This post was inspired by Yellow canoes response in another thread about using old cheep lenses with out VR.
Was looking around for lenses for my Nikon DLSR and was finding that a 28-300 wide angle was out of my affordability range. Bought a used Nikon D3100 as I was tired of not having enough focal length in a pocket camera and missing shots. It helped some but still wanted more length for some wild life shots. While looking for afordable 300mm lens for Nikon ran across a Sony A55 with a 300mm lens for less than a used Nikon 300mm lens alone.
How is this possible? Some of the Sony DLSR are Minolta A mount compatible. The vibration reduction is in the body not the lens so any old A mount Minolta lens works like a new Nikon or Cannon with VR. Have bought several old Minolta Maxxium film cameras for less than $30.00 just to get the lens they come with. A 28 -300 lens in good shape for less than $30.00 is a great deal. Then so the body dose not go to waste. A friends film camera collection gets bigger by what is not needed by me of the bundle that was bought. A x2 teleconverter even works with it and takes decent shots but have to use manual mode.
Now my owls are not well defined brown blobs and the next time I see a gator with a otter in its mouth might just be able to get the shot from far enough back to not scare it into diving before being in range. The 28-300 wide angle with a polarizing filter has turned out to be very good for canoe use. I know their are much better lenses out there but for the price this is very good.
Anouther tip from Yellowcanoe has me using two dry bags with a towel for cushion in the bottom of the first dry bag. One inside another to keep the camera safe. This is quitier than the snapping sound of the dry box latches opening. What I call lens cap leash also helps a lot. Losing 72 mm caps when they go overboard gets expensive.
Was looking around for lenses for my Nikon DLSR and was finding that a 28-300 wide angle was out of my affordability range. Bought a used Nikon D3100 as I was tired of not having enough focal length in a pocket camera and missing shots. It helped some but still wanted more length for some wild life shots. While looking for afordable 300mm lens for Nikon ran across a Sony A55 with a 300mm lens for less than a used Nikon 300mm lens alone.
How is this possible? Some of the Sony DLSR are Minolta A mount compatible. The vibration reduction is in the body not the lens so any old A mount Minolta lens works like a new Nikon or Cannon with VR. Have bought several old Minolta Maxxium film cameras for less than $30.00 just to get the lens they come with. A 28 -300 lens in good shape for less than $30.00 is a great deal. Then so the body dose not go to waste. A friends film camera collection gets bigger by what is not needed by me of the bundle that was bought. A x2 teleconverter even works with it and takes decent shots but have to use manual mode.
Now my owls are not well defined brown blobs and the next time I see a gator with a otter in its mouth might just be able to get the shot from far enough back to not scare it into diving before being in range. The 28-300 wide angle with a polarizing filter has turned out to be very good for canoe use. I know their are much better lenses out there but for the price this is very good.
Anouther tip from Yellowcanoe has me using two dry bags with a towel for cushion in the bottom of the first dry bag. One inside another to keep the camera safe. This is quitier than the snapping sound of the dry box latches opening. What I call lens cap leash also helps a lot. Losing 72 mm caps when they go overboard gets expensive.
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