sony a200 - can't lower aperture value

[stu_miller]

hi all

i've just bought myself a sony a200 and was out yesterday taking photos with it.

now when i was first experimenting with it, i was setting the aperture value from f/32 down to about f/3 (i think). however, now it won't allow me to go any lower than f/5...

hope i've explained that ok - does anyone have any suggestions/comments?

cheers in advance
stu

[Rooz]

your lens will be marked with its maximum aperture values. if you purchased the 18-70mm sony kit lens, it will read something like f3.5-5.6.

this means that the largest aperture you can achieve for the lens is f3.5 at its widest zoom setting and f5.6 at its longest zoom setting.

[dr4gon]

Yup at 18mm, 3.5 is the largest it will go. You should consider eventually getting something like the Tamron 17-50mm F/2.8 Di-II Lens. It has a much broader range of available apertures and is faster since it can shoot at 2.8 through it's range. Congrats on your purchase though! We'd love to see some of your pictures!

[stu_miller]

your lens will be marked with its maximum aperture values. if you purchased the 18-70mm sony kit lens, it will read something like f3.5-5.6.

this means that the largest aperture you can achieve for the lens is f3.5 at its widest zoom setting and f5.6 at its longest zoom setting.

hi, thanks for the quick reply.

as you can tell, i'm a real novice at the moment! i've just realised that it was due to the zoom setting and you can only get 3.5 when it's not zoomed.

cheers!

[seanhoxx]

Stu, welcome to the forums, stick around, ask lots of questions, post photos, share your stories. we need to build up the membership! You can learn alot about your camera and about photography from several of the people here, they KNOW what there talking about, and will give you sound, solid advice. Plus we are all nice people!! So tell us more about yourself, and post away.
Sean

[dr4gon]

Stu, welcome to the forums, stick around, ask lots of questions, post photos, share your stories. we need to build up the membership! You can learn alot about your camera and about photography from several of the man here, heKNOWs what he'stalking about, and will give you sound, solid advice. Plus we are all nice people!! So tell us more about yourself, and post away.
Sean

hope you don't mind, I fixed your statement....

kidding, sort of..., welcome again!

[seanhoxx]

LOL very good dr4gon, we can all learn and share from each other, but many of us can learn SO much more from "THE MAN" LOL

[sparkie1263]

Funny Sean you used the phrase "THE MAN" I called him that the first time he bailed me out.
Frank

[DonSchap]

The unfortunate problem with aparent variable aperture, is that things get darker as you zoom in on a subject.

Probably the most noticeable of these is with the 18-200(250)mm or the 28-300mm lens ... where the aperture closes from f/3.5 all the way to about f/6.7 ... depending on wihich camera you mount the lens on.

Now, believe it or not, this lens is actually BRIGHTER than the 18-70mm f/3.5-5.6, over the same zoom range.



I know this graph may look a little complicated ... but, if you look at the RED line versus the BLUE line ... you should notice that the BLUE one climbs faster .... that is a bad thing.

If we drew a vertical line up from the 30mm focal length ... you would see that the 18-200mm len aperture is only at f/3.5 or f/4, while the 18-70 is already at its f/5.6 base aperture. That's an entire f-stop of light lost ... in less than a 15mm change. So, in essense ... the 18-70mm is a f/5.6 lens at 30 to 70mm! Some variable aperture, huh? It was only variable from 15-30mm ... after that ... constant f/5.6

With the 18-200mm lens, you are not at f/5.6 UNTIL you actually hit 70mm.

This is one of the reasons, if you are insistant on a "kit" ... you probably should get the one with the 18-200 or 18-250 lens. Much brighter shots ...