New SONY DSLR users ... welcome!

[Burnside]

Why not leave this poll open? The distribution is bound to change over time and you'll have more responses. I just upgraded from a 100 to a 350.

[DonSchap]

There is a new poll ...

-> click on this <-

[DonSchap]

Feel free to look through the forum ... there is a lot of good reading for any of the SONY DSLR cameras

[alpha14]

Just got my a700 today! Any suggestions about a lens? I was leaning towards the Tamron 18-250??

[DonSchap]

Just got my a700 today! Any suggestions about a lens? I was leaning towards the Tamron 18-250??

It really depends on what you want to shoot. The α700 can make good use of any of the lenses available to it. The 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 is a good starter lens ... and covers a lot of ground. It happens to be a little dark indoors, due to its design. Will it make the most of the the α700? No. But, the α700 will make the most of it. If you do choose this lens, I would suggest also buying at least a HVL-F42AM flash to assist it. Figure the lens and the flash will run you about $800.

A really solid budget-minded selection would be the TAMRON SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical (IF) MACRO lens & the TAMRON SP AF 70-200mm f/2.8 Di LD MACRO. Between these two lenses you cover almost everything, except wide angle. They are a great pair for indoor shoots, offering the widest aperture available for zoom lenses throughout their focal range. If you want to start off, without complaint of lighting that you get from an f/4 lenses, indoors ... these are probably the wallet choices. The total cost of these two lenses is around $1100, but you have as much light as you are ever going to get from zooms.

I cannot say much more without knowing your interest level, what you plan on photographing and the amount of money (budget limitation) you are ready to invest into your system, because you can have a lot of fun spending dough on this hobby, as many will attest.

If you take a look at the first thread in this forum (<- click on this link), it details some other options for initially starting your camera, but those would be my first choices, covering 90% of most shots.

I hope this helps a little and welcome to the forum.

[seanhoxx]

And for any Alpha the 50mm prime is a very nice and small addition to your bag, you can go with Minolta or the Sony. The Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 DI is a great 'kit' lens to have but if just starting out I agree with Don that the 28-75mm gives you a bit more reach and would make a very nice combo with the 70-200.
And welcome, tell us more about you and what you like to shoot

[Peekayoh]

Offering advice on a lens purchase without knowing what the person is going to be doing with it is plain daft.

Sony 16-80mm f3.5-4.5 ZA VS T* DT Lens
Sony 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 G SSM Lens.

[DonSchap]

Okay ... I agree ... if the person is taking exclusively architectural work, doing MACRO or is 'birding' ... you have a point. Otherwise, a general pair of lenses is a terrific and very acceptable suggestion for almost anyone. I would even suggest it will save most people a lot of wasteful spending and poor shooting.

Hey ... it's an opinion based on experience to accept or ignore as you deem fit. I cannot believe how positively "American" that sounds.

Frankly, I am growing weary of everyone acting like we just got here or something. I, for one, have been working intensely (and I'll put my experience up against anyone's) with the SONY Alpha 100 and A700 since the Summer of 2006. Before that .. since 1985 with the original Minolta Maxxum series. I even gave the opposition a good run, before I cast it back. When I fire off an opinion ... you can be pretty sure it is based on that experience and not that I woke up one morning, chuck full of knowledge or something. So, no more of this labeling, undermining or supposition, okay? Thanks ... and, have a nice day.

[Peekayoh]

I wasn't referring to you, Don. Rather to my own advice.

[alpha14]

It really depends on what you want to shoot. The α700 can make good use of any of the lenses available to it. The 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 is a good starter lens ... and covers a lot of ground. It happens to be a little dark indoors, due to its design. Will it make the most of the the α700? No. But, the α700 will make the most of it. If you do choose this lens, I would suggest also buying at least a HVL-F42AM flash to assist it. Figure the lens and the flash will run you about $800.

A really solid budget-minded selection would be the TAMRON SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical (IF) MACRO lens & the TAMRON SP AF 70-200mm f/2.8 Di LD MACRO. Between these two lenses you cover almost everything, except wide angle. They are a great pair for indoor shoots, offering the widest aperture available for zoom lenses throughout their focal range. If you want to start off, without complaint of lighting that you get from an f/4 lenses, indoors ... these are probably the wallet choices. The total cost of these two lenses is around $1100, but you have as much light as you are ever going to get from zooms.

I cannot say much more without knowing your interest level, what you plan on photographing and the amount of money (budget limitation) you are ready to invest into your system, because you can have a lot of fun spending dough on this hobby, as many will attest.

If you take a look at the first thread in this forum (<- click on this link), it details some other options for initially starting your camera, but those would be my first choices, covering 90% of most shots.

I hope this helps a little and welcome to the forum.

Thanks for the info. This will be my first dslr so i wanted to get basically an all around lens to start off, and hopefully soon a faster lens.

For indoor sports like basketball, will the Tamron 18-250mm be sufficient enough for the lighting conditions? Or will i need something with a f/2.8?