Sony a200 f/stop adjustment

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blueflower77

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This is going to be a super dumb question, but at least it's simple.

I purchased a Sony a-200 DSLR recently and I'm trying to figure out the manual settings. The dumb person that I am, I don't think I'm doing the Aperture adjustment correctly.

I put my camera in the A-mode and then rotate the knob next to the button that you push to take a picture, and the f/stop won't go down below 5. My zoom lens is one of the kit lenses and it is 18-70 mm and f/stop is 3.5-5.6 so it is my understanding that it should at least be able to go as wide as 3.5, right? But mine will only go smaller like 11s and 20s but not wider than 5...

I'm really discouraged and I don't know what to do! Please help!
 
You will only be able to get down to 3.5 at the widest angle,I.E 18mm.If you zoom out to 80mm the lowest you f stop will go is 5.6.Try putting it back into AV and set the lens to its widest angle (18mm) you should be able to take the aperture down to 3.5.So when you see lenses and it says for eg 70-200mm f4.5-5.6 it means thats the widest aperture the lens will go to at those lenghs.(70mm/4.5-200mm/5.6.Hope that makes sense,i'm sure someone will be able to explain it better later on.
 
Yep, the 2 numbers on the lens (3.5 &5.6) denote the biggest aperture available at each end of the focal range. At 18mm the biggest aperture is f3.5 and at 70mm the biggest aperture is f5.6. they will then vary in between. I'm guessing you had it ast about 50mm when you could only get f5?

HTH

Welcome to TP by the way! :wave:
 
You can check out how the maximum aperture changes. Go to the widest aperture and zoom right out. Now, half press the shutter to activate the viewfinder display. Zoom the lens in and you will see the maximum aperture go up as you reach the end of the zoom reach.
 
Thank you so much for all your help! I tried it and it worked!

I bought a book from Gary Friedman about how to use Sony a200 and it is really good, but I think this site maybe even better! I'm so happy I discovered this place!
 
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