Carenar 85-210mm f/4.5 Auto Zoom

High School Basketball with an F4 First my "bad" comment. I'm not a fan of extending barrels on lenses. For a bunch of reasons, but mainly it's because it creates a too long lens which make it more awkward. Now for the "good". I needed a 70-200 for high school basketball. I really needed an F2.8, but cost made it impossible. Next, how about a G lens for my Sony A6000 is a good choice, but it's F4. High school and college basketball gyms are notorious for bad lighting, and F4 wasn't successful for me in my Nikon days. So I thought, I'd try the Sony SEL55210, which is a 55-210mm F4.5-6.3 OSS E-mount Zoom Telephoto Lens. I have done only one basketball tournament with this lens, at a reasonably new college gym, but alas, the lighting was awful. I took only one camera and lens, so I would have to make it work. Sony A6000 (mainly because it shoots 11 frames a second, and a has a really good focusing system. Over 5 games, 160 minutes of play, I shot 1,931 pictures. That's 12 shot a minute average. I kept seeing the photos as I shot, and kept not believing that the compbo of this camera and lens could take such good, clear, bright pictures. When I got home and went though them on the computer screen, I was dumbfounded. It didn't matter that the lens extends. It only matters that the results were excellent. The purchase of this lens was well worth it, 50 fold over. Doubly so when you consider the low price. Can't wait to use it outdoors, in daylight.Read full review

Fair Lens for the Price It's a fair lens. Given the price and it's decent build quality, I'm okay with it. My biggest problem is with the zoom creep. The zoom doesn't actually creep by itself, but the slightest force will make it creep. If I wear the camera around my neck, and have the camera tilted around 20 degrees downwards, the soft bounce/swing motion of the camera when walking will cause the lens to creep out to the 100mm focal point by the time I walk about 10-ish feet. Because of this problem, my hands were on my lens the whole time I walked the zoo the other day even though the camera was hanging from my neck the whole time, because I didn't want the lens to creep out and be prone to damage. Keep in mind that this is just a new lens and it's already this loose on my second or third weekend using it. Other than the above mentioned problems, it seems fine. For autofocus, it focuses at a decent speed. Clarity/sharpness is good enough for my needs. If you want anything noticeably better, you're gonna be looking at 7x to 8x the price.Read full review

Great Value Telephoto I come from decades of experience, as an amateur, with multiple formats and lots of lens use. I was doubtful this little lightweight (but beautifully constructed) lens would deliver the image quality I wanted, but the price is so reasonable I opted to try it. My copy is superb! Crisp images at all focal lengths, acceptable distortion, with excellent color saturation. It zooms without friction, smooth as butter. For the price and its obvious limitation (only 4.5/6.3) it is an ideal lens to place in your bag or carry mounted on the camera (very lightweight).