Mid Sierra Musings: The Sony FE 70-300mm F4.5-5.6 G OSS Lens And Sony A7R2

Dale Matson

Click On Photographs To Enlarge

I bought the lens for hiking and backpacking in the mountains as primarily a wildlife lens. The compactness and weight, at less than 2 pounds makes it quite portable. I carry it on my web belt in a Digital Holster 2.0, which expands to accommodate this larger lens. I sewed the Velcro strip that holds the belt loop closed so that it would not accidentally detach when hiking off trail.

I gave the lens an initial trial in my back yard and found the autofocus, to be dependable and the images sharp. I think the combination of the A7R2 IBIS and OSS of the lens made for crisp hand held images. I was even impressed with how it rendered color. Since that time, I have had the lens in the mountains and been impressed with the performance with landscape and wildlife. Sony advertises this lens as dust and moisture resistant.

70mm

200mm

300mm (Bokeh seems good to me)

300mm

Until Sony has an e-mount lens with a longer reach, this will be my backpacking wildlife telephoto lens. I would really love a sharp 400mm f/4 and 1.4-teleconverter combination. The images you see came straight from the camera. At about $1,200.00 dollars, I think this is a good lens and provides more dependable sharp images than my former Sony SAL G 70-200 f4. Additionally, I did not find the speed of the auto focus to be a limiting factor in any of my shots.

All of these Photographs were taken in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains.