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I went to a local camera shop with my parents and we were planning on getting a tamron 70-200 f2.8 for my photo journalism stuff. To my surprise we went for the
Sony 70-200 G lens along with the a700's battery grip and a heliopan uv filter for protection. We went home and I just couldn’t believe what just happened. I later had mixed emotions, on the one hand I felt real happy, on the other I felt really spoiled. Anyways, I’ll take the time to right a more insightful review once we get used to each other. For now I will go over what I like and don’t like about the lens.
In the shop I got a chance to play with it using a a350 alpha body from the display case. It was very well balanced on the a350. At home I mounted it on my a700 and it felt as good as the a350 balancing wise. It is very heavy but I think i can muscle it through a whole day of shooting with little problems. The build is amazing, strong and robust. A all around good pro lens.
Both the focus and the zoom ring's are very smooth. Something I was not used to was that the focus ring does not rotate when using auto focus. Also the focus ring can be turned in either direction past the 4 ft/1.2m point and the infinite marker with no sudden stops. I think this is to prevent unwanted damaged from sudden stops on both ends of the focus spectrum. I heard allot of complaints about the rubber grips on the turning rings. They do attract allot of dust but it’s not that big of a deal.
Auto focus is super quick. In good light it focuses fast, quietly, and accurately. The first time I had this thing mounted on the a700, my smile went sour because when i tried to auto focus, I couldn’t hear anything! It’s that quiet and low on vibrations.The lens hood is huge, but it should be mounted at all times since the front glass is so close to the rim and can easily get touched or hit. The petal shaped hood also has some sort of material on the inside of it, it helps attract and collect the dust before it reaches the lens. The three focus lock buttons around the front of the lens are extremely useful. I use AEL lock button allot and when I have my thumb on it and have my index finger on the shutter, how am i supposed to lock focus? Anyways, AF lock on the lens is just very useful...
I went out and shot some photos. I noticed that all my night photographs have allot of lens flare. I took off the heliopan uv lens filter that I got separately and that solved the problem. What a waste of money. I wanted to protect my gear but even a high end lens filter degrades image quality. It also tints everything slightly green. Off it goes!
I don’t recommend having a battery grip on while using this lens ether. Maybe it’s just me but when I have this set-up, my left hand can’t get under the zoom ring properly due to the grips protrusion into my bottom wrist. It actually caused quiet allot of discomfort. It also throws the whole thing off balance. But without the battery grip, its perfect.
Great looking lens. The white finish really makes it look pro and stand out, but it cause's head's to turn. I used black gaffer tape to try to make it look like crap. I hope it works.
The image quality is very impressive. I love the natural colors and the high sharpnest. I didn’t get a chance to use it in the way I would have liked to yet, but below are some fast shots. Not the best light and some are shot using high ISO's, so there not really much of tests ether but there something. The full raw sizes are awesome, I could keep zooming in and everything is still super sharp. Sony/Minolta ROCKS!
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