Better lens!? sony A200 - Tamron 70 - 300mm

ohjin22

ohjin22

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Owen
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Hi all, I hope you can help.

I have a sony A200, and recently purchased a tamron 70 - 300mm.

Now that I have had time to play with it, being at 300mm is too soft no matter the apeture or shutter speed.

It looks like i have to take it down to around the 200mm mark, have a shutter speed minimum of 250 and an epeture of f8.

The thing with the A200 is, an ISO of over 800 is unusable, and even at 800 is undesirable. Which makes it very difficult to achieve all three settings as stated above.

Can anyone recommend a better lens?

Am I better off going down to a 200mm lens.

I have a limited budget of £100-200.

Ideally I would love something that gives me as sharp results as possible.

I have heard the minolta beercan is good but I dont know If i will have the same issue of sharpness at max zoom.

I thought it better to go 300mm with no PP cropping. But now I wonder if 200mm with PP cropping would be better.

Thanks all
 
There are basically 3 options for to 70-300 range within your budget.

The Sigma 70-300 APO, The Tamron 70-300 (which you have) or the Sony / Minolta 75-300.

Of these, the Sigma is generally regarded as the 'best', but is also subject to a significant number of AF failures (particularly with the A700 when used in AF Fast mode).

All should give reasonable results across the zoom range, particularly if stopped down a little. It sounds as if you have a poor copy of the Tamron, or are expecting too much of it.

I have a Minolta 75-300 f4.5-5.6 (d), and was quite happy with it, though it did want a decent amount of light, and was somewhat prone to CA on backlit subjects (such as gulls in flight).

Here are a couple of shots taken with it on my A200 (Warning, these are fullsize) to give an idea of what should be possible.

Flower 'macro'
230mm, f/5.6, 1/400

Zebra
280mm, f/8, 1/500
 
Cheers Faldrax for the reply,

Yeah I tried the Sigma, and had the same AF issue, so that rules that out.

(Its a Tamron from Jessops)

The shot of the zebra is in direct sunlight which allows for fast shutter and low ISO but then gives harsh shadows, and high contrast.

I try to go out on slightly cloudy days so I can get nice soft shadows and balanced lighting. But then obviously the light levels are less than that of a sunny day.

Maybe its not the lens but the body im expecting too much from.

If I sold my A200 plus kit, I could afford a Nikon D80 (Much better ISO handling, and extra braketing options) with a 18 - 200mm lens.hmmmmm.:thinking:
 
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