Hitachi LL-504 - telephoto zoom lens

Advantages: Fast Focus, well built, reliable excellent performance all round
Disadvantages: Heavy, you will need a tripod

...As you may be gathering, I have been investing in camera stuff recently... This is the 2nd lens I bought for my camera which is excellent. It takes very good and sharp pictures all the way through and is not prone to glare, possibly due to the very large hood it comes with! The operation of the lens is very simple and fits on both the Sony a-mount as well as the Konica Minolta mount. Zooming is done through a large in the middle and if you are focusing manually it is through a front ring. Again there is no distance indicator for the focus ring but that is only useful for nerds as you will not be able to focus and measure distance at the same time unless you want to get a tape out to check! The longest zoom is at 300mm. Now bear in mind that digital SLR cameras have a "crop" factor in the majority of cases and the Sony a-100 has... Read review

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Advantages: Light in weight for its size; ultra-fast focussing
Disadvantages: Faster lenses exist (at a price!); zoom range a modest x3

...I used one of these lenses on a 35mm camera for many years and now use it on my Canon 20D. It is light in weight, and, fitted with the essential but pricey lens hood, produces sharp, flare-free photos throughout the zoom range. It is easy to handle and allows manual focussing WITHOUT moving any switches to disengage the motor. In addition, the lens focusses so quickly as to be near-instantaneous and is also completely silent. The maximum aperature varies from a slow 4 to 5.6, which limits its use in dim lighting conditions, such as in a church or theatre. This is the price for the light weight design - a wider front glass makes a for a heavier, and far more costly, lens. The front of teh lens has a 58mm screw thread, allowing for teh easy attachment of a UV filter, which I would regard as essential to protect the front element... Read review

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Advantages: compact; lightweight; sharp
Disadvantages: small zoom range; designed for 35mm film; no image stabilisation

...This lens is widely available from many sources, both new and secondhand. It is compact and light in weight and offers a significantly wider zoom range than the 28-55mm lens supplied as 'standard' on many Canon digital SLR cameras. Used on most Canon digital cameras, the effective focal lengths become 1.6x bigger (as the sensor is APS- sized, not 35mm sized), making it a 45 - 170mm zoom. Hardly wide-angle, but, at the lower end, it is roughly the same as the 50mm lens that all 35mm cameras used to be fitted with as standard. With digital cameras, the argument goes, you can 'stitch' several shots together to create a panorama and so overcome the lack of a wider angle lens. That's only true to a limited extent - but TRUE wide-angle lenses need a second mortgage at present! With focal lengths between 80 to 120mm being regarded... Read review

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