Telephoto

A lens that I got together with my used Nikon D750 body, and a great addition to the arsenal. Even better than the old one I have, and that's already a stellar lens.

This came with my second D5100 bought used. Another kit lens, impressing enough, but probably not one I'll use much.

This was one of the best lenses I ever owned and one of the ones I loved most. I bought it cheaply used and immediately fell in love. Like several other of the beer can style lenses from Minolta in that era it was optically and mechanically on par with the best. It was bright, had fast AF and a sharpness and bokeh to die for. My only grudge was the flimsy focus ring that was one of the unfortunate hallmarks of these lenses. The 100mm f/2 was sadly stolen out of my luggage on return trip from Belize.

I bought this lens for very little money though the local classifieds, and I'm happy that it wasn't too expensive, because it's a really lousy lens! 400mm and f/5.6 for little money might sound like a sweet deal, but it's a small and optically subpar lens with a pretty coarse mechanical construction. It has trouble conveying the right aperture information to the camera (says it f/7.2 all the time), and doesn't really excell in any field - brightness, AF or sharpness.

A cheap teleconverter that I bought used for my Minolta gear. Not impressing, but useful.

A really excellent telezoom that I bought used in the US for only 330.- USD. Built like a tank, great mechanical construction and really, really fine optical quality. The AF is not impressing since the lens is dependent on an in-body AF-motor, but it does the job. A very fine lens that I used a lot.

The so called beer can lens from Minolta, a really excellent midrange zoom with a stunning optical quality and a very good mechanical ditto

A great extender for the telephoto lenses. Eats a stop of light, but gives a lot more reach and transforms the 70-200mm f/2.8 to a 120-340mm, and add to that the DX factor and the combo in principle a pretty bright 190-540mm. A very easy and even inexpensive way of getting telephoto reach - even though we're not exactly talking a cheap piece of glass!

A killer lens and my new goto macro, releasing the outdated Sigma 90mm of its long and faithful duty. Great working distance, excellent handling and really, really good macro capabilities. This lens is tack sharp, has fast AF, sufficient brightness for my use (I use a tripod and/or flash for 95% of my macro shots). I don't use the VR function at all.