The need for Minolta apo lenses. The 600mm apo will be mine some day.
For now my 80-200 F2.8, 300mm f4, 400mm f4. My Minolta tele-converter
is amazing on these lenses. Does anyone here have a 600mm, if so is
it worth the $5,000.00
Hi 8mycash, I have an APO 4.5/400mm, APO 2.8/80-200mm and an APO 4/600mm. All 3 for some 7 years now, after I sold my old APO 2.8/300mm.
I find the 400mm my best/most used lens: optically, as well as in terms of handling.
Comparison with the Minolta 4.5-5.6/100-300 APO zoom shows stunning differences under demanding conditions.
The 600 mm is also very good, but no longer shooting without a tripod mobility is not great. I use my lenses for bird photography; the 600mm is only used when I know pretty well where to go. And is so easy to have motion blur with the 600mm. Even my super heavy Gitzo tripod "shivers in anguish" when I mount this 7 kg lens, plus body, sometimes converter.
The 400mm is drag along almost anywhere in a backpack, ready to grab and it serves me well, although it also is about 4 kg, it handles well with the Minolta 7D and I can shoot very sharp images (not 100%, but still a decent 50% hit-rate) at 1.60 seconds.
By the way, a much cheaper and lighter option is the 500mm mirror. I have to say that I have been positively surprised by this lens: very nice sharpness, good contrast. Only a few 100 grams and some 300 Euro second hand.
So is the 600mm worth the 5000 US$ (I paid 5000 Euro, 7 years ago). Yes for me it is worth, even though only 1 in 10 of my best shots is made with this lens.
To be totally complete, there are times, when I haven't used it for weeks/months I feel selling would not be bad. One stunning birdshot and that thought is gone again.
Have fun shooting with your 400mm; it should do all you want.
By the way, I must say that the converters are performing well, but only if the lens is stopped down at least 2 stops.
I have used the 600mm with the 2x converter on the 7D and thus had a focal length of 1800 mm (36 times magnification). Nice shots, but only from f/13 onward.
Then you will find you rarely have sufficient light, so vibration blur starts to come it (from 1/250 seconds at this focal length on a tripod!!). So move to higher ISO, will yield more noise etc.
My point is: there is always a limit.
I have looked at the Canon 1D and its performance at 1600 ISO; stunning, this will start to enable 1200mm or longer lenses under normal light conditions.
My wish for the new Sony thus is: low noise at high ISO (high is 800 or 1600), resolution allowing some crop (i.e. 12-14 MP). Higher resolution will not help a lot, as the lens will then become the limit, I expect, but maybe the 400mm and 600mm allow 20 MP resolution, but experts differ in opinion on this. Only testing will possibly tell.
Regards,
Peter
looks like i know what 8mycash 