Long telephoto lens option(s)

I've been looking at getting a longer telephoto lens for my A7. I already have the 70-200mm F4 lens but I am looking for a little more reach, without spending a new car down payment for a Sony Alpha or Canon L pro lens. I've been looking at some older manual 300mm and 400mm lenses on eBay, but the quality seems to really differ. Anyone have any suggestions?

LA-EA4 with some cheaper A-mount lenses from Sigma or Tamron ? You do lose stabilization.

I am using LA-EA2 with Minolta Beercan (although I don't really have much use for tele) and it's a very good combo, great IQ for a $100 lens.

The A6000 will give you the 300mm reach with a lot of added benefits with a low cost when on sale. Thats my go to for reach with the native 70-200. Was a cheap way to get more out of the lens while adding another back up body and have a camera with a more advanced AF. Beyond that the cost is high regardless.

Amamba wrote in post #17301744
LA-EA4 with some cheaper A-mount lenses from Sigma or Tamron ? You do lose stabilization.

I am using LA-EA2 with Minolta Beercan (although I don't really have much use for tele) and it's a very good combo, great IQ for a $100 lens.

This is the best answer for now. You don't always lose stabilization--it depends on the lens.

So its been awhile since I created this post but I wanted to post an update. I actually ended up getting an A6000 as a 2nd body some time ago, really mostly for its AF capabilities but realized that it gives me a long enough reach with the 70-200 FE lens, at least for most situations. In the future, I may try out the Tamron 150-600 + adapter as I've heard/read good things about it, especially when using the Sony version with the LA-EA4 adapter.

madflea wrote in post #17509554
So its been awhile since I created this post but I wanted to post an update. I actually ended up getting an A6000 as a 2nd body some time ago, really mostly for its AF capabilities but realized that it gives me a long enough reach with the 70-200 FE lens, at least for most situations. In the future, I may try out the Tamron 150-600 + adapter as I've heard/read good things about it, especially when using the Sony version with the LA-EA4 adapter.

I've already gone a similar route and paired an LA-EA4 with a sigma 50-500 OS to use on my a6000. It works pretty well, and I'm going to be starting a thread in a few days once I can get some sample pics up (its been overcast here the last week).

madflea wrote in post #17509554
So its been awhile since I created this post but I wanted to post an update. I actually ended up getting an A6000 as a 2nd body some time ago, really mostly for its AF capabilities but realized that it gives me a long enough reach with the 70-200 FE lens, at least for most situations. In the future, I may try out the Tamron 150-600 + adapter as I've heard/read good things about it, especially when using the Sony version with the LA-EA4 adapter.

I've done some research into the Tamron 150-600mm, and unfortunately it relies on in-body stabilization. Good for sony DSLRs, not possible for e-mount. It does feature a focus limiter though. On the otherside with the sigma 50-500 OS and the 150-500 OS, it features lens stabilization (works perfect with e-mount), but neither has a focus limiter. Just can't win!!!

If I had to choose between the two, I'd rather have the image stabilization than the focus limiter. Handheld at 600mm means you really need around 1/2000s... focus with the sigma lenses will cycle quite a bit (making BIF impossible) on an overcast day, but when it's really bright out focus is quite good...

The old Canon FD L lenses are an option - but they are no longer really cheap.
The FD 300mm/2.8Land FD 500mm/4.5L are outstanding lenses. The Canon FD 400/2.8L is not as good as the two others - and it is very heavy.
Those lenses have a really good internal focusssing mechanics. With normal helicoid focussing like with the Zeiss Contax Tessar 300mm/4 you are much slower.

I don´t know much about the Canon FD 800mm/5.6L, but the SSC counterpart is a lens I would not reccomend to others - there one needs to make extensive tests with the lens before.

Some mirror lenses could probably be an option too, but most are slow. And from my experience with cheaper mirror lenses the image quality is much lower than with a good pure refractive lens like the FD L optics. Sometimes their special bokeh is very good for an image, but for many images with visible blur it is bad.

The Nikon ED tele lenses should be very good as well, but likely they are even more expensive.