I have gotten more active with my Sony a6500 camera lately and am looking for recommendations for two lenses to supplement my current setup. Right now, I have:
- a Sony 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 OSS APS-C (model SEL 18135). This is the standard walking-around lens I leave on the camera full time.
- a Sony 55–210 mm F4.5-6.3 OSS APS-C (model SEL 55210); and
- a Sony PZ 16–50 mm F3.5–5.6 OSS APS-C (model SELP 1650) that I basically never use.
I'm looking to upgrade what I have to be more flexible and, well, better. For example, I have already decided to sell the 55-210 and the PZ16-50 and purchase the SEL70350G (70-355) lens.
What do I need to have a decent but not crazy expensive bag?
A) Should I get something better for low light situations that can also do bokeh? I was thinking something like
Sigma 10-18mm F2.8 DC DN or
Sony 16-55mm 2.8 SELG?
You won't get a lot of bokeh or subject isolation out of an UWA lens, unless you meant the Sigma 18-50/2.8 rather than the 10-18?
B) Is 2.8 enough of a difference in light to be materially better than the Sony 18-135 that has F3.5? Am I better off with a 1.4 or 1.8? Something like the:
If the goal is subject isolation, sure, a longer/faster prime will obviously deliver more of it than the average zoom.
- Sony E 35mm f1.8 OSS Lens - budget friendly, compact, not such good reviews?
- Sigma 30mm f1.4 DC DN Contemporary Lens - budget friendly, bright, relatively large.
- Sigma 16mm f/1.4 DC DN
Now you're mixing a bunch of FLs, the 16mm would be a very very different choice than the 30-35s, I think you have to narrow down that you want first. There's a ton of less expensive f1.8 & f1.7 primes around 23-35 from Viltrox and TTArtisan now that are worth a look too.
Any suggestions would be VERY welcome. All the choices make this very confusing to someone that is pretty inexperienced....
That's fair, I'd start by narrowing down what focal lengths you enjoy using with the 18-135, then look at reviews by Dustin Abbott and/or PhillipReeve.net, they've covered a lot of APS-C primes lately, not that there's anything wrong with the Sigma 23/1.4 & 30/1.4.
The 16/1.4 is a pretty beefy lens, unless you're really looking for the extra light gathering at the low end (for low light and/or astro) it might or might not be the best choice. By the same token the UWA zooms like the 10-18/2.8 (and primes at the start of the range) are a whole different world for a whole different purpose.
You may have heard this before but shooting ultra wide (basically anything under 16mm on APS-C) is more about playing with perspective and proportions than about "getting it all in", stitching is often as good or a better solution to the latter. I love shooting UWA because it's a challenging thing composition-wise, but it's definitely more of a want than a need.
If you want something that's for general use in low light and for an extra degree of subject isolation, then I think you're better served by a fast prime in the 23-35mm range, but again you should figure that out by looking at what focal lengths you favor with the 18-135. If you don't wanna mess with primes then the Sigma 18-50/2.8 DN would be a fine alternative to the 18-135 in low light, etc.
I prefer having fast primes and slow zooms, others would rather stick to zooms of different kinds, that's an eternal and subjective debate and a lot of people end up with a mix of it all anyway. I've stuck to longer zooms with longer range for convenience and faster primes for low light and subject isolation, and on APS-C I'd be even more inclined to do so.
An f2.8 zoom will still achieve that to some degree, but as you suggested it's not as big of a jump. In fact shooting the 18-135 at say 70/5.6 will still achieve more subject isolation than an 18-50/2.8 zoom at 30/2.8, ~35/2.8 is about where the latter would break even and by 50/2.8 it has an edge there.
Whereas a 30/1.7 prime can match 50/2.8 at a shorter and generally more useful focal length (for isolation, obviously this all varies depending on subject distance etc., this is just one useful way of looking at what you get with the extra speed, beyond a lower ISO). I'm literally just dividing the FL by the aperture here. The 70-350 is a great complement to the 18-135 btw.
