Best of tiny legacy 70-210/80-200 f4-5.6 MF zooms?

Hi,

Would anyone like to share views about their experience with small film era 70-200, 70-210, 80-200, 80-210 f4-5.6 zooms? These things were made and sold in a gazillion models from the usual independents - Tokina, Sigma, Tamron and Vivitar and the OEMs.... They came with slightly different FLs, apertures, filter thread sizes, etc.

Modern FF zooms are just so big. My son's Sony 70-200/4 weighs 942g with the tripod foot, both caps and hood. Put it in a lens case and it's over a kilo. And that's the smaller alternative. It's a good lens, but too big for my preferences. I'm interested to try one of the older MF zooms to get reach in half the size and weight. I'm well aware that they were slow but I want to narrow the range to those ending up at f5.6 and with max 52mm filter thread - anything faster at the long end soon gets larger and heavier. For use in travel - a distant peak, yacht, tree, castle, building detail, etc, mostly in reasonable light.

I'm not anticipating miracles, but has anyone found a good one? Or are they all a waste of time in the digital era? They go for a song on eBay.....

Thanks, Rod

If you’re looking for 200 mm reach in a light packet and are desperate enough to consider 1980s zooms, might I suggest considering an 18-135 mm in APS-C crop mode? Fine for travel. Fine for social media. Not fine for much else, but perhaps that’s enough?

Regards,

Alan

Hi,

It's more about preference than desperation. Plus a certain amount of hope that an 80's zoom might actually be any good (especially stopped down to f8). A few are very good but they tend to be larger. I suppose using a travel zoom and cropping could work, though I don't own one. Another solution might be to take a couple of small telephoto primes - say an 85 and a 135 - but two with an adapter would weigh more than the lightest zooms. And though I prefer primes for WA to standard, I prefer zooms for 70+ because they offer flexibility when you can't change position easily.

Cheers, Rod

I used to have a Tokina SZ-X 80-200 which I found to be quite good. It's tiny, very light and the optics are good enough for travel photography, if you aren't too demanding and willing to enhance contrast in post.
It gave me many nice vacation memories. Being very cheap, I dared to use it standing in the sea water, photographing my children in the middle of the knee deep waves, just pulling away camera and lens just before they hit me.

I sold it some day, but regretted doing so later. Then I got two more copies, but both had developed fog inside (possibly from separation of one of the inner cemented groups). If you try to get one, always ask the seller about the foggyness inside shining through a torch. Like always: Dust doesn't matter, but if one element inside is foggy, it will harm contrast. I haven't looked since, but may do so now.

I even found some test images I made back then and one from vacation.



























Flickr
TheOtherSideOfBokeh

I had the Tokina SD 70-210 f4-5.6 zoom for a while. It's small, lightweight, and decent enough quality - it's a FF design so using it on an APS-C camera means you are cropping out the edges, which is where the quality tends to fall off.

As you say, they sell for not much on ebay, so you can't really lose out too much. Just try to ensure your lens doesn't have any haze or fungus. Dust is no problem.

There is a miracle: the Tokina 70-210/4-5.6 SD.

Light, well made, excellent I.Q. (on APS-C and M43, I don’t know for FF) even at full aperture.

There are many variations, difficult to differentiate. Mine has a closer minimum focusing distance than most, it reaches 1:4.

A second choice is the Tamron 70-210/3.8-4 (last version), but it is not so well made, and they are nearly all in bad shape - dirt, fungus,… - inside. I know, not 4-5.6, but very small and light for a f/4.0.

backsidewalkaround said:

I used to have a Tokina SZ-X 80-200 which I found to be quite good. It's tiny, very light and the optics are good enough for travel photography, if you aren't too demanding and willing to enhance contrast in post.
It gave me many nice vacation memories. Being very cheap, I dared to use it standing in the sea water, photographing my children in the middle of the knee deep waves, just pulling away camera and lens just before they hit me.

Click to expand...

I have one of these and it's not a bad little lens; as noted, very small and light for the focal range. Some pics from it in the following posts:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64341964

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/63072954

backsidewalkaround said:

I sold it some day, but regretted doing so later. Then I got two more copies, but both had developed fog inside (possibly from separation of one of the inner cemented groups). If you try to get one, always ask the seller about the foggyness inside shining through a torch. Like always: Dust doesn't matter, but if one element inside is foggy, it will harm contrast. I haven't looked since, but may do so now.

Click to expand...

I did a take-apart on one of the SZ-X 80-200 versions, to clean the inside front element; it was possible, but not very fun. This thread has the saga:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4362213

On the whole, though, even though I like the size/weight, I just haven't used it much in the last 3 years or so. Overall, despite trying some nice lenses in that range (the second link above has some of the others), none of them have grabbed me enough to make them a permanent travel companion.

The latest I've tried is the Tamron 03A 80-210 (non SP). According to Adaptall-2.com, it's not supposed to be as good as the later 103A (SP); but it's looking plenty good so far:


Lumix S5, Tamron 80-210 (03A)



Not as small as the Tokina or the Soligor C/D 80-200, but still fairly small for this focal range.

--
Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_prof67/ Warning: Heavy Learning in progress.

Rod McD said:

Would anyone like to share views about their experience with small film era 70-200, 70-210, 80-200, 80-210 f4-5.6 zooms? These things were made and sold in a gazillion models from the usual independents - Tokina, Sigma, Tamron and Vivitar and the OEMs.... They came with slightly different FLs, apertures, filter thread sizes, etc.

Click to expand...

This sort of question comes up a lot; for example, Lightweight 200mm+ recommendations covered much the same territory...

Personally, the lens covering that range which I most often use (well, used until getting my modern Tamron FE 28-200mm) is the Sigma 28-200mm F3.5-5.6 DG Macro . It is surprisingly respectable against the slow small old 70-210mm lenses. It weighs 380g and is only about 3" long. If you use an LA-EA1/2/3/4/5 adapter on a Sony E/FE body, this Sigma in A-mount identifies as a 24-105mm F3.5-4.5 (the most similar Minolta lens), but other than that, it works quite well. Here are a couple of full-res shots with it on my A7RV taken just now on this rainy, gray, day:

View attachment ef41585de4e14f9d89301832b95dc04b.jpg
Sigma 28-200mm @ 70mm f/5.6

View attachment 483e92b534354174bec40a204b8edea1.jpg
Sigma 28-200mm @ 200mm f/5.6

Across most of the frame, it actually resolves very well at all apertures, although the FF corners are a bit soft. Here's a full-res OOC JPEG from it on my A7II in Paris, shot from that tower everybody always visits; this shows the corner smearing about as bad as it gets, which I still think is OK for an old superzoom:


Sigma 28-200mm @ 35mm f/7.1

Finally, here's a more colorful close-up shot from my Paris trip, shot with the Sigma in Monet's garden:


Sigma 28-200mm @ 135mm f/5.6

The big downside to this lens is that it's not really set-up for manual focus. On a dumb adapter, the A-mount version will still work with manual focus, but you'll need to use the uncalibrated aperture control on the adapter -- there's no aperture ring. The EF version (I have one of those too) is non-functional with a dumb adapter.

However, here's the punchline: smart adapters really help for zooms because they let the camera set IBIS focal length correctly. Manually setting the IBIS focal length is a pain -- here's a little tool I wrote to help you understand how to set IBIS focal length for a manual zoom.

Rod McD said:

Modern FF zooms are just so big. My son's Sony 70-200/4 weighs 942g with the tripod foot, both caps and hood. Put it in a lens case and it's over a kilo. And that's the smaller alternative. It's a good lens, but too big for my preferences. I'm interested to try one of the older MF zooms to get reach in half the size and weight. I'm well aware that they were slow but I want to narrow the range to those ending up at f5.6 and with max 52mm filter thread - anything faster at the long end soon gets larger and heavier. For use in travel - a distant peak, yacht, tree, castle, building detail, etc, mostly in reasonable light.

I'm not anticipating miracles, but has anyone found a good one? Or are they all a waste of time in the digital era? They go for a song on eBay.....

Click to expand...

Yup, they do. My A-mount Sigma cost me about $10.

My experience - not a lot but valid enough is that those old zoom lenses were built in an era before significant CAD was used and probably using 'near-enough' formulas. They had to be cheap to sell because they were not particularly good. Because they were not good they sold on price and specification to those who would forgive their performance lapses to get their 'versatility'. In more recent times and CAD better zoom designs have emerged.

One of these might just be the Canon EF-S 55-250/4.0-5.6 IS. Obviously crop sensor if adapted to a FF dslr. But it is light, cheap and a remarkably good performer.

It adapts well to M4/3 and has one of the most responsive AF performers when adapted. Being EF-S it will not mount on focal reduction adapters but there is an exchange mount plate on offer that can allow full focal reduction which loses some reach but puts its full image circle on the 4/3 sensor and picks up a stop of light in the process.

It is an extending zoom but I will forgive it this. It does make a very portable form when collapsed to 55mm Weighed with both caps on my household scales it is just 404gm. Needs an adapter though.

Recommended. I had some trouble with the first replacement mount I bought but the second one was perfect and fitted easily like a glove.

I think that there are several versions of this lens - I have the more recent one.

--
Tom Caldwell

I Have a sigma 80-200 F4.5-5.6 which is small at 140mm fully extended, 52mm filter thread and weight of just 500 grams.

+1 for the Canon 55-250, Does well on my Lumix and Olympus cameras, also Canon 70D.

As for the 70-210, I have the Vivitar 70-210/2.8, Minolta70-210/3.5, Tamron Adaptall 85-210/4.5, Rokinon 80-200/4.5 and the Nikon AFS 55-200.

Great choices/Lots of fun.

All the best I know are in the 675 to 705 gram range. It depends on how "legacy" you want to go.

1999 to current - Canon EF 70-200mm f4 L

1988 - Canon EF 50-200mm f3.5-4.5 L

1985 - Canon FD 80-200mm f4 L

1980 - Canon FD 70-210mm f4

Rod McD said:

Hi,

Would anyone like to share views about their experience with small film era 70-200, 70-210, 80-200, 80-210 f4-5.6 zooms? These things were made and sold in a gazillion models from the usual independents - Tokina, Sigma, Tamron and Vivitar and the OEMs.... They came with slightly different FLs, apertures, filter thread sizes, etc.

Modern FF zooms are just so big. My son's Sony 70-200/4 weighs 942g with the tripod foot, both caps and hood. Put it in a lens case and it's over a kilo. And that's the smaller alternative. It's a good lens, but too big for my preferences. I'm interested to try one of the older MF zooms to get reach in half the size and weight. I'm well aware that they were slow but I want to narrow the range to those ending up at f5.6 and with max 52mm filter thread - anything faster at the long end soon gets larger and heavier. For use in travel - a distant peak, yacht, tree, castle, building detail, etc, mostly in reasonable light.

I'm not anticipating miracles, but has anyone found a good one? Or are they all a waste of time in the digital era? They go for a song on eBay.....

Thanks, Rod

Click to expand...

A lens that amazes me is the Minolta 100-300mm APO f4.5-5.6. This lens is quite small for 300mm and at 410g, is not too heavy. Works with full frame too.

And I do know what heavy is. I have the Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 lens, and it comes in at about 1500g.

But it is not easy adapting Sony AF A-mount lenses to other cameras. There is no aperture ring, and I find that manual focus on the Minolta AF lenses is not so wonderful.

Here is a shot taken with this lens using a Sony A99 on a very still atmosphere day. The farmhouse is 3 1/2 miles distant.


Minolta 100-300mm at 300mm at f9.5 using a Sony A99

Some Sony e-mount cameras support the LA-EA5 and can easily use this lens. I have the Sony A6600 and it works just as well as the A99. But with the LA-EA5, there is no need to do any Micro Focus Adjustment since the focus is done on the sensor.

Not all Sony e-mount cameras can use the LA-EA5 with screw drive A-mount lenses, and for those, they need the LA-EA4, which does need to use MFA for best results.

Hi Jim,

Thanks. I've received a number of suggestions...... I hadn't considered XX-300mm lenses, but that Minolta AF lens is still quite small and < 500g. If it's really APO, then it may well eliminate most of the CAs that plague legacy telephoto lenses. They are readily available on eBay and reasonably priced....

I just looked up some specs on Dyxxum - it seems there are three versions of Minolta's AF100-300/4.5-5.6. With no aperture ring, one would be compelled to use the Sony smart adapters you mention. There's one 100-300 'plain', one with a 'D' and one with an 'Xi,' with slight differences. Do you know the differences and their compatibility with the Sony smart adapters to use on FE?

Thanks, Rod

Hi,

I would also recommend the Tokina 70-210/4-5.6 SD, if you can find one with good, clean glass elements.
Had one in the film days and it was very good.

The Nikon Series E 3.5 75-150mm might also be an option.
It is very sharp and has a nice constant f3.5.
Make sure you find the latest version, which has better build quality.
I used it on the X-T3/4 and it is also very good on my FF Nikon Z5.

Here it is on the X-T4, compared to the tiny and also excellent Series E 2.8 100mm:





And at 75mm f8:













André

Rod McD said:

Hi Jim,

Thanks. I've received a number of suggestions...... I hadn't considered XX-300mm lenses, but that Minolta AF lens is still quite small and < 500g. If it's really APO, then it may well eliminate most of the CAs that plague legacy telephoto lenses. They are readily available on eBay and reasonably priced....

Click to expand...

Relatively recent tele zooms generally don't have that bad a problem with CA, although bokeh CA and PF (purple fringing) still tend to be present. The term "APO" simply means correction was computed using more than two wavelengths; what happens between and beyond those wavelengths can still be a mess, but I think the 100-300mm does a hair better than the 75-300mm in CA. I don't have the 100-300mm, but it seems very comparable to my Minolta 75-300mm, which is a pleasant enough lens to use with the usual drop-off in sharpness as you go much longer than 200mm.

As I mentioned above, my little Sigma 28-200mm , overall delivers IQ comparable to the Sony 24-240mm in a much smaller package that cost me $10. Yes, my new Tamron 28-200mm beats it, but it's also bigger than my old Sigma.

Basically, there are lots of mediocre tele zooms, and some really terrible superzooms, but the best from the 1990s and later are actually pretty good lenses. Ratings on Dyxum are a good starting point, but just be aware that people tend to rate older, heaver-built, lenses a little higher even on IQ measures: the same psychological effect as looking at a car with a sporty body shape and imagining it goes faster. ;-)

Rod McD said:

I just looked up some specs on Dyxxum - it seems there are three versions of Minolta's AF100-300/4.5-5.6. With no aperture ring, one would be compelled to use the Sony smart adapters you mention. There's one 100-300 'plain', one with a 'D' and one with an 'Xi,' with slight differences. Do you know the differences and their compatibility with the Sony smart adapters to use on FE?

Click to expand...

One of the larger differences is that older versions have a 5-pin interface instead of 8 pins, which basically means they don't report focus distance to the camera. Focus distance primarily helps with flash, but is also used to compute IBIS movements; the IBIS error from not knowing focus distance is generally negligible until you get to near macro range. The Xi power zoom feature is generally considered a mild negative and some Xi lenses have serious compatibility issues.

As for adapters, it depends on which Sony body you have. The older Minolta AF lenses are all screw driven, which used to mean they'd autofocus only on the LA-EA4 using the SLT mirror and PD sensor in the adapter -- which was great on E/FE bodies that didn't do PDAF using the main sensor and was still OK on those that did. However, the latest Sony bodies, such as my A7RV, disable AF using the LA-EA4! On the other hand, the latest bodies can use the LA-EA5, which can do full-featured main-sensor PDAF with screw-driven lenses... but the LA-EA5 doesn't AF on older bodies.

The LA-EA3 will allow camera control of aperture, but no AF with screw-driven lenses. Before the LA-EA5, it was the choice for lenses with built-in focus motors because it gave full main-sensor PDAF performance with those lenses.

The LA-EA1 and LA-EA2 are basically the same as the LA-EA3 and LA-EA4, but with internal masking for APS-C... so, these adapters typically cause vignetting on FF bodies.

Screw-driven A-mount (non-Xi) lenses generally are fully mechanical devices, so focus, zoom, and aperture can all be controlled using an adapter without electrical contacts. However, almost no A-mount lenses have an aperture control ring. Thus, you need a dumb adapter that has an (uncalibrated) aperture control ring. That ring sometimes has numbers like 1, 2, 3, .. 10 on it and sometimes just says "open/close," but all it really does is engage the internal aperture stop-down coupler. It's a little imprecise, but that actually works fine. The behavior of lenses with internal motors on dumb adapters is generally not useful...

If you're on any non-Sony body, my understanding is that it's dumb adapters only.

Rod McD said:

I just looked up some specs on Dyxxum - it seems there are three versions of Minolta's AF100-300/4.5-5.6. With no aperture ring, one would be compelled to use the Sony smart adapters you mention. There's one 100-300 'plain', one with a 'D' and one with an 'Xi,' with slight differences. Do you know the differences and their compatibility with the Sony smart adapters to use on FE?

Click to expand...

The D lenses feed back approximate distance information to the camera, which some modes (mainly flash?) can use. The Xi series were completely different lenses with power zoom, and I seem to remember that these are NOT compatible with the LA-EA smart adapters.

Rod McD said:

Hi Jim,

Thanks. I've received a number of suggestions...... I hadn't considered XX-300mm lenses, but that Minolta AF lens is still quite small and < 500g. If it's really APO, then it may well eliminate most of the CAs that plague legacy telephoto lenses. They are readily available on eBay and reasonably priced....

I just looked up some specs on Dyxxum - it seems there are three versions of Minolta's AF100-300/4.5-5.6. With no aperture ring, one would be compelled to use the Sony smart adapters you mention. There's one 100-300 'plain', one with a 'D' and one with an 'Xi,' with slight differences. Do you know the differences and their compatibility with the Sony smart adapters to use on FE?

Thanks, Rod

Click to expand...

The non-APO version is supposedly not as good at preventing CA as the APO version. And the Xi version is not supported by the e-mount cameras at all. I had one Xi lens when I used A-mount bodies and when I converted to e-mount bodies, I could not use that Xi lens at all no matter which adapter I used.

My 100-300mm APO lens is a D version and has the 8 contacts in the mount.

I will try taking a couple pictures with it today in a situation that a lens finds difficult to handle CA and see how that works out. At the moment, it is early morning, and it is quite overcast.

I also have the Sony 75-300mm f4.5-5.6 to compare it to. (457g without the lens caps - considering how much plastic is used for this lens, the lighter weight is understandable)

Sony 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 SAL-75300 Review (imaging-resource.com)

I will be using the Sony A6600 with the LA-EA5 adapter. If I were to use my Sony A7iii, it doesn't support the LA-EA5 and I would have to use the LA-EA4.

*****************************************************

Image 1 is at 300mm & f5.6 of a palm frond. Image shot in RAW and converted to JPEG in Lightroom with no additional adjustments. At 300mm, f5.6 is wide open. The tips of the fronds are very narrow, and with a white background, are a good test for CA.


Minolta 100-300mm at 300mm & f5.6 (wide open), no additional adjustments

Image 2 is at 300mm & f9


Minolta 100-300mm at 300mm & f9, no additional adjustments

**********************************************************

In the following Sony 75-300mm images, CA can be seen in the tips of the fronds. More at f5.6, and a little less at f9.

Image 3 is Sony 75-300mm at 300mm & f5.6


Sony 75-300mm at 300mm & f5.6

Image 4 is Sony 75-300mm at 300mm & f9

JimH123 said:

The non-APO version is supposedly not as good at preventing CA as the APO version. And the Xi version is not supported by the e-mount cameras at all. I had one Xi lens when I used A-mount bodies and when I converted to e-mount bodies, I could not use that Xi lens at all no matter which adapter I used.

Click to expand...

My understanding is that the Xi lenses are above the max power draw on the adapters and some A-mount bodies; thus it becomes very hit or miss.

JimH123 said:

... Sony 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 SAL-75300 Review (imaging-resource.com)

Click to expand...

I'd agree with that review.

JimH123 said:

I will be using the Sony A6600 with the LA-EA5 adapter. If I were to use my Sony A7iii, it doesn't support the LA-EA5 and I would have to use the LA-EA4.

Click to expand...

Your palm frond shots are a good test case. The 75-300mm does very well even at 300mm (it's much better at the short end), especially at f/9, but your APO 100-300mm looks perfect -- which is impressive.

Of course, the story may be slightly different on FF, but I'd expect the 100-300mm is still a tad better in CA.

The CA on the 75-300mm is actually quite strong as you can see in this 121% view



It was more CA than I could correct with Lightroom. Instead, I went to Photoshop and used a gaussian blur (about 9 pixels), with color mode, then back to Lightroom to remove the last amounts of blue that I could see.

This resulted in this:



If I look at the Min 100-300mm f5.6 at 100%, I can see a tiny amount of CA which I can remove with Lightroom.

But the Minolta 100-300mm is way better with CA than is the 75-300mm that I compared it to.

And most images are not going to be as extreme as wispy frond tips against a white sky.