budget lens'

[trupial]

Any experts on DSLR's ?
Bought myself a Sony alpha to take on our trip in October this year as we were having a little bother with our samsung point and shoot. I am thinking on a 75-300mm lens for the parks, etc, not wanting to spend alot on one as i'm just a novice. Tammron,Sigma and Sony do them under £200, are they ok quality, if so, which is best ?
Thank's

[florida4sun]

Quality isnt not brilliant on budget zoom lenses, best is to try them out in store with your camera and take the shots home to compare.

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by trupial
Any experts on DSLR's ?
Bought myself a Sony alpha to take on our trip in October this year as we were having a little bother with our samsung point and shoot. I am thinking on a 75-300mm lens for the parks, etc, not wanting to spend alot on one as i'm just a novice. Tammron,Sigma and Sony do them under £200, are they ok quality, if so, which is best ?
Thank's

[/quote]

[trupial]

That's an idea, if I pick a quiet day to try them out.

[Snapper]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by trupial
Any experts on DSLR's ?[/quote]One or two. [msnwink][msnsmile2]

OK - the short answer is ... that there isn't a short answer ... but hopefully if I waffle on for long enough it might throw up a few ideas for you.

That said, here's a short(ish) answer; which is that if you pick-up the Sigma 75-300mm (I think it's f/4.5-5.6) you should be pretty happy with it. I have the Nikon version myself. It's not the best lens in the world and I personally find the autofocus very slow and a bit 'hunty' but overall it's as good as any other lens at that price point for what it does. Mine's the APO version which is allegedly a little better optically.

That said, I tend not to use it out and about as I bought it originally to have a play around with its macro capabilities.

What you have here is the big problem that all photographers have - which is trying to find the right lens for the job. And sadly, the perfect lens for every occasion doesn't exist ... which I guess is why there are so many different ones around.

My own preference is for a more wideangle lens when I'm out and about around the theme parks. I find it's quite nice if your capturing a photo of someone to include a bit of the background. Anything up to around 120mm works really well for this - which gives rise to me using Nikon's 24-120mm most of the time.

I don't know the Sony lens range I'm afraid but I did have a quick look online for you. Without being able to tell you if it's good or bad (from a lens / optics point of view), Warehouse Express have a Sony 55-200mm f/4-5.6 listed for £189. A smidge above your budget they also have a Sigma 18-125mm f/3.8-5.6 listed at around £250. With it having the wider aperture (being 'faster' in photographic terms) my guess would be that it would be a bit better optically. It also lists as HSM which is Sigma's ultrasonic focusing system (the same as Canon's USM and Nikon's SWM) - which should give you much faster autofocus. It also looks like it is optically stabilised (but check this) which is an anti-vibration system. It's a much better version of what your point and shoot was probably doing digitally.

I know that the temptation with lenses is to go for what seems to be the largest zoom range possible, but personally I don't think this is the best approach. For every extra bit of zoom range something has to be sacrificed somewhere, and it's usually either optical performance or autofocus speed ... or both. It's very tempting to want the longer lens, but remember that you can almost always zoom in to something just by walking a little bit closer to it. You can effectively 'zoom' too when you are back home by just taking a crop out of the middle bit of photo.

I know that's a bit rambly but is it any help?

[trupial]

Steve, many thanks for the help but I must confess that before I read your post I went out and bought the Sony one. Got the 75-300mm for a good price, £179.99 with a 10% discount from my sister and a further £50 cash-back so think I did well on the price. Got it in my head that I needed the greater length so I could get better close up pic's of the kids on the rides as was disappointed last time with our other camera. So now that I have made my choice, good or bad, will have to get some practice in as we are away in six weeks. Thanks again.

[Snapper]

I'm sure you'll have heaps of fun with it - and it'll be head and shoulders above a little snappy.

If it's the same lens that I have you might find that the autofocus is a little slow. On the off chance the autofocus isn't quick enough to capture your children on the rides, don't despair - there's a way to improve on it. Use a technique called pre-focusing. If you're new to SLRs you might want to give this a practice a couple of times before you head out to Florida. That way you get used to it and you'll get some cracking photos. What you do is turn off the autofocus. Then you manually focus on the spot where you are planning to get your photo and just wait for the action. As soon as the ride hits that spot just click the shutter and you should (fingers crossed) have a clear, sharp and in-focus image. It's often easier to capture this too if you shoot with your other eye open as well.

If you don't trust yourself to manual focus there's another trick you can try. I don't know the Sony Alphas but every other DSLR I've used will lock focus. On my Nikon you just touch the shutter release button to autofocus but then if you hold the button there the focus will lock at that setting, even if you move the camera around. If the Sony doesn't do the same have a mooch through the manual - there'll be a way. So again - pick your spot on the ride, touch your shutter release to focus and hold it to lock the focus, then frame the shot how you want it, keep your other eye open to watch for the ride's progress and then capture the shot you're after. Simples!!!

If you want to practice it before you go out just pick a point on a road and take a bunch of photos of the cars as they pass this point.

If you want the advanced version of the above, remember that when the ride passes, the people will be at an ever so slightly different distance than the ride track ... so you want to be focusing on something that's exactly at this distance.

Have fun, and do bob back to let us know how it goes.

[wilfy]

I have a sony alpha, in fact one of the very early ones, the A100. Purchased mainly as i had a bunch of older minolta lenses and as the sony was/is the minolta design.

I have a sigma 70-210 which i used to use for some motorsport photography hobby, (i would use with a mono-pod) But for more normal vacation type shots, i found this a little too heavy to lug around, so i found a 18-70 konica lens off ebay for about £60. I'm not an expert or even an enthusiastic amateur, just a occasional shooter, and this lens does the business for me. This is also very useful for wide-ish indoor shots.

[Lyn]

If your 75-300mm lens does not have image stabilisation when you zoom right in you will need a tripod.

[trupial]

Thanks for the tips guys, my father was a keen photographer, had two or three 35mm SLR's with a selection of lenses and did his own b&w developing. In the early 80's I was into motor sport (rallying) so would set off with one of dads camera's and some lenses and had some good results, so know where your coming from Steve.
Wilfy, it's the A200 that I've got so it's much the same as yours. When I bought new it came with the kit lens which is the 18-70mm, I have also got a few older leses that belonged to my father but with a differant mount, so pick an adapter ring up from ebay so they now fit my Sony.
Lyn, the Sony Alpha's have a system called "Super SteadyShot" which you can switch on or off so I think it acts in the same way as image stabilisation on a lens, but as you say a tripod would also help.