, blur-free results when shooting handheld.

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I’d been wanting to try this lens for a while as i have quite a decent range of a mount lenses (around a dozen or so)one area i don’t really have well covered is the telephoto end and at the 300mm mark. Though i’ve used a fair few of themon using the lens first off the build is very much like the recent sony 18-135mm which is quite a good thing as i’m quite fond of that lens. The plastics are of decent quality, it has a metal mount and the top of the lens has the newer sony metal style black ring on it (just like the 18-135mm)i’ve done a bit of shooting with the lens and i’ll share my quick fire pro and cons section:pros:+ decent price (about in line or slightly better than rivals on other mounts)+ good overall build quality with respectable plastics, metal mount too quite happy here+ optics are across the range from 55mm to 300mm are good usable wide open across the range+ sam motor is somewhat quieter than previous ones, but not silent (take note video shooters using the on-board mic) af speed is ok but not really fast (not unexpected for a tele lens) not as fast as the 18-135mm+ vignetting and ca are mostly well controlled really not a serious issue at all here, some ca noted but minor really+ comes with a lens hood+ zoom lock, which is great (no sign of creep so far but it’s useful to have this)+ above average max magnification of 1:3. 27x)cons:- bit bigger than i expected, by no means huge but it’s bigger than the older 100-300mm minolta apo lens by a fair bit- aps-c only, if you shoot full frame, or the odd bit of film on a minolta dynax then you might want to look at full frame options- some pincushion at around 100mm and above it’s fairly mild and not likely to be a serious issue- at the 300mm mark the lens is quite good, but sharpness drops a touch from about 250mm onwards corners pick up stopping the lens down- no focus scale, front element rotates on focus- dmf is not supported. Unlike the 18-135mm where you can grab the focus ring at any time, you must set the lens to mf for manual focus- not the best ‘bokeh’, it’s ok depending on the focal length used (it gets better at 200mm and above) but can be a be hard edged at times and distracting, this is quite subjective though. Lens takes a 62mm filter thread, same as a few other lenses 18-135mm, 16-80, 18-105mm and otherslens speed is approx as follows: 55mm to 130mm f4. 5, 140mm to 210mm f5, 220mm to 300mm it’s f5. 6overall i like the lens is delivers sharp images across the range without major problem.

Works as described ,no complaints.

Excellent piece of camera kit. Love it so far ,only had it a week.

55-300mm F4.5-5.6 A-mount telephoto zoom lens with 5x magnification.

Telephoto zoom lens.

A-mount, APS-C

Smooth Autofocus Motor

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