Minolta 100-300 APO

[Vidgamer]

OK, as you probably read in another thread, I had a different 100-300 lens, and I got the 100-300 APO as a "replacement" (after kicking in some extra dough). This lens hasn't quite the following of the beercan, but it does seem to have a bit of a cult following. Is it deserved?

The quality difference is noticeable. Not physically, so much, but image quality. Wide open, photos look decent, although I've been hampered by low-light so far. Can't wait to give it a real test. I predict that it'll have to be stepped down to get razor sharpness, but I hope to have reasonable results without having to go too far.

Corner sharpness seems good.

Bokeh is OK. Not my favorite, but doesn't look bad. Possibly better than some I've seen. We'll see.

More to come...

[David Kilpatrick]

It's surprisingly good wide open at 300mm. There is a slight 'roughness' to the image compared to the 70-300mm SSM G, but I'm not selling my 100-300mm yet. It's done a few years use, while the 70-300mm SSM is brand new. New lenses have the highest contrast, no filming of the glass elements by the air, no slight scratching causes by cleaning.

David

[Greg Beetham]

I was messing about with the 100-300 APO D the other day, the red pom pom bush in the front yard is in flower at the moment, it attracts the little brown honeyeater (not very colourfull as honeyeaters go but they have plenty of character and a large repertoire, the body of the bird is not much bigger than my thumb), they move around from blossom to blossom quickly, and get involved in sudden pursuits as well, and as such are quite difficult to photograph, here's a couple of fairly average efforts..the only way I figured I could get a photo of a flower WITH a bird actually in it as well, was roughly prefocus on a blossom in MF (AF was having trouble with twigs getting in the way) then wait till a bird was actually heading for that one, raise the camera..quick check the focus and press the button.
I think the 100-300 is a very good lens for what it is intended for, I'd class it as a high grade travel lens for those who want too take better than average telephoto shots on a trip, it's not a heavy lens or particularly fast, so it won't equal the large expensive primes like a 300 2.8 or a 200 2.8 G, but I wouldn't part with mine just the same.
Greg

[Vidgamer]

Greg,

Sounds like a great challenge! I'm the same way -- half the fun is the battle to get a shot at something elusive. You got some good results. Sometimes it comes through, but sometimes not. I tell myself, maybe I'll even learn to do better next time, as I review my blurry telephoto shots.

Hopefully I'll be happy with the lens. It doesn't seem usable when the sun is low in the sky -- a 1/10 shutter speed doesn't work well at 100-300mm even with SSS! It's overcast today, so it's not much better this morning. Just can't win. Well, I'll take what I can get. The better of my attempts are reasonably sharp, but perhaps not razor-sharp, wide open. The shutter speeds were too low even for that, but SSS comes through again, and some shots look reasonably good.

The lens is a keeper. It's going to do what I want -- give me acceptable (perhaps moreso) quality wide open (f5.6 for the most part) and be light and small for ease of use and travel.

I've read comments about the lens having "zoom creep" and my copy seems to have that too. If that's the worst problem, I guess I can live with that.

I tried a couple of shots with a 1.7 teleconverter, and they don't seem so bad. "A bit soft," as they say, but it's a scary amount of magnification. If you need it, you need it. AF is a bit problematic, but if you need that much zoom, hopefully you aren't in a hurry about it. Or else you can cough up the big bucks for a really big lens. I'm pleasantly surprised; I might actually make more use of the TC -- we'll see.

[Greg Beetham]

Actually my ingenious master plan turned out to have a teensy problem...hardly worth mentioning really....the stems on this plant are long and springy so when a bird (even one as small as this) lands near a blossom it weighs it down quite a bit and thus changes the focus position, which necessitates a frantic refocuss while the bird is still there
That's a shame, the zoom creep thing, the zoom on mine is sort of stiffish..not hard to turn or anything, but if you set it too a position that's where it stays, maybe it's because it hasn't seen a lot of use...don't know really as it's the only one I've ever handled and I just assumed that's how they all were/are.
Greg