portraiture lenses...

[mastertrinity]

i am currently owning a sony a300 with minolta 50mm f1.7.

i love this camera and lens combo when taking portraits but sometimes i miss the flexibility of a zoom, however what puts me off zoom lenses is there is barrel distortion on the wide and telephoto end and the quality isnt as good as primes but i still could do with the zoom.

i would only ever use f2.8 if i was shooting smooth skin which is rare but i think the 50mm would take care of that if neccessary, so what im asking is what zoom lens would be good for portraits that has around the focal length of 30-100mm and is good for the money?

my budget is around £350

 

[chris_tim]

I have a sigma 24-60mm F2.8 and it is what I use for all my portrait work. I sometimes put the 135mm on but on the whole the sigma is my key lens. It has little distorition at either end and it is very sharp throughout especially when stopped down.

 

[mastertrinity]

it does sound like a good lens but i think 60mm on the long end is a bit limiting and would make me rather use the 50mm f1.7 instead.

if sony made a 35mm f1.8 and 85mm f1.8 i would have probably gone for them but since the f1.4 version is over a thousand pounds i will just have to get by with some cheaper ones.

i do location work mostly and sometimes have a makeshift studio so would primes be more useful as i would be using ambient light and sometimes flash?