300mm Zoom Quantaray, Is it good?

[miguel_ortiz]

I'm new to photography, I have an Elan IIe with the 28-80mm and the

50mm f/1.8 lens. I would like a bigger zoom lens. I've seen the 75-

300mm Canon lens for around $175. But the other daya I saw in e-bay a

100-300mm Quantaray lens for about $60. Is this a good buy? I'm not

familiar with the Quantaray brand.

[brett_bainbridge]

<I>"I saw in e-bay a 100-300mm Quantaray lens for about $60"<BR>

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...snip...

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"I'm not familiar with the Quantaray brand"</I>

<BR><BR>

There's a reason for both these facts. They're cheap because they're crappy and nobody wants them. Some third-party lenses are excellent no matter what people on the site will tell you, but many are just garbage. The excellent ones don't sell for $60.<BR><BR>

You should probably invest in the Canon - you're still a beginner, so don't go spending thousands on a lens right now - if you outgrow the Canon 75-300, there'll be plenty of people ready to buy it off you when you decide to upgrade.

[jim_strutz]

I believe most (all?) Quantaray lenses are made by Sigma & sold in Ritz Camera stores. Sigma makes some very good lenses, and they make some cheap lenses, and they make some that fit in the middle someplace. This is one of the cheap ones, but what would you expect for $60?

 

Is it a good buy? Yes, it is a fairly good buy, if you want a cheap lens. You would be better served by a better lens however.

 

Now, on the off hand chance that this is Sigma's 100-300 f/4 lens, it's a steal, and worth nearly 10 times that price. But I doubt it is.

[beauh44]

Hi Miguel, I bought one of these things with the first Canon 35mm camera I ever bought and it sits, unused because the images are so soft it drives me nuts. If you stuck an image taken with the 300mm beside one taken with your 50mm 1.8, you'd probably quit using the 300mm too. Sixty bucks sounds like a good deal unless you hate it and never use it. This focal length is not particularly useful as a portrait lens - it would be more likely to be useful for nature shots where sharpness is much more critical. It's probably an f/4 lens which isn't particularly fast, so you'd pretty much have to use a tripod with most every shot and putting a teleconverter on it would give you a slow, f/8, mushy-soft lens. My .02 cents worth would be to save the money and buy a better zoom when you can. Best wishes . . .

[vsevolod_krishchenko]

<i>>I believe most (all?) Quantaray lenses are made by Sigma</i><br>

As far as I know, Quantaray/Vivitar made by Cosina, not Sigma.

[yakim_peled1]

Good telephoto lenses aren't cheap. In general, you get what you pay for. What is your total budget ? How long is long enough ?

 

Happy shooting ,

Yakim.