Solid build quality

Professional look

Amazing colors

great sharpness, I love to keep zooming in to the full size photos and it’s still very sharp.

f/2.8

Perfect focal lengths

quiet, fast , and accurate AF

Sony/Konica Minolta

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. An 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 which is a plus. 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 use auto focus, I couldn’t hear anything! It’s that quiet and low on vibrations too. 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 which 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? AF lock on the lens is just very useful, especially in sports photography.

This lens uses 77 diameter filters. I bought a “Heliopan uv filter” to protect it from scratches. However using these types of filters at night degrades image quality. I went out and shot some photos. I noticed that all my night photographs have quite allot of lens flare or should I say filter 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's 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. So I don’t see this as a weakness.

It is no doubt a great looking lens. The white finish really makes it look pro and stand out, but because of this, it cause's allot of unwanted attention. I used black gaffer tape to try to make it look like a beat up tele-photo. So far it has helped a bit and adds some protection.

Most importantly, the image quality is very impressive. I love the natural colors and the high sharpness I get out of it. I feel it does well in both high contrast and muted color scenes. Of course this being a 70-200 f2.8 lens, it is very easy to blur out distracting background. The beautiful bokeh affect is due to a nine blade aperture which makes it very creamy and pleasing aesthetically. I think for a lens with this focal length, flare is very much under controlled when using the supplied hood.


This lens can be used for pretty much everything,

-portraiture =this lens will do portraiture due to its wide open f2.8 aperture and 200mm max focal length which in combination equals a very pleasing creamy background.

-Sports because its f2.8! very good for freezing outdoor fast action and indoor sports where light is low. And since Alphas have shake reduction built in, f2.8 and “Super Steady Shot” are really good partners.

I can see this thing being used as a great wild life tool in combination with a teleconverter. It might add a one or two stop slower wide open aperture but starting from f2.8, f4 and f5.6 depending if you went with a 1.4x or 2x tele-converter is still pretty fast. And of course, it will be constant no matter what focal length you select.

Landscape because of its wonderful colors. If its beautiful it will bring that out.

The price is good considering what it offers. The more features and quality factor it has the higher the price. Its not that far off from Canons and Nikons cost's.