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Best starter lens for the a500

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Hawaiianmom08

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I have read that the kit lens (18-55mm DT zoom ) does not have glowing reviews, so I am thinking about just buying the body and picking a couple of lenses. What is the best all around lens for everything from close up to portrait to landscape and is also good in lowlight? I was thinking about buying the DT 50mm f/1.8 Lens for portrait and the 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 Zoom Lens or the DT 55 - 200mm f/4-5.6 Zoom Lens for landscape. Any suggestions?
 
Hawaiianmom08 said:
I have read that the kit lens (18-55mm DT zoom ) does not have glowing reviews,
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it didn't get bad review from DPR

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydslra380/page17.asp
Hawaiianmom08 said:
so I am thinking about just buying the body and picking a couple of lenses. What is the best all around lens for everything from close up to portrait to landscape and is also good in lowlight?
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That's a long list of requirement. No one lens is good at everything you listed

For low light Tamron 17-50 F2.8
Otherwise CZ 16-80mm
good closeup zoom Sigma 17-70
 
How do you do the defocusing of the background to bring the person/object you are photographing into focus? can this be done with the kit lens or it is something you do on the camera?
 
If you don't want to carry multiple lenses around, check out the versatile and reasonably priced Sigma 17-70mm. It can cover macro, landscape, and portrait. The only thing is it may not be fast enough for some people (f2.8-f4 or f4.5). There are lots of good reviews on this lens, just search around.
 
Until you know more about the type of photography you want to do, the Tamron 18-250 is a remarkable lens that gives you lots of options to explore and will provide you with the opportunity to try different focal lengths and various camera settings with out investing in several lenses.

--
Jack G
Everett WA
 
For this type of effect you would use a tele setting and a very big aperture; for example the 50mm and f 2.8 with the tamron lens. Dedicated portrait lenses are usually about 75 or mm and offer an aperture of 1.8. But the Tamron of Sigma equivalent will do just fine (or the Sony, Minolta, or Tamron 28-70mm f2.8 lenses might even be better for portraits).
 
I'd also recommend the Sony / Tamron 18-250 lens (optically, the same lens...just some minor design differences between them) - a great all-rounder that gives you reasonable wide, excellent telephoto length, is fast focusing, good color and sharpness, and generally can be used from day to night, nature to sports. Because the A500 does so well with higher ISOs in low light, the widest F-stop of the lens isn't as critical as you might think.

I've got an entire gallery of shots taken just with the Sony 18-250 lens, with both my A550 and my A300...feel free to have a look - it includes just about every type of photography:

http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg/sony_sal18250mm_f3563

--
Justin
galleries: http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg
 
Hawaiianmom08 said:
How do you do the defocusing of the background to bring the person/object you are photographing into focus? can this be done with the kit lens or it is something you do on the camera?
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It could be done but to get the best result, get 50mm F1.8. It's not zoom but it's great for lowlight and you can get shallow DOF (shoot in A mode and use F1.8).
 
... a kit lens has almost no 2nd hand market.

So stepping up a little in quality, give you a chance to sell the lens to someone who started out with a kit lens.

OTOH, Buying the kit lens as 2nd hand may be the cheapest, as I said they are hard to sell.

--
Cheers
Erland
 
I would suggest you get this kit lens and use it then you will be able to make a better judgement of what you really want to do.

This combination is capable of very good images and you are now getting advice from a lot of people that is slanted towards what they like to do.
--
tom power
 
Hawaiianmom08 said:
I have read that the kit lens (18-55mm DT zoom ) does not have glowing reviews, so I am thinking about just buying the body and picking a couple of lenses. What is the best all around lens for everything from close up to portrait to landscape and is also good in lowlight? I was thinking about buying the DT 50mm f/1.8 Lens for portrait and the 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 Zoom Lens or the DT 55 - 200mm f/4-5.6 Zoom Lens for landscape. Any suggestions?
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These are two very good lens for the money. The Tamron is very good and comes with an excellent warranty.

These are good in bright sun light. If low light is going to be a major thing than look at adding the Tamron 28-75 2.8 or the 17-50 2.8 but to get started and use the flash the 18-55 should do you well.

Practice practice practice before you invest in any expensive glass.

--
Tony

A100, A700, Tam 17-50, Sony 16-105, Beercan, Tam 55-200
 
zackiedawg said:
I'd also recommend the Sony / Tamron 18-250 lens (optically, the same lens...just some minor design differences between them) - a great all-rounder that gives you reasonable wide, excellent telephoto length, is fast focusing, good color and sharpness, and generally can be used from day to night, nature to sports.
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I agree. I use the SAL18250 as my general purpose lens on an a700 and it is awesome.

Here's a sample gallery of all SAL18250 images on the a700:
http://charonda.com/laguna/index.htm

-=C
 
The Tamron 28-75 2.8 for low light situations of a 28-250 Tamy, this is a great walk around camera though I have never replaced it after I dropped it.
 
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