The 55-200mm ƒ/4-5.6 fared well in our tests: sharpness is very good, even when used wide open, with light corner shading. CA is noticeable but light: corner shading is minor, and as is typical for this class of lens, distortion is fairly objectionable when used at the lens’ longer focal lengths.

Sony 55-200mm f/4-5.6 SAM DT Telephoto Zoom Lens for Sony Alpha Digital SLR Cameras

Overall Rating:

Retail Price: $229.00

Amazon Price: $229.00

There’s no immediately obvious reason why Sony decided to transition to SAM focusing with this lens, other than in the future they may elect to produce camera bodies which don’t feature mechanical autofocusing screws (current Sony bodies all have this screw). The end result is a slightly more complicated manual focus operation; on the previous version of the lens, you disabled autofocus strictly from the body, where this must now be done on the lens on the current version. And while we haven’t tested the previous version of the lens, we didn’t note the SAM motor offering particularly fast performance (in Sony’s defence though, they say the SAM motor offers smooth and precise operation, not fast).

Still, for the money, it’s a light lens which offers very good performance, and makes a good camera system when paired with the 18-55mm.

Full Article: http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/1271/cat/83

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