Sony has launched different quality cameras and lenses like Sony Telephoto Lens, Sony Zoom lens, A-series cameras, etc. in past years. These lenses and cameras have helped professional photographers to capture more natural and real images.
Now, anyone can click the closest actions of their surroundings, animals, nature, and many more by just using accurate lenses and cameras. They have made it easy to shoot rare wildlife, adventurous sports, portraits, landscapes, and sceneries by allowing more zooming power and features.
Any photographer will prefer to keep this telephoto lens for sony as the second most important camera lens in their professional kits. If you want to pursue your carrier in sports photography or wildlife photography, then this lens is going to be your best companion in your initial days.
You can silently capture your subject without even going closer to that or harming the natural expressions. In this article, you will get to know about different telephoto lenses and their features.
One can learn about different key factors in the bottom sections of this article, which will help them in choosing the best suitable lens for their cameras.
In short, Sony offers the best telephoto lenses like Sony Alpha OSS Super-Telephoto APS-C Lens, Sony E F4.5-6.3 Lens, Sony FE G Master OSS Lens, and Sony FE F5.6-6.3 G OSS Lens. These lenses are perfect to use with different E-mount and selected A-mount cameras.
What is a Good mm for a Telephoto Lens?

An average telephoto lens comes with a normal focal length of range 70 mm to 200 mm. Most photographers have considered the range of 135 mm to 400 mm as the best possible focal length for any telephoto lens.
Hence, we can say the focal length of range 100 mm to 300 mm is a good mm for any telephoto lens. You can also buy these lenses with a focal length of less than 70 mm at cheaper rates, but that may not guarantee the quality of images you capture.
Best Telephoto Lens for Sony a6000 and a6300
A telephoto lens is designed to give closer, sharper, and finest images, even after zooming to an extent level. Sony a6000 and Sony a6300 both are premium quality cameras designed for different types of photography. These cameras are usually created with an E-mount or A-mount design, which combines best with specific FE lenses or E lenses.
Sony F4.5-6.3 55-210mm E Lens is the best telephoto lens for Sony E-Mount Cameras like a6000. You will get extreme benefits and splendid features in this lens, which helps to provide more magnificent colors in Portrait photography.
Features:
- Weight: 0.34 kg (0.76 lbs)
- Size (Diameter x Length): 63.8mm * 108mm
- Focal Length: 55mm – 210mm
- Filter Diameter: 49 mm
- Minimum Focus Distance: 0.99 m (3.28 ft.)
- 7 Aperture blades
- Magnification ratio – 0.23x
Pros:
- Optical steady shots
- Video shoot in low lights
- Minimum noise
- Smooth Internal focusing
- Fast responsive AF
- Focus rings with no rotations
Cons:
- Noisy autofocus motor
- Occasional blurry images
- Lacking barrel distortion
Purpose of Uses:
- Nature photography
- Proper Manual Adjustments
- Stable video shoots
- Action shots
Also, Sony Alpha F4.5-6.3 G 70-350mm OSS APS-C Lens is a super telephoto lens best made for Sony a6300 cameras. Anyone can use it for capturing beautiful contrasts with different color palates. These lenses are compatible with all E-mount and APS-C cameras.
Features:
- Weight: 0.62 kg (1.38 lbs)
- Size (Diameter x Length): 3.98mm * 8.27mm
- Focal Length: 70 mm – 350 mm
- Filter Diameter: 67 mm
- Minimum Focus Distance: 37 m (4.5 ft.)
- Super 5x Telephoto zoom
Pros:
- Each corner resolution
- Lightweight
- Easy to handle
- XD Super Linear motor
- Full frame capturing
- Smooth tracking
Cons:
- Slow aperture
- Average weather sealing
- Poor video quality in low lights
Purpose of Uses:
- Vibrant color photography
- Easily portable
- Compact and more powerful
- Performs well in severe weather conditions
What Size Telephoto Lens Do I Need for Wildlife Photography?
These days, people have a great craze for raising all kinds of animals including wild animals too. Such passion and craze for exploring wild animals have raised the excitement of wildlife photography. Now, distinct brands have started making special cameras and lenses for this kind of photography.
A Telephoto lens is a most popular and widely preferred lens for wildlife photography. These lenses have various focal lengths that perform unexpectedly when combined with great professional cameras. 200 mm to 400 mm is the best focal range offered by these telephoto lenses for capturing wild animals and birds.
Wildlife photography is far different from portrait photography and landscape photography. You have more stability and better comfort while shooting real portraits as compared to wild photographs.
If you want to reflect on the exact natural actions and real emotions of wild animals and birds, then you must maintain complete silence and great patience. Try using a best telephoto lens for sony full frame of 135 mm plus size to experience the best finishing strokes, effects, and filters.
Lenses that are greater than 135 mm are perfect for long-term wildlife recordings like egg-laying butterflies, growing cocoons, baby-feeding animal mothers, playing elephant calves, and many more.
These recordings need stable focus and more zooming features with wide angles, which are only possible through a telephoto zoom lens.
Remember to lock the autofocus adjustments, if you are trying to use a telephoto lens of size around 800 mm, as it is very delicate and sensitive to handle. These 800 mm lenses can provide you more focus range than 400 mm telephoto lens, but at a risk of distorted and blurry pictures.
How to Choose a Best Budget Telephoto Lens for Sony e-Mount?
All lenses have abbreviated details and specifications, which are complicated to understand. These specifications are the basic designing factor of any telephoto lens.
Every lens has unique physical and optical specifications that make them better than other lenses. One should know about all optical factors before buying any telephoto lens.
Sony alpha Telephoto lens is mostly categorized on the bases of its focal range and apertures. These are some major factors that should be considered wisely before choosing any telephoto lens:
Aperture:
Sony has mentioned both minimum and maximum aperture details in the name of its lenses themselves. These kinds of naming patterns help the customers to choose the best lens in minutes. You should always choose a telephoto lens with the least aperture, as it will allow the maximum light to enter the lens. These low-aperture lenses will enable you to shoot even in the darkest conditions.
Focal Length:
Focal length is used to determine whether it is a telephoto lens or a wide-angle lens. You should use a lens with maximum variations in focal length because this will save the facial proportions and fine lines of the model. A telephoto lens with about 350 mm maximum focal length is a better option for creating blurry backgrounds and unreal terminations.
Fixed and Zoom:
Some lenses come with different zooming levels, whereas others have fixed and non-mobile zooming adjustments. These fixed lenses are commonly known as Prime Lenses. Now, it is completely your decision whether you want a fixed lens or a more zooming lens. A telephoto lens has an appreciable zooming range of about 1.3x to 5x. You can buy them for multiple photographic styles and angles.
Crop Factor:
A Sony telephoto lens is available in 1x, 1.5x, 1.6x, and 2x crop factors. A higher crop factor can lose the original quality of images, whereas the least crop factor will give poor editing results. So, try to choose a telephoto lens within a maximum crop factor range of 1.5x to 1.6x.
Other considerable factors are focus distance, image sensors, Magnification ratio, Wide angles, Filter threads, and internal focus. You can customize their specifications to meet your camera needs and maximum requirements.
Is 400mm Enough for Wildlife Photography?
400 mm is the most excellent range of focal length offered by these telephoto lenses. All professionals have rated this focal length as the best range for wildlife photography. You can consider it as the king of all focal lengths, as it gives an unexceptional image quality with much better crop factors and zooming capabilities.
Some photographers also use an 800 mm telephoto lens for critter wildlife photography, but it can zoom the subject to a much higher extent, which may not be appreciable with the conditions. 400 mm telephoto lens allows the photographers to get closer to their passion and the real world.
These lenses are also used by bird watchers, researchers, and artists, for learning the deeper truths about nature and wildlife. Sony a6000 telephoto lens also has a wide variety of focal lengths to offer, for storytelling and bird watching.
If you have just started your photography career, then you should try Prime or Zoom lens for beginners over 400 mm Telephoto Lens. 400 mm lenses are not that much easy to operate as they look.
They are mostly used by professionals and experienced photographers for detailed reading of different subjects and their actions. Hence, they are not preferred to be used by beginners.
These lenses have different qualities of wider apertures, accurate shooting angles, sharper edges, minimum focus distance, and great image sizes.
Some passionate researchers also consider them as their biological lenses, which connect them more emotionally and theoretically with wildlife photography.
Sony FE 100-400mm Telephoto lens (F4.5–5.6) and Sony 70-400mm Lens (F4-5.6) are the best 400 mm telephoto lenses offered by Sony.
Some other brands like Sigma, Nikon, Canon, and Tamron also offer these 400 mm quality lenses. Other impressive features of 400 mm Prime and telephoto lenses are:
- S-line picture quality
- Image Stabilization
- Maximum Aperture
- Instant Autofocus
- Super Telemacro Shooting
- Focus Stacking
- Bird Photography
- Optical Designs
- Fast and precise AF.
Is a6300 Worth it Over a6000?
Sony a6300 and Sony a6000 both are mirrorless cameras, which were designed with the latest technology of that time. There is a wide technology gap between these two cameras as they were launched in the year 2016 and 2014, respectively.
Sony a6300 is much better than the Sony a6000 because of its latest sensors, 4k video resolution, higher frame rate, and weather-protected body design.
We can say, it is completely worth buying a Sony a6300 over a6000 depending on its long battery backup, higher color depths, more shutter counts, and great ISO performance.
Sony a6000 is a good camera, but it cannot compare the exotic features of the modern a6300 camera. One should only buy it for its cheaper rates and easily manageable adjustments.
Other features of the Sony a6300 over a6000 include an in-built webcam, autofocus locking system, higher tracking power, and dynamic camera hoods. You can learn about the comparison of prime vs zoom lens for video graphics and iconic bokeh pictures in both a6000 and a6300 cameras.
Check out this link for a much better understanding of both cameras:
Important Questions (FAQs)
Is Sony Telephoto Lens interchangeable with all cameras?
Telephoto lenses are quite complicated to use with all cameras, as they are only recognized by selected frame designs. Use them with Sony a6000, a6300, a6200, and other A-series cameras for experiencing the best image results.
These lenses are not interchangeable with other brands’ camera styles. You should always use the right lens with your cameras to maintain their longevity and continuous performance.
Which is much better a telephoto lens or a macro lens?
A telephoto lens is far better than a macro lens because of its much sharper corners and great close-up shots. Macro lens only provides shallow depths and needs focus bracket adjustments for an average sharpness. You can easily watch distant objects through a telephoto lens without getting closer to them, but the macro lens does not support these features.
How far you can see through a telephoto lens?
Luckily, telephoto lenses have a maximum reachable length of around 1000 mm. You can use narrow fields and more crop factors in these lenses to look at distant subjects. These lenses have in-built image and crop sensors that combine with your camera hood to produce the best image view.
Final Words
best budget telephoto lens for sony e mount is one of the best lenses used for wildlife photography and sports photography. One can use it for multiple photographic effects and background styles in cinematography as well.
They not only provide high-quality images but also support motion videos and time-lapse recording. Combine it with the best Sony cameras for experiencing the most iconic pictures.