The Sony E 55-210mm f/4.5-6.3 OSS is the telephoto zoom we recommend for Sony APS-C shooters.

For well under $400 as of this writing, this 83-315mm–equivalent zoom provides good (though not great) image quality in sufficient light. It’s a manageable size and relatively light for a telephoto zoom, and it makes for an obvious companion to the 18-55mm and 16-50mm kit lenses that ship with Sony cameras, picking up right where those zoom ranges end. As with all low-priced zooms, the lens has a narrow maximum aperture that only gets smaller as you zoom in. Sony partially addresses that lack of light-gathering ability, however, by including a built-in image stabilization system, which steadies the lens internally to counteract inadvertent motion caused by unsteady hands (more about that in a moment).

Reviewers are quick to acknowledge that such an inexpensive lens is bound to have its shortcomings. As Kevin Carter at DxOMark concludes, “Lenses are a mix of compromises and nowhere is that more obvious than with accessibly priced zooms.” Carter found the Sony lens to be “somewhat disappointing at the longer end of the zoom range, in terms of sharpness, but in every other respect the performance is well balanced.” Klaus Schroiff at Photozone found it to be a solidly constructed lens with silent autofocus that makes it well-suited to shooting video. And while Schroiff notes a moderate amount of distortion along with softness in the image corners, he writes that the lens is “capable of delivering decent results” overall. Jay at SonyAlphaLab, who also put the lens through its paces, concludes that it’s a “great value for the dollar.”

Owners seem happy with this lens’s price-performance blend, as well. At the time we checked, almost 70 percent of its Amazon customer reviews had given it a five-star rating. Whether shooting wildlife, auto races, or a child’s dance performances, owners have come away with pleasingly sharp, detailed images. As one owner sums it up, “This is a great telephoto zoom lens for the price. I know people will say there are much better quality lenses out there, but for the price this does the job. Took some great shots … using this thing and hope to take many more.”

Owners especially like how the lens’s built-in image stabilization allows them to get sharp photos when shooting handheld at the telephoto end of the zoom. In marketing this lens as part of its OSS (Optical SteadyShot) group, Sony claims that the image stabilization feature offers up to four stops of camera shake reduction, meaning you can shoot handheld at shutter speeds four stops slower than normal and still get sharp images. Theoretically, that means getting results as sharp as you would at 1/120 s while shooting as slowly as 1/6 s. You should take that claim with a bit of salt, but SonyAlphaLab did find success shooting at shutter speeds two to almost three stops slower than normal with good results.

If you have a larger budget and shoot with an APS-C body, we recommend the Sony E 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS LE lens. It has the same optical stabilization system as our main pick and delivers similar image quality, but it offers a much wider zoom range and remains compact enough to handle fairly well on a camera like the Sony α6000 or α6300. With its 27-300mm–equivalent focal length range, this lens could easily be the only one you need to bring along on vacation. You’ll be able to capture landscapes, portraits, and close-ups of distant landmarks without swapping lenses.

Typically, extending a lens’s zoom range leads to a big drop-off in image quality. Maintaining good optical quality over such a wide zoom range without creating a lens that’s too unwieldy for a midrange mirrorless camera is not easy. In DxOMark’s detailed comparison, this Sony 18-200mm lens comes very close to the company’s 55-210mm lens in most objective measurements, suffering just slightly in overall resolution. The fact that our upgrade pick has a wider zoom range yet offers similar image quality helps to explain why it costs more than twice the price of our main pick as of this writing.

The late Michael Reichmann concluded in a 2012 Luminous Landscape review that the lens was “quite good, especially considering its size, weight and cost. This is the lens that goes on the camera 80% of the time in bright daylight, and unless I need a fast aperture lens it stays on the camera all day, mainly because of its versatility.”

The testers at Imaging Resource found that the lens delivered “very good” sharpness at its 100mm setting and “acceptable” results at 200mm. Reviewer Andrew Alexander writes that in contrast to Sony’s previous 18-200mm lens, this version “is much smaller in comparison, shaving over 60g off of the weight … and most notably reducing the ‘girth’ of the lens – instead of being almost 100mm in diameter, the EL lens is only 68mm in diameter, making it much more at home on a [Sony mirrorless] camera body.”

In addition to appreciating the lens’s versatility, reviewers like its built-in image stabilization, which partially compensates for the lens’s narrow maximum aperture of f/3.5 at the wide end and only f/6.3 at its longest zoom setting. In a discussion about testing this lens, Jay at SonyAlphaLab reports acceptably sharp images shot at shutter speeds three stops slower than normal.

Be aware that Sony sells two versions of this lens. Our pick has the LE designation at the end of its official product name, but Sony also offers the slightly older SEL18200 model, distinguishable by its silver finish. The price difference between the two is minimal. The non-LE model is slightly better optically and equipped with an image stabilization system that’s optimized for video shooting, but it’s substantially larger and heavier than our pick. The smaller your camera body, the more awkward a lens of this size and heft becomes. So while some people may opt for marginally better-looking images at any cost, we think most folks will be better served by a smaller lens when the quality difference is fairly minor. Your wrist and neck will thank you after a long day of shooting.

Also note that the Tamron 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 Di III VC lens is nearly identical in both features and performance to our upgrade pick. We still recommend sticking with the Sony lens, though: When Sony added phase detection autofocus to its cameras, it released firmware for its lenses to take advantage of the faster AF option. To date, as far as we can tell, Tamron has not made its own version of the lens similarly compatible.