Birding with the Sony SAL75300

In my last post I indicated that my 'new' Sony a57 had arrived, and I had already taken it out for a test-drive with the Sony SAL75300 (Sony A Lens 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6).

It's been a while since I've had a dedicated 'telephoto' lens for one of my systems, so I was keen to pop the 75-300mm on and give it a spin. I decided to do some bird photography down at my local lagoon. Unfortunately the clouds had rolled in and the weather was a bit overcast, so I had to bump up the ISO to give me some decent shutter speeds at the 300mm end of the lens.

Shagadelic! Sony a57 with SAL75300. f/11 @ 1/250th, ISO 800

From reading reviews of the lens, I knew that the Sony 75-300mm wasn't going to be the sharpest tack in the box - especially at the long end. So I made sure that I shot at around the f/8 to f/11 apertures, which should produce the sharpest images (a couple of stops shut down from wide open). As mentioned above, this also meant that I was having to bump up the ISO to give me fast enough shutter speeds. Hey ho - I guess I'll get to see how it performs at high ISO's as well then 😊

Lens elements in the SAL75300

The lens itself isn't anything to write home about. It is, after all, the cheapest telephoto to 300mm lens that Sony makes. It is also, apparently, a 're-packaging' of an old Minolta 75-300mm lens.

There are no special lens elements in its construction, and it's made mostly from plastic. Although that's not necessarily a bad thing. The plastic is of the modern polycarbonate type - which has proven to be very rugged and sturdy enough for most uses. Of course the lens elements are all glass, and the lens mount is metal. So that's a good thing. Fit and finish is also fairly impressive for such a cheap and cheerful optic. It's just a no-frills kinda product.

Unfortunately, the front lens element rotates, and the auto-focus is driven from the camera body. So it's not blisteringly fast, and it's not whisper quiet. Although it's also not turtle-slow, nor is it annoyingly noisy. It found focus and locked on reasonably quickly, so no complaints there. But it certainly ain't no G master! It also only cost me $149.00NZ. So there's that...

Swan family. Sony a57 with SAL75300. f/11 @ 1/100th, ISO 1600

I wasn't looking for birds-in-flight, so I didn't need to rely on the tracking on the a57. I did, however, set it to continuous hi-speed shooting so I could fire off a shot burst of images. This helps with getting sharpness, as at least one image in a series of burst should be sharp. Probably didn't need to have bothered with this approach looking back on the files. They are all 'relatively' sharp. 

I say 'relatively' sharp for a reason. Because from what I can tell from my brief outing, the SAL75300 never gets 'bitingly' sharp really, at any focal distance. I shot, as I said, at around the f/8 to f/11 apertures, and it seems to me from pixel-peeping that f/8 is the sweet spot.

It is probably hard to tell from the image samples above (click on the image to enlarge it in your viewer), but absolute sharpness (such as it is with this lens) peaks at around the 200mm focal length. Although it is a little difficult to gauge the lenses true capabilities, since all of the above were shot at ISO 1600 and are therefore a little 'noisy' (adding to the overall sense of softness). I will have to do a bit more testing in brighter conditions, where noise isn't a factor, to really get a sense of this lenses capabilities (and I will do).

All-in-all I wasn't blown away by the results from the SAL75300, although nor was I really expecting to be. I think that at f/8, all focal lengths (but especially below 250mm), will produce very good images up to A3 size. Beyond that, sharpness might start to become an issue?

Wading bird, Cobden Lagoon. Sony a57 with SAL75300mm. f/9 @ 1/500th, ISO 1600

The jury is out on this lens presently. I'm not sure that I got the best out of it on my first try, and I want to try again in better conditions. Ideally I would like to see how it performs at ISO 100, with a much 'cleaner' file.

The images here are not 'bad' per-se, they just didn't blow me away as much as I was hoping they would. And yet maybe my expectations were too high? This is, as has already been previously stated, Sony's cheapest telephoto lens up to 300mm - by far. So was there that much to expect in the first place? 

Trouble is, I'm coming from the micro-four-thirds system, where even the super cheap and plasticky Olympus 45-150mm f/4-5.6 (90-300mm fov in full-frame terms) is exceptionally sharp. So I've been a bit spoiled.

I certainly need to use the lens a few more times before I formulate any firm opinions regarding it's sharpness. And then again - sharpness isn't everything. Is it?