Sony E 55-210mm f/4.5-6.3 OSS Lens Review

The Sony E 55-210mm f/4.5-6.3 OSS is a compact telephoto lens designed for Sony E-Mount APS-C Mirrorless cameras. It provides a 35mm equivalent field of view of a 82.5-315mm lens. This lens can be mounted on Sony Full Frame bodies but the images will be cropped accordingly.

This lens is often available as part of a kit with select bodies at a discount making it an excellent value.

I personally own this lens and used it with my A6000 until it went swimming in a small stream. It still works but at the 55mm setting on my A6000 it makes a continuous clicking sound so I don’t use it any more.

The image quality on this lens is ok, but not great. For best results use a tripod and turn off the image stabilizer. Using f/8 also helps to improve the quality as well.

I wish that Sony offered a moderately priced 70-300mm lens around $500. There is a hole between this lens at $350 and the next step up, the recently introduced E 70–350 mm F4.5–6.3 G OSS, that is $1000.

Pricing*

• Sony E 55-210mm f/4.5-6.3 OSS - $349.99

*Pricing from Manufacturer's website - Current selling price may be different.

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What I Like

Small size

image stabilization

What I Don't Like

f/6.3 min aperture at 210mm

 

The Bottom Line

When purchased alone at the full retail price of $350 this lens is a decent performer, although not stellar. It makes a good companion to the 18-55mm and 16-50mm kit lenses. When purchased with select bodies you will often see up to a $200 discount on the Sony E 55-210mm f/4.5-6.3 OSS lens. This makes the lens a great value.