Sony A77II+70-400G or A99+Tamron 150-600mm

What sollution do users here think is best of those two? I have the 70-400G1 and I'm thinking of selling it and get the Tamron + a used A99 instead of buying a77II for the G1. I'm thinking A99 + the Tamron will give me better iso performance and same or better image quality at 600mm. Maybe bit slower AF and burst, but I'm not so into BIF and really fast action. What do you think?

I own all 4 pieces ... the a77II wears the 150-600mm most all the time and my a99 wears the 70-400g. This way I have maximum reach and can cover from 70-900 in equivalent FOV to a 35mm when doing wildlife.

One never has enough focal length if stuck only using one setup it would be the a77II and the 150-600. Saw a write up from Antarctica where a shooter was super happy with the 150-600 on a a7II so there is a third option for these as well. His images did look good.

I read that a7II article too, the 150-600mm in the right hands seems to work very nice too, but it's a costly sollution with some limitations I feel.. I can get a used a99 for the almost same price as a new a77II, so that's my dilemma. Do you feel iso1600 is ok all day long shooting wildlife with the a77II?

It is about equal IMO between the a99 and a77II at 1600. I would say that the a99 files are more workable in post processing but with the right software for noise reduction neither camera is poor at 1600(exposure accuracy that is equal that is to say.... Noise is very effected by the available light and exposure accuracy).

I own a bushel full of softwares for post processing from cs6-iPhoto. Though admittedly the Adobe softwares are the strongest and most powerful for me this power is rarely ever needed and I refuse to play into the Adobe monthly lease to the cloud ploy so when my Lightroom and cs6 stop being useful I am done with Adobe products. That said it leaves me with aperture which is my most used that mac is eliminating for a photo OS that I need to learn more about. Capture one who has a Sony specific pp software that is very good for most things but still lacking in others and appears to want to eventually be like Adobe with the lease stuff someday. DXO IMO has the very best noise reduction program out there with their Prime noise reduction for RAW's. If I am shooting mostly. High ISO shots I'll run them throughly DXO without a doubt first then export to one of the other softwares if needed though the DXO program overall is very useable.

With Prime it actually took most of my concerns about ISO 3200 and below images from either of the above mentioned bodies...

Norw said:

I read that a7II article too, the 150-600mm in the right hands seems to work very nice too, but it's a costly sollution with some limitations I feel.. I can get a used a99 for the almost same price as a new a77II, so that's my dilemma. Do you feel iso1600 is ok all day long shooting wildlife with the a77II?

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That is some kind of deal, I recently bought an a99 for about $1500 and thought that was a bargain. The a77ii is about $900 new.

Worth reading.....I'd advise sticking with the 70-400mm/A77m2 combo


-Martin P

Here's a full resolution crop, handheld under difficult lighting with A77ii, Tamron 150-600, 600mm, ISO 2000, f6.3, 1/640s. Background noise selectively blitzed with NR. IMHO. this is pretty decent.

I was actually using this very obliging Kookaburra as a test target and checking the MFA for this lens on the A77ii

Nice to read the well thought thru answers here, lots of experience and good tips. I got my new A77II yesterday and hope to try it out very soon with the 70-400G1, my full frame A99 plan didn't happen mainly because of reach and convenience since I have the 70-400 already. First impressions so far indoors, much quicker AF, better AWB and better iso with finer grains. All the fuzz about A-mount dying or not doesn't really bother me that much, as I know I can have plenty of joy with this camera for years no matter what happens.

That's a real nice image. I assume you were pretty close. I'd say you have a great copy of the Tammy compared to other posted shots I've seen.

Looks to be very good handheld results!

I am using the Tamron 150-600 more and more as a MF lens since I can leverage on focus peaking to obtain peak sharpness.

Ed at Ridersite said:

That's a real nice image. I assume you were pretty close. I'd say you have a great copy of the Tammy compared to other posted shots I've seen.

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It's a full resolution crop - no resizing. Kookaburras are the largest and by far the easiest kingfisher to photograph.

You wouldn't think I have a great copy of the Tammy if you saw some of the other results I've produced! I was very disappointed with my initial attempts. Before I had the Tammy I was using the Sigma 400mm f5.6 APO telemacro quite a bit and I was a bit surprised at the leap in level of difficulty in wielding 600mm. I think some of the sample images you see are probably compromised by inadequate technique. I think my Tammy is probably average.

In the next few weeks, I intend to do what I should have done a year ago and set up to do some MTF tests using the free MTF Mapper. All MTF tests are relevant only in so far as they are shot under identical conditions and processed with the same software. I can ensure that and one of the comparisons I want to do is Tamron 150-600 vs Tamron 200-500 vs Sigma 400. I want to check all my lenses in due course. This is really the only way to control all variables for an honest comparison. MTF50 won't tell you everything about a lens performance but it's a fair indication of sharpness. I'll post the results when I have some.