Telephoto Lens

I'm looking for a telephoto lens for some wildlife photography with my Minolta xd5, and possibly adapted to my Sony a7.

I'm thinking at least 400mm. Is there any recommendations for something that would give good results without breaking the bank?

I'll offer my 60 active years of photography advice. The first thing is how big is the bank? Second is, "wild life" is a broad statement. Capturing a Bird sitting on a limb or a deer grazing motionless is one thing. Having a bird in flight with the sun directly overhead leaving the underside of the BIF in the shadows is something else ( you will be shooting the underside ). Are you looking for a Prime, or a Zoom? Are you expecting the Lens to auto lock the focus. or are you going to manually focus? You say you want 400mm or better.

A 400 mm plus prime will be thousands of dollars. A 400mm zoom with good glass will be in the 600 to 3000 range. You really would want a zoom lens with a focus limiter. A non focus limiting lens will Hunt more than it will focus lock. At least with a focus limiter the lens will have less time hunting and more time attempting a focus lock. This type of lens will be thousands of dollars.

I can tell you this. I would rather have one good long lens, and one good wide lens, that will do the job with little disappointment, then a bunch of inexpensive lenses that will be either a bitter disappointment or a bunch of dust collectors.

Lots of people want to be a wild life photographer, but have no idea how demanding action wildlife photography can be, especially to your pocketbook.

You can buy an inexpensive lens, pretend its expensive and hope to find people who will tell you what you want to hear here in this forum, or you may find someone that will be honest and tell you how poor a poor lens will perform. You will feel insulted, but as I said. save your money and buy a dedicated wildlife quality lens, not one with a caveat of being inexpensive or one that wont break the bank. Wildlife photography is an expensive discipline. A good enough lens gets old very fast.

Sorry for the long winded advice.. I give it as if I was giving it to my son or daughter

Good luck in your search.. BTW you are hardly alone in this quest.. many people come here every year with the same idea, no one comes back with the revelation that they bought a great inexpensive wildlife lens that didn't break the bank.

Bill

I like my new Sigma APO 400 F5.6 Tele Macro HSM. It was less than $400 shipped. It is not the lightest 400 mm prime. It definitely won't work on an SR-mount camera. Image quality is pretty similar to the FE 200-600 OSS at 400 mm. It is much better than the A-mount x-400mm zooms.

The Minolta 500mm mirror lenses are sharper and less expensive. I haven't tried an MD version. I assume they are similar to the AF. They don't seem to have much MF tax. I got rid of the AF because the AF didn't work well on the A77II or LA-EA4, and I didn't like the shallow depth-of-field and distracting rendering.

Barry Duggan Photography wrote:

I'm looking for a telephoto lens for some wildlife photography with my Minolta xd5, and possibly adapted to my Sony a7.

I'm thinking at least 400mm. Is there any recommendations for something that would give good results without breaking the bank?

You would need this adapter

Novoflex Adapter for Minolta MD or MC Lens to Sony NEX (bhphotovideo.com)

Finding an MD mount 400mm + lens in MD mount could be tough.

"Good results without breaking the bank ?"

You don't state a budget , so it's impossible to answer the question very well .

Typically the results obtained are linked to the money you spend .

Top quality lenses aren't cheap , and cheap lenses tend to give poor results .

So for SR mount lenses to use on your film camera you've a few decent low cost options .

Minolta RF 500mm F/8 manual focus mirror lens .

Tamron adaptall 350mm f/5.6 Reflex mirror .

Tamron adaptall 500mm f/8 reflex mirror .

Good results , no C/A , good value , but doughnut bokeh .

Minolta MD 100-500mm f/8 .

Reasonable results , I've used mine on film but not digital . Similar price range to the mirror lenses but without the doughnut's !

There's an APO version , if you can find it , which should give better results than the non-APO versions .

http://www.subclub.org/minman/1005008.htm

Easily available are some top quality Minolta 600mm f6.3 APO's .

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164852810069?hash=item2661fe4155:g:5FgAAOSwM-tglAqQ

Or for a bit more , with it's dedicated case ;

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164817667727?_trkparms=aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20200818141841%26meid%3D96c03aa565034a09b162fd52cc3abe1d%26pid%3D101111%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D12%26mehot%3Dpf%26sd%3D164852810069%26itm%3D164817667727%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2563228%26algv%3DDefaultOrganicWithAblationExplorer%26brand%3DMinolta&_trksid=p2563228.c101111.m2109

Like I said , if you don't state your budget , how do we know what price breaks the bank ?

Its super cheap, but has anyone ever used this?

https://www.adverts.ie/digital-cameras/sony-soligor-af-100mm-400mm-lens/20600487

Barry Duggan Photography wrote:

Its super cheap, but has anyone ever used this?

https://www.adverts.ie/digital-cameras/sony-soligor-af-100mm-400mm-lens/20600487

It won't fit on your XD5 which is what you asked for .

Have you got an LA-EA4 to fit it on your a7 ?

You'll need one to retain AF .

A few reviews can be found here ; https://www.pentaxforums.com/userreviews/cosina-phoenix-vivitar-promaster-voightlander-100-400mm-f-4-5-6-7-af.html , it was sold under different brand names .

There not the best , but for £115 your options are limited .

I think a good quality zoom lens going up to 300mm might give better results cropped , certainly a good copy of the Minolta 100-300mm APO  .