Help a230 lens choice

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looper

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lewis
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Hi all,

It hass been a while since I was here. Ok so I've decided to pick up the camera again after a few years out.

I have a sony a230 nothing special, currently have minolta 50mm prime kit lens and a flash. Am working to a tight budget as I now have a family and they drain my funds.

I need a new lens macro or portrait not too fussed I have been looking at the old f4 beercan. Any advice from you seasoned pros?
 
Well a minolta 100 macro or the sigma/tamron variants would double up as a macro and portrait lens. Beercan is overared imo.
 
Why do you need a new lens if you're not bothered what it's for?

The Minolta Beercan is a bit of a ledgend but it's heavy. My personal favourite lens that I had for my Sony was the Tamron 55-200. Again, nothing fancy but for the price it was fantastic. I used it mainly for portrait work but also used it for wildlife such as butterflies and a few bugs. It's classed as a macro lens (by tamron) but it's not really although it did have a half decent MFD iirc. Mine was very sharp and rendered some nice bokeh too.

HTH's.
 
minnnt said:
Why do you need a new lens if you're not bothered what it's for?

HTH's.
Click to expand...
The reason I say am not too fussed is I enjoy both aspects, so either way I'd get use out of it.
If I had the money my first choice would be a 70-200 f2.8 but am not that flush currently. Thanks for the input though.
 
What exactly is your budget? I used to own the A200, similar, just older - I had the minolta 50mm 1.7 too, sweet lens. I was planning on buying the Minolta 100mm macro on ebay, but then got a deal on a Nikon and went that route. If I still had it, that's the lens I'd get for it though. Expect to pay around £180 - 200 for a decent one on ebay.
 
There are a number of options, and it really does depend on your budget, and what you want to shoot.

Common options are
1) A replacement for the kit lens, such as the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8, to give you the wide aperture options over the zoom length
2) A budget telephoto - the old 70-210 f/4 'Beercan' was well regarded, but seems to get less mentions these days.
Tamron & Sigma also do 70-300 budget telephoto lenses - while ideally you'd be opting for the Sony 70-300G, or Tamron 70-300 USD, they are quite expensive.
The current Tamron (70-300Di LD macro) and Sigma (70-300 DG APO Macro) are both OK, and do 1:2 and 1:4 macro respectively, so are fine for things ~2" or larger.

A 'true' macro (IE 1:1 Macro) will be a bit more expensive, but will also serve as a 'fast' prime (with very slow AF).

One slight word of warning on macro - due to the very narrow DOF, accurate positioning of focus is important, which might be tricky on an A230, which has a fairly small viewfinder.
 
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