So my SEL55200 finally arrived from Warehouse Express. I had an opportunity to use it briefly yesterday on the Cairngorm Mountain here in Scotland. Here is a 100% crop of a bit of a funicular vehicle and track. Not sure whether I have gone about this in the correct manner. I simply took a Jpeg unprocessed. Cut out a bit, changed ppi to 72 and picture width to 800 so as not to fall fould of max size on this site.
I like the picture quality achieved with the NEX-5. Not sure how the lens will perform on a NEX-7. Looks sharp to me and level with the 18-55 Zoom. It is light but too long. Probably that is an optical necessity. The AF is slow and I noticed some hunting, not present with the 18-55. The screen is darker due to this being a 4.5-6.3 zoom. Not for photographing fast moving subjects or being in a hurry. Also problems focusing on not too contrasty areas. Clearly a problem with contrast detection.
For someone like me looking for a light bag with plenty of punch I think that my current combination of NEX-5 with 16mm pancake, W/A converter, 18-55 and 55-200 zoom will do. For "heavier work" needing fast AF I will have to rely on my A580/550 with Alpha lenses.

Reference above on brief SEL55200 test, here is a copy of the original Jpeg with a little bit of levels, Highlight/Shadows and contrast applied. Some people complain about Sony Jpegs. I think they are not bad, but then I have no experience of competitors other than Panasonic LX2 and LX3.

Thanks for the samples and thoughts Alphaomega. I'm very interested in this lens so it is great to see and hear about your first hand experience. How did you feel the OSS performs? I assume that MF Assist is pretty tricky at 200mm hand held even with the OSS?

Birma, Actually I was wondering about OSS. As far as I can ascertain there is no way of turning it on/off on the lens or in camera. At least I cannot find anyting in the instruction manual. In any event I have discovered (like DK and others) that just bump up the ISO and in most cases you don't need to worry about OSS on/off as the shutter speed is more than adequate. Not tried MF and actually I have relied on AF even although it is slow on the E55200. For fast moving objects and low contrast I will probably buy the LA-EA2 converter and use Alpha lenses when the firmware becomes available for my NEX-5 (or simply haul out my A580. I was actually thinking of trying MF when using the lens the other day. It is kind of fiddly having to get into the menu though. In fact everything about the NEX system is fiddly. Only salvation is the image quality you get. In fact I feel my NEX-5 images are "cleaner" and "clearer" than what I get from my 16Mp A580. No wonder there is this ongoing discussion around noise produced by the A77 and NEX-7. Do I need 24Mp? I don't really think so and my next camera does not actually exist yet. The NEX-7 with a NEX-5N 16Mp sensor - NEX-6 would do me fine.

I recently came into posession of a NEX 3 and the 16mm pancake.

I was pleasantly supprised about the noise performance of the sensors. MF Assist is pretty handy, but I can imagine it could be pretty hard to master at 200mm!

Mark

I suspect that tbere is a very big contingent which would agree 100% with this statement. How does one pass this on to Sony marketing?

OSS perform good, but the handling on the NEX5 is not the best for low light pics, the NEX7 will be better in that regard.
I put a small gallery with the first pics I took with SEL 55-210 http://www.flickr.com/photos/28320733@N ... 071654644/ -I'm happy with my lens!

Thanks Pako and Alphaomega for the feedback on the 55-200. Very useful.

Interesting new avatar picture Pako - you look very serious

Hi Birma,
I'm a very serious guy! Well, sort of...
My friend Carlos Gonzalez is working on a play and las week he did a photoshoot with the actors, when I arrived, he was setting up the lights and he ask me to pose for a couple of test shots.. http://carlosdavidgonzalez.tumblr.com/p ... to-session

Great portraits on Carlos' site !

too bad, I had imagined that you must have been a bit more fun! you have a Nex, after all..

I really liked the 55-200 for a-mount, so I've been looking forward to the 55-210. In the store, it looked smaller. Smaller than I expected, but also smaller than the 55-200. No surprise, given the smaller aperture. It's still a bit on the long side, but I guess that can't be helped. Still, I think you could take along all of your Nex lenses, and it'd still be a lot lighter/smaller than your DSLR equivalent. Good.

I become Fun (again) after the holiday season...

Yes, you don't need a big bag anymore. And now you have more and more interesting SEL lenses. I'm thinking on one of the small National Geographic bags for the NEX7 + lenses, like this one: http://www.adorama.com/NGSBS.html it is a nice bag, great quality, but I'm not 100% sure yet...

First thing I look for a bag is it to be snow/rainproof. As I notice from your link there's no mention, even it doesn't feel so (from the pictures)

Well the lens for NEX situation may improve in 2012 if this SAR5 rumour is anything to go by.
http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-a-mi ... this-year/

So maybe at the end of 2012 there will be a virtual avalance of e-mount lenses, not only from Sony, but also from third party suppliers such as Tamron and Sigma as both companies have already made an entry with dedicated E mount lenses.
Looking forward to survey the offerings, particularly after I have acquired a NEX-7.
My dream lenses are a compact say 11-18mm W/A zoom and an equally compact 16-something around 70mm quality standard zoom to replace my 18-55 and 16mm pancake.

Sounds very promising. A 16-80 G or Zeiss would be my pick.