Testing the Sony SAL75300 and Sony SAL18250 lenses

a57 with 75-300. f/8 @ 1/320th, ISO 800

I have continued to persevere with bird photography now that I have the Sony a57 and SAL75300 lens. On an APS-C sensor that equates to a 450mm equivalent fov (field of view), so I can get reasonably close to the wildlife.

But I can't say that I have been blown away by the performance of the Sony 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 lens. It's certainly not 'tack' sharp (or even close) at the 300mm end - which is exactly where you want to be if you buy a telephoto lens. 

Case-in-point - the other evening I went back down to my local lagoon and followed a Grey Heron around for about an hour. He slowly became used to my presence, and so I got reasonably close. I managed to get some decent poses, fairly close up, but the light was low, so I had to crank the ISO up (again). I've had to do this on both occasions now and I'm beginning to think that the high ISO's are contributing to the overall 'softness' I'm experiencing with this lens?

Of the 250-ish images I shot of the grey heron, I kept just four. All the rest were just too soft. And the four I kept only just snuck through.

So I decided that on the next sunny day, I was going to go out in the middle of the afternoon, in bright conditions, and test the lens at ISO 100. On a tripod. With a 2 second delay on the shutter. At all focal lengths and apertures. Just to see what this lens is really capable of in a 'best case' scenario. So that's what I did this weekend.

And while I was at it, I thought I'd test the SAL18250 at the same time. Just - ya know - because. So sit back, relax, get a beverage, and lets find out how good(?) these two lenses are...

Greymouth Wharf from Cobden. Sony a57 with SAL75300. f/8 @ 1/250th, ISO 100 (at 135mm)

Looking across to the Greymouth Wharf area from Cobden Lagoon is a great place to do these kinds of telephoto lens tests. First because there's plenty of space to set up your tripod, second because it provides lots of details and contrast to lock in on, and third because it's only five minutes from my house 😆

I set up as outlined above; on a tripod, with 2 second timer, central focus point (yes, I auto-focused because that's what I do 99% of the time in real-world shooting conditions), steady shot off (because I'm on a tripod) and aperture priority mode so I could speed up the process, since I would be working through all the apertures at every focal point marked on the lens barrel. Easy...

After I had all the images, I opened them in Lightroom, looked through each set of f/stops for each focal length I shot at, and chose the sharpest of the set. The lenses 'sweet spot' at that focal length, if you will. Below, are the results.

The selections above are all central crops at 100%, made in Photoshop, with my 'normal' sharpening applied (Unsharp Mask Filter applied at 125%, Raduis 1, Threshold 0). It might be difficult to make out what's happening from a low-res internet image, so I'll just tell you what I found....

The Sony SAL75300 lens (at least my copy of it), is soft at 75mm across the aperture range - with f/16 being somewhat presentable. But this isn't a lens I will be shooting at the 75mm end. Period 

From 100mm through to about 250mm, the lens is what I would call 'acceptably' sharp from f/5.6 to f/11 - with f/8 more than likely being the sweet spot. Images within this aperture and focal range are sharp, without being 'tack' sharp. This lens never really manages tack sharp.

At 300mm there is a fall-off in overall sharpness again, although not as bad as at the 75mm end (where it really is horrendous). At the 300mm focal length, f/5.6 to f/8 is 'reasonably' sharp, but I would stick to the 100 - 250mm range for better performance if I could. The lens has other issues at 300mm as well, exhibiting high levels of purple fringing. This is very evident at f/5.6, becoming better (although not completely gone) at f/8. Even with 'Remove Chromatic Aberrations' ticked in Lightroom's lens correction tab.

I thought that maybe the 16MP sensor of the a57 wasn't doing the SAL75300 any favours, and it may perform better on the full-frame 24MP sensor of the a99? So, of course, I tested this theory as well.

Once again, I'll decipher the low-res findings for you...

Basically, nothing changes. Apart for the fact that the a57 crop sensor is producing a slightly bigger fov for equivalent focal lengths - the actual sharpness remains relatively the same. Yes, the a99 is ever so slightly 'cleaner' (ISO 50 compared to ISO 100), and maybe a hair sharper? Maybe. But nothing that makes it shockingly different.

So bottom line with the Sony 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 (SAL75300); don't shoot at 75mm (at all), stick between 100-250mm and between f/5.6 to f/11 (let's just call it f/8 shall we?), and you should get 'acceptably' sharp results. Depending, of course, on your idea of 'sharpness'.

Cobden Lagoon. Sony a57 with SAL18250. f/8 @ 1/400th, ISO 100 (at 18mm)

Ok. So having established that the SAL75300 is really a 100-250mm, lets tackle the 18-250mm super zoom shall we!?

The SAL18250 is another one of those lenses that gets a bad rap from some reviewers. Actual users, on the other hand, often have some good things to say about this lens. Let's find out for ourselves.

Same process as above for the 75-300mm lens, although I changed position slightly so that there would be some interesting foreground in the image. Going through the apertures and focal lengths on this lens, what did I find?

Deciphering the above from what I see full-screen on my desktop computer at home, there's some good news if you want to use this lens as a pseudo landscape lens (as I do).

From 18mm up to 70mm, the lens performs very well in terms of sharpness - from f/5.6 to f/11. I wouldn't hesitate to use any combinations of the above. 18mm up to 35mm is even sharp through to f/16, which is a great result for us landscape photographers. Lens correction at the extreme 18mm end works well in Lightroom, and the corners are also nice and sharp. So at the 'wide' end of the lens, I'm very happy.

From 100mm up things change slightly. At 100mm sharpness is good from f/5.6 to f/8, and at 200mm from f/6.3 to f/8. At the extreme telephoto end of 250mm, only f/8 is what I would call 'acceptably' sharp.

So again, the good news for this lens, as a walk-around/travel/do-it-all superzoom, is that if you lock the aperture down at f/8, then practically all your images will be sharp. And if you want to use it as a landscape lens at the wider ends, then you have a great range of f/stops and focal lengths to choose from (up to about 100mm).

All-in-all I think this is a great result, and I'm well pleased with the SAL18250. 

I'm less pleased with the SAL75300, due to the less than impressive performance at 300mm (and 75mm). So does that mean I should just use the SAL18250 for everything and leave the 75-300mm at home?

Actually - no. Because again, based on my testing, the SAL75300 is a decent performer from 100mm to about 250mm. And the SAL18250 is an excellent performer from 18mm to about 100mm. Can you see the synergy here? The 75-300mm picks up where the 18-250mm leaves off. So effectively, with both lenses, I have decent (to sometimes excellent) performance from 18 to 250mm using both lenses. I did, of course test this theory out as well...

Hopefully you can clearly see that the SAL75300 is sharper from 100mm to 250mm than the SAL18250. Which means that it is still worth keeping both lenses, and taking both with me when I go out. If the 75-300mm lens was a big, heavy beast, then I'd think twice about bringing it. But it's not (it's only 460grams).

Am I disappointed with the lenses performance at 300mm? Yes, I am. And if I had the money, I would be changing it for either the Tamron SP 70-300mm f/4-5.6 or the Sony 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G SSM lens - both of which would, I believe, be infinitely better.

But I don't (have the money), so the Sony SAL75300, confined to shooting between 100 to 250mm, and from f/5.6 to f/8, will have to do during the meanwhile...

Sorry for the long post - and thanks for sticking with me this far (if you have). But it's a good, and important, exercise to do for yourself if you want to get the best out of your lenses. No matter what they might be. Lens testing doesn't have to be about boring test charts and brick walls. Get out in your natural environment and do some 'real-world' testing. I find this is always the best kind of testing. And the results may surprise, delight, or upset you!? 😄

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UPDATE: 15/04/22

Take all of the above with a grain of salt... 

I have recently discovered that my a57 isn't focusing properly - the sensor is probably out of alignment. So my overall impression of 'softness' is not surprising - and therefore all of the above is probably somewhat invalid!

Photo walk No.2 during Lockdown

Spring has sprung here in New Zealand. Yay!

On the West Coast, that often means wet weather - unfortunately. But, as luck would have it, the first week of Spring has instead brought some wonderful sunny days. And with it, comes a chance to get out and stretch the legs, in my local neigbourhood, during Lockdown.

'Spicy' revisted. OM-D E-M1 with Lumix 45-150mm f/4-5.6. f/5.6 @ 1/640th, ISO 400

We are very fortunate to have some rather picturesque places within walking distance of our home. These include; a beach, farms, an estuary/lagoon area and tiphead. So there is no shortage of interesting subjects to photograph.

Having said that, when you are confined to a reasonably local area - one that you've walked almost daily for several years - familiarity can breed a little contempt. To 'spice' things up (excuse the pun from the image above), I decided on my second night's walk around the same area, to just use my telephoto lens. I kept the Panasonic Lumix G Vario 45-150mm f/4-5.6 Asph Mega OIS lens when I sold all my others, because although I don't use one all that often, I do find a telephoto handy to have. It's also very small, and very light-weight for a telephoto, so takes up hardly any space in the camera bag.

Going around the same area, in the same evening light, you can't help but sometimes be attracted to the same images. I couldn't help myself as I walked past this public rest area again on the second evening. I just had to stop and take the exact same image as the previous night (see last post), but this time with the telephoto lens. If nothing else, I thought it would make for an interesting comparison between the two lenses.

And interesting it is! For while I gave a glowing review of the Lumix 12-35mm f2.8 and said how super sharp and clear the images were that I got from it - I actually think the image I took with the 45-150mm is actually sharper! 

Waiting for a Wave. OM-D E-M1 with Lumix 45-150mm. f/5.6 @ 1/200th, ISO 1600

My overall impression of this small, light, cheap telephoto zoom lens is that it is, indeed, very sharp - even wide open at f/5.6 and 150mm (300mm equivalent on full-frame). Just like its Olympus sibling (the M.Zuiko 40-150mm f/4-5.6) that I have raved about in the past, the Panasonic Lumix 45-150mm f/4-5.6 punches way above its weight, and has the capability of producing seriously great images.

Of course it doesn't compete with the truly pro glass of the Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 Pro or the Panasonic Lumix 35-100mm f2.8. But at a fraction of the weight, size and cost of these pro lenses, the Lumix 45-150mm f/4-5.6 is a no-brainer if you need a 'good' telephoto lens for the odd occasion when you need one. Pro wildlife or bird photographers look elsewhere. But for the rest of us, the Lumix or Olympus cheap telephotos are well worth owning.

Spring is in the air. OM-D E-M1 with Panasonic 45-150mm. f/5.6 @ 1/320th, ISO 800

Telephotos are great for getting a bit closer to the action if you're a sports and/or wildlife shooter. But they are also a great option for portraiture and landscapes. Their narrow field of view, compression of elements within an image, and their ability to 'isolate' a subject, are all helpful ways of telling a particular story. And they can also be used to zoom in on unsuspecting subjects if you are in 'stealth' mode. 😄

The photo above, of the couple watching the sea crashing against the rocks, was obviously taken from behind, but also from a fairly long distance away. They were completely unaware of my presence, allowing me to wait with my camera poised to capture just the right moment. I probably stayed for about 10 minutes taking a series of images, as the sea crashed around them and they enjoyed the view. The telephoto lens has compressed the elements within the image, to make it look like the sea is crashing around them a lot closer than it actually was. From the photo it looks like they are in serious danger of getting wet! But in reality, the waves were a good 15 to 20 meters away from them and well out of harms way.

Spring sunset silhouette. OM-D E-M1 with Lumix 45-150mm. f/8 @ 1/320th, ISO 800

The photo above was taken at exactly the same time as the photo of the couple watching the sea spray. Three young women turned up to also watch the sunset, and as they were getting ready to walk down along the rocks, I noticed that they made a prefect silhouette against the setting sun. I fired off two shots before they moved further down the rocks and the effect was gone.

Once again, the telephoto lens has allowed me to grab the shot from a good distance away, with my subjects completely unaware they were being photographed. I don't always shoot this way - I guess it feels a little bit 'creepy' or a bit paparazzi? But in both scenarios above, none of the people in the photos can be identified, none were photographed in a 'compromising' situation, and the final result is - I hope - very tastefully done. No one - as they say - was harmed in the making of these photos.

Heading out to fish. Olympus OM-D E-M1 with Lumix 40-150mm. f/8 @ 1/80th, ISO 1600

Many photographers who think of landscape images, think only in terms of wide angle lenses. But a telephoto lens is an invaluable part of every landscape photographers kit. As mentioned above, it can help isolate, compress, and simplify a scene - all exceptionally useful techniques when shooting landscapes. A wide-angle (or ultra-wide angle) that tries to include a massive vista can often lead to unimpressive images. Whereas if you isolate, frame, and capture a smaller portion - maybe just the one area of light as it caresses the peak of an impressive mountain - then you will often come away with a much stronger composition. Indeed there are many mountain landscape photographers who would say that their telephoto lens is their most used optic.

Blaketown Tiphead Shipwreck Monument. E-M1 with Lumix 45-150mm. f/5.6 @ 1/60th, ISO 800

Whether you use a telephoto lens a little, or a lot, it's always a good idea to have one in your camera bag. The Panasonic Lumix G Vario 45-150mm f/4-5.6 Asph Mega OIS (to give it its full name) is an excellent choice for someone on a budget, but who still wants a well made (metal mount), sharp and lightweight lens. When I was selling all my lenses to purchase the Panasonic 12-35mm f2.8, the Lumix 45-150mm was the only lens I decided to keep. And I'm very glad that I did.

As a landscape photographer, who wants to travel light, I don't need the heavier, more expensive 'pro' versions of this lens. I'd mostly shoot them at around f/5.6 to f/8 anyway. And at those apertures, the cheap, light and inexpensive (relatively speaking) Panansonic 40-150mm f/4-5.6 is probably about 95% as sharp as them anyway!

What I do occasionally wish for, however, is a little longer reach. Something like the Olympus 75-300mm f/4.8-6.7 or Panasonic 100-300mm f/4-5.6. At 300mm on the long end, that equates to a whopping 600mm angle-of-view on a full-frame system! If I was a bird or wildlife photographer on a budget, I'd definitely have one of those. But I'm not, so they will have to wait. My use-case for a lens with that sort of reach is even more limited than with the telephoto I already own! 

On the other hand, my sister-in-law actually owns the Olympus 75-300mm, so I may get to 'play' with it one day and do a quick review? Could be fun to take to a wildlife park - once we get out of Lockdown, of course.

The limitation of 6 megapixels

I am still waiting to hear back from the camera store about my E-M1 repair (what, me impatient? Never!). I am really hoping that it coincides with our upcoming trip to Christchurch to meet our new grandchild because a) it would be very convenient to pick it up then, and b) I really want a camera to photograph the new edition to our family! And to make matters worse (or better I guess, depending on how you care to look at it), my Panasonic Lumix 12-35mm f2.8 G lens has now arrived. Yay! Except I don't have a camera to try it out with. Aarrgghh!

Greymouth wharf from Cobden. Nikon D70 with Nikkor 18-55mm. f/8 @ 1/400th, ISO 200

In the meantime, though, I am still using my wife's Nikon D70. And I'm still enjoying shooting with it. I used the camera for a few years when I switched to digital in the mid 90s, so when I pick it up now a certain amount of muscle memory kicks in, and I find it very intuitive to use. Yes, there are a couple of things that 'annoy' me (exposure compensation +/- is flipped around from what I am used to now), but overall the shooting experience is still very enjoyable. And the images still hold-up, even at 6 megapixels. With one exception... cropping.

White Heron. D70 with 18-55mm. f/5.6 @ 1/640th, ISO 200

Most weekends, my wife and I like to go for at least an hours walk together. This usually involves taking a stroll through our local Cobden Lagoon - an estuary that is home to numerous bird life. If we are lucky, one of those birds will be a beautiful white heron.

I usually take my camera on these walks, on the off-chance that something catches my eye, and I'll wan't to take a photograph of it. Most of the time the camera stays draped over my shoulder (or carried in my hand) and I never use it. But sometimes I get lucky, and a white heron (or some other worthy subject) presents itself.

That's what happened last weekend on our walk. We spotted it from across the other side of the lagoon, and from where it was wading I could tell it was very close to a bridge that we would cross eventually. Actually, it's the same bridge from which I captured the image 'Swan River' from my last post.

As we made our way over to the other side of the lagoon, and approached the bridge, I spotted the Heron again - in almost exactly the same position as when we had first seen him. He had hardly moved at all. And because we were slightly elevated up on the bridge, he seemed not to really even notice that we were there. Or if he did, he didn't seem to mind. He was only about 15 meters from us, probably the closest I have ever managed to get to a heron. And would you believe it - all I had was a standard 18-55mm lens!

The smaller image of the white heron, seen above, is the uncropped image - as close as I was able to get with the full 55mm end of the lens. As you can see, even though this was the closest I have ever got, the bird is still relatively small in the frame.

The larger image is cropped from the original. And while the bird is now a bit more prominent, it's still not filling the frame! But this was as close as I could physically get. So I knew I would have to crop in on the image later if I was going to get anything even half-way decent.

And in doing so, we run up against the D70s limiting factor - the 6MP sensor if you need to crop heavily into your image.

Curious Horses. Nikon D70 with Nikkor 18-55mm. f/5.6 @ 1/1000th, ISO 200

Unfortunately, it didn't only happen once, but twice, on this particular walk. Heading home from the lagoon, we passed a paddock with some horses that I hadn't seen in there before. The lighter coloured horse especially caught my eye, and I went over to take a photo.

This scenario was even worse than the heron, since as you can see from the uncropped image at right, the horses were even further away from me, and they weren't that keen to get any closer!

So once again, I took the shot anyway - at the 55mm end of the lens (around an 80mm full-frame equivalent focal length) - knowing that I would have to crop out a lot of the image to feature my subject.

In both images, I've probably only kept around a third of the image, cropping out two-thirds. That's left me with file sizes of around 1MB - not great in terms of resolution. Enough for a sharp 5x7 print, but probably not much more.

Does that mean that the D70 is no good as a camera? No, of course it doesn't! If you don't crop the 6MP files, then you can easily print up to A3 sizes. But, if you do need to crop - heavily - then resolution (and print sizes) will suffer. Dat's a fac u'all.

Bus Barn. Nikon D70 with Nikkor 18-55mm. f/5.6 @ 1/1000th, ISO 200

So what to do? Well, if I was going to be shooting a lot with the D70 (I'm not), then I would invest in a zoom lens. Something like the Nikkor 75-300mm. Then I wouldn't have had any problem filling the frame with the heron, or the horses, and I wouldn't have had to crop-in later. Thereby taking advantage of all those 6 million wonderful pixels! Easy....

And to be honest, the same should be true no matter how many megapixels your camera has. Yes, it will be easier to do a super close crop of a bird from a 50 megapixel sensor and still be able to get a decent A4 print. But should you? There is a reason why bird, wildlife and sports photographers carry around those massive 600mm lenses with them (and newsflash, it's not just to look professional). They need to get as close to their subject as possible, and fill-the-frame so they don't have to crop later on. This gives them the absolute best IQ they can get. I'm sure there is certainly some cropping going on later in post. But they certainly don't all own 100 megapixel cameras and shoot with standard lenses, thinking that they'll just crop-in super tight later on! And neither should you or I. 

I'm not advocating that we all shoot with 6 megapixel cameras and resolution be damned! Of course not. But... we also probably don't need as many megapixels as we think we do either - and we certainly shouldn't be going out with the intention of cropping out two-thirds of every photo we shoot because we couldn't/didn't get close enough. Wildlife photographer's know they will be shooting nervous animals, from a long way off, so they invest in super telephoto lenses. Comes with the territory I'm afraid. 

I'm not a wildlife photographer, and never intend to be. I do know, however, that on the odd occassion, I will want to take a telephoto image or three. That's why the only lens I kept when I was selling all the others to get the 12-35mm f2.8, was my Lumix 45-150mm. A while that's not super-telephoto by any stretch, it does equate to 300mm focal length on a full-frame system. And boy, could I have used a 300mm lens last weekend when I was photographing a white heron and some horses. Maybe next time...