mattchu wrote:
I'm fairly new to Sony, less than 6 months. I love my A1ii and have accumulated quite a few primes. 24 1.4, 35 1.4, 50 1.2, 135 1.8, and 300 2.8 OSS. I love primes but do shoot my kids a lot and thought of the 50-150 f2 for flexibilty. I ordered it, sitting in the box, yet to open and I realized, do I really want this to replace my primes? I really enjoy shooting with primes. I always had a 70-200 2.8 with my canon gear and used it quite a bit but then started using a 200-400 more. This sony 300 though is incredible with how light it is and can hand hold it all day. So I'm thinking of getting a 70-200 2.8 or maybe even just a second body that I can use to keep another prime lens on when needed. Another A1ii would stretch my budget too much so didn't know if there were any other suggestions? Thanks!
Honestly for your kids running around doing sports or general activities, I’d look at the Tamron 35-150 or 50-400. While not as ideal optically as Sony GM zooms, they still offer excellent IQ and are super flexible focal ranges — and you can buy both for about the same price as the 70-200 GMii. Oh, and both are about the same size as the 70-200.
I get the ethos of primes and love using them myself. But you can’t beat a wide-range zoom for general people event shots.
One downside of any 3rd party lens on a Sony, is your framerate is limited to 15fps. For general people/event shooting I haven’t found this to be an issue AND the flexibility these lenses offer more than makes up for that limitation. However for serious sports events it probably would be. So if you’re doing serious professional work, then I’d stick to native Sony glass—but even for professional non-sporting event purposes, these two Tamrons are pretty awesome.
Edit: If you need faster, then a second body with the 50, 135 or 300 makes a lot of sense paired with either slower zoom.
mattchu wrote:
I'm fairly new to Sony, less than 6 months. I love my A1ii and have accumulated quite a few primes. 24 1.4, 35 1.4, 50 1.2, 135 1.8, and 300 2.8 OSS. I love primes but do shoot my kids a lot and thought of the 50-150 f2 for flexibilty. I ordered it, sitting in the box, yet to open and I realized, do I really want this to replace my primes? I really enjoy shooting with primes. I always had a 70-200 2.8 with my canon gear and used it quite a bit but then started using a 200-400 more. This sony 300 though is incredible with how light it is and can hand hold it all day. So I'm thinking of getting a 70-200 2.8 or maybe even just a second body that I can use to keep another prime lens on when needed. Another A1ii would stretch my budget too much so didn't know if there were any other suggestions? Thanks!
Honestly for your kids running around doing sports or general activities, I’d look at the Tamron 35-150 or 50-400. While not as ideal optically as Sony GM zooms, they still offer excellent IQ and are super flexible focal ranges — and you can buy both for about the same price as the 70-200 GMii. Oh, and both are about the same size as the 70-200.
I get the ethos of primes and love using them myself. But you can’t beat a wide-range zoom for general people event shots.
One downside of any 3rd party lens on a Sony, is your framerate is limited to 15fps. For general people/event shooting I haven’t found this to be an issue AND the flexibility these lenses offer more than makes up for that limitation. However for serious sports events it probably would be. So if you’re doing serious professional work, then I’d stick to native Sony glass—but even for professional non-sporting event purposes, these two Tamrons are pretty awesome.
mattchu wrote:
I'm fairly new to Sony, less than 6 months. I love my A1ii and have accumulated quite a few primes. 24 1.4, 35 1.4, 50 1.2, 135 1.8, and 300 2.8 OSS. I love primes but do shoot my kids a lot and thought of the 50-150 f2 for flexibilty. I ordered it, sitting in the box, yet to open and I realized, do I really want this to replace my primes? I really enjoy shooting with primes. I always had a 70-200 2.8 with my canon gear and used it quite a bit but then started using a 200-400 more. This sony 300 though is incredible with how light it is and can hand hold it all day. So I'm thinking of getting a 70-200 2.8 or maybe even just a second body that I can use to keep another prime lens on when needed. Another A1ii would stretch my budget too much so didn't know if there were any other suggestions? Thanks!
Honestly for your kids running around doing sports or general activities, I’d look at the Tamron 35-150 or 50-400. While not as ideal optically as Sony GM zooms, they still offer excellent IQ and are super flexible focal ranges — and you can buy both for about the same price as the 70-200 GMii. Oh, and both are about the same size as the 70-200.
I get the ethos of primes and love using them myself. But you can’t beat a wide-range zoom for general people event shots.
One downside of any 3rd party lens on a Sony, is your framerate is limited to 15fps. For general people/event shooting I haven’t found this to be an issue AND the flexibility these lenses offer more than makes up for that limitation. However for serious sports events it probably would be. So if you’re doing serious professional work, then I’d stick to native Sony glass, but even for professional non-sporting event purposes, these two Tamrons are pretty awesome.
Jul 25, 2026 at 11:00 AM
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