Sony Diaries: A Recent Wedding in January, 2022

 

Sony Diaries #1037: The amazing Beercan!

The Minolta 70-210F4, aka The Beercan, is an amazing lens, arguably the best value telephoto zoom. It can still be found on Kijiji or Craigslist for $80-125. It seems  the production majority were good copies. I've had 3 copies but I have only kept the best one. This review by Kurt Munger reaches the same conclusion as other reviewers: great optics, great value. The Beercan was launched in 1985 and is compatible with the Sony Alpha line (I use this lens on an A77II) and with the A7 series using an LA EA4 Adaptor. Actually, it seems to me that the Beercan looks sharper on the A7III than it does on the A77II, but this observation is not based on any scientific testing.

Below are two versions of the same shot, uncropped and cropped. There is chromatic aberration (the purplish fringing around high contrast areas) such as around the wings but for the subject matter, I can live with it.

1/500 F4.5 ISO1000, shot at FL  200 (300mm)

Sony Diaries #1036: the Mallard couple is back

Every year, this Mallard pair pays a visit to the small seasonal pond in the back of the house. With the stay-at-home guidelines in this Covid19 times, I'd be home when they came. Still, it took my birder wife to alert me to their presence. So it's another year, another set of Mallard photos.

We used to think mallards mated for life; a quick Google check indicated that they only stay together until the female lays her eggs.
This pond lies behind a crisscrossed thicket of branches so the camera had to be set to Spot focus to shot through the gaps in the thicket. Anticipating the mallard's movement through the thicket is essential since the Minolta 70-210F4 (Beercan) is notoriously slow in grabbing focus. But it's not bad for a 35-year-old lens design that can be had on Kijiji/Craigslist for $100; if you're lucky, you'll get a good copy. All the shots were at the 200 (300mm length for this crop sensor)

The mallards were wary of my every movement and since  I wasn't behind a duck blind, I had to stand still or move slowly. Both flew away 15 minutes after I started taking the photos.

Sony Diaries #1026: Faces in the crowd shot with a $100 lens...

... on a $2500 camera. Shot with a Sony a7III ISO 12800-25600, and a sharp copy of the Minolta Beercan: 70-210F4, shot wide open at F4, $100-$125 on Kijiji.