New Camera -- Old Lens

mcsmythe44

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From past days of film cameras, I have a Tamron AF28-300 (F/2.5-6.3 LD Aspherical (IF) Macro) lens that did great work for me. It is fitted for Minolta cameras and I gather from a little bit of quick googling that it might work on Sony digital SLRs. First of all, can anyone confirm this? The lens was purchased about 10 years ago, by the way. And if this is true, is there some degradation of effectiveness when using an old film lens with a new digital SLR?

I will be doing a fair bit of travelling in the next few years including a safari in Botswana so I don't want to be caught without a good camera to catch all the memories.

Thanks for any advice, recommendations, experiences.

Regards,
 
Welcome to the forum.

Sony did purchase the photographic interests of Minolta and they did retain some backward compatibility for Minolta gear. So as far as I know, that lens should work on a new Sony DSLR camera.

On thing to be aware of, is that many DSLR cameras have a sensor that is smaller than 35mm film, so your photo is cropped. The results is that your lens 'feel' like a longer lens.

There might be some other issues. For example, a digital sensor is more reflective than film, so if the rear element of the lens is also reflective, you may have a lower image quality in some situations. I haven't ever seen that this is a major issue though. Many newer lenses have anti-reflective coatings on the rear element to help prevent this.
 
From past days of film cameras, I have a Tamron AF28-300 (F/2.5-6.3 LD Aspherical (IF) Macro) lens that did great work for me. It is fitted for Minolta cameras and I gather from a little bit of quick googling that it might work on Sony digital SLRs. First of all, can anyone confirm this? The lens was purchased about 10 years ago, by the way. And if this is true, is there some degradation of effectiveness when using an old film lens with a new digital SLR?

I will be doing a fair bit of travelling in the next few years including a safari in Botswana so I don't want to be caught without a good camera to catch all the memories.

Thanks for any advice, recommendations, experiences.

Regards,

Buy a new lens. I have tried it and it didn't work properly. You will miss the lion in Botswana... :)
 
I think what you have there is a 3.5/6.3 not 2.5. There is no reason that it won't work on a Sony as long as it is the AF mount, not the Md & MC(the old bayonet mount). I have minolta lenses from 1985 that work perfectly. On a DSLR your lens will be a 42-450 (because of the 1.5 crop factor on the Sony). The only problem I can see is that sometimes those big lenses make the AF motor work a little harder, but you certainly should be able to manual focus without any problem. I have the Sony a100 and I have several old lenses and they work just fine.
 
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I've used that lens on nikon dslrs, and it's a decent performer. Not as sharp as the best nikon glass or high-end 3rd party lenses, but just as good as the modern consumer level sigmas and tamrons.

Of course I can't speak on how well it works on a sony.
 

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