Minolta AF 75-300mm F4.5-5.6 D A-mount lens review by Phil Wood
 Phil Wood#46949 date: Aug-7-2023 | |
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| sharpness: 4 color: 4 build: 4 distortion: 5 flare control: 4 overall: 4.2 | tested on:
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| ownership: | I own this lens |
| compared to: | All other Minolta 75-300mm zooms, 100-300 (original, XI, APO) All Minolta 70-210 & 80-200 zooms, 100-200 Sony 70-300 G, 55-200, 55-300f |
| price paid: | 20GBP |
| positive: | Light, cheap, decent IQ once stopped dwon. D - which I am sure is a great asset if you ever use ADI flash (I very rarely do, and if I do it isn't with a 75-300 zoom). |
| negative: | Soft wide open. Needs plenty of light. CA, silver body (black is available, but usually costs more). |
| comment: | It's taken me a long time to get round to posting this review, but I took my copy out today on my A7Riv/LA-EA5 to see how it coped with 61Mp - and it wasn't bad. There are the oft repeated negatives: plastic build - sure, it's plastic, but that makes it nice and light, easier to hand-hold and mine is still in great condition after 20 or so years. I reckon the build quality is okay. sharpness - wide open it is, let's face it, pretty poor, you need to stop down the f8 or f10 to get decent results. However, on a sunny day this was not a problem, I got pretty good results with the aperture set on f10, ISO 400 and at shutter speeds that were suitable for hand-holding. CA - notably purple fringing is undoubtedly an issue, but it's easy to correct. flare - I didn't notice any out of the ordinary flare, perhaps I just didn't point it in the right direction. colour - I have no complaints of the colour of the images it produces, but I do dislike the silver plastic body. In short, this isn't a great lens, but none of Minolta's 75-300s are. It's advantage over the others are it's cheap, light and readily available. Is it worth getting one? Only if you really need 211-300, the beercan is just so much better and not a lot pricier. To be honest this applies to all of Minolta's offerings at this zoom range. If you do need longer than 210 there are better lenses from other manufacturers. |
rating summary
- total reviews: 47
- sharpness: 3.89
- color: 4.17
- build: 3.66
- distortion: 3.98
- flare control: 3.74
- overall: 3.89