I've been bidding on the 200-500 f5.6 SP lens for many months. I think the
price of the f6.9 lens might have been pushed up by people either giving up
on the faster version or not paying enough attention to what they are
buying. I've never touched either lens, but my experience with long slow
telephotos makes me have no interest in the f6.9 lens. The difference is
price doesn't seem to justify the apparent sacrifices. Starting at about f6,
the mirror lenses get to be difficult to focus. The normal telephotos can
probably be easily used with f8 max apertures, because you can stop down to
help eliminate focus errors.
The 200-500 f5.6 is a big heavy lens. I would recommend either the Tamron SP
300/2.8 or the 400/4 (You want the green ones ... Walt's "green is gooder"
might be considered an understatement ). The 300/2.8 & 400/4 are smaller and
lighter than the zoom. They are superb lenses.
The 200-500/f5.6 typically seems to sell for about $375 and up. There was
one that didn't sell recently(twice). It might be re-listed. There is also a
Tokina ATX 150-500 but it has a relatively low rating by photodo.com.
Good luck Tom.
-jeff
----- Original Message -----
From: "Piers Hemy" <piers@xxxxxxxx>
>
> As to the lens itself - I don't know anything about this one, but have
been
> generally more than happy with Tamron. You need to keep in mind that
there
> were two later versions of the 200-500 zoom (06A and 31A), the first of
> which introduced the Adaptall-2 mount, the last of which had a maximum
> aperture of f/5.6, and is the only 200-500 to gain the "SP" designation
> which indicates superior performance. I don't know if the earlier lenses
> were improved in other ways.
>
> You can access details of the latter two via
> http://www.hemy.me.uk/Miscellany/TamronMFLenses.htm
>
> --
> Piers
>
-----Original Message-----
From: tom_f77@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:tom_f77@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Hi,
Anybody know anything about this lens (eB item 3877496904)? No idea what
his reserve might, be but it doesn't seem to be attracting much interest...
Tom
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