We bought this SAL 75-300mm as the 2nd Sony lens. We needed the range and the price for this lens is good, very cheap to be exact, so we bought it. For those considering this lens, I would like to stress that this is a pure outdoor lens. It performed well outdoor but usability drop when used indoor. I supposed the focal range has very little use indoors anyway. This lens sits on the lower end range of the Sony Alpha Lens family, but definitely not a "cheapo" when performance is concerned. this lens produce sharp and crisp images which we ourselves were quite surprised with the end result. This 7 apeture blades lens is well built, feels solid enough to take mild abuse and it is compact enough to bring it anywhere with you. For those who are not familiar with Sony Alpha Lenses, this Lens SAL75-300 is a face-lifted and improved version of the Minolta 75-300mm F4.5-5.6 II which used to rule the compact zoom segment amongst the rest of the medium to telephoto lenses in the Minolta family.

*Picture: Sony SAL 75-300mm F/4.5-5.6 SAM

When used on our A230 (1.5X Cropped), this lens gives us an impressionable 113mm to 450mm range that allows us to do wildlife & outdoor portraiture work. And among the competition, I can safely say the Sony unit is well designed and constructed which is on par to Nikon’s equivalent which is deemed as the best built lens for this focal range. (Try your hands on these 2 lenses and you will know what I meant). Far superior than Canon’s EF 75-300mm F4-5.6 III (or even the USM version which I used to owned), this lens is screaming value-for-money! The zoom capabilty is x 04 zoom and the magnification ratio is 1:4, which made this lens a possible macro at 100mm stop – but not without a tripod though (and a tad silly as the minimum focusing distance is 1.5 meter – hahaha!).

Apart from the focusing that seems to take forever, I love this lens.

I will recommend this lens to any Sony Alpha user looking to buy a cheap compact zoom lens and to at least own it once. At least. 

*Picture: Sony SAL 75-300mm F/4.5-5.6 SAM