What are the best Sony Alpha camera lenses?

Question

I've had my Sony a33 for a while now and realized I need to use it more often. I already have a 35mm lens for my camera and was wondering what other lenses are best for the Sony DSLR. My budget is around $500. I know the 35mm lens is great for portraits but I'm willing to look into another portrait lens if it's better than the 35mm. I also want to shoot landscapes and nice views, including night time shooting. Please send out your recommendations. Thank you.

Answer 1

That camera is NOT a DSLR. It's an SLT. It does NOT have a flip up mirror or optical viewfinder.



Go have a look at the Sony website. All their lenses are listed there. For landscapes an ultra wide zoom is useful - something in the 10-20mm range or thereabouts - for a cropped sensor camera such as yours.



That 35mm lens is not ideal for portrait photography, it's too wide. Even allowing for the crop factor on your camera which is 1.5x, you get a 52mm full frame equivalent. What you want is a 50mm (75mm full frame equivalent) at the very least. Portraits are best taken with a moderate telephoto lens, wide maximum apertures are also better, like f/1.8 or wider.

Answer 2

Visit Dyxum.com where you will find scores and customer reviews of all the Sony and Minolta AF lenses back to the late 1980's (Sony bought the Minolta camera division and renamed th mount to Alpha. 'G' rated lenses are premium.. and as good as anything made by other manufacturers. Scores of 4.5 or more indicate the better lenses.



50mm f1.8 would be best for portraits.



Visit:



http://www.dyxum.com/index.asp

Answer 3

for current lens reviews, I find that photozone.de provides great info on the performance of the lenses. For example, they provide numerical values for sharpness as opposed to a good-better-best type of rating. Therefore you can easily see which lens is better/worse and by how much.



Which lens you should get is very subjective and must be based on YOUR specific usage and needs. The 35mm lens is the equivalent to a 56mm lens in 35mm format, which is not a portrait lens. It's, instead, a normal lens that "can" be used for portraiture, but a stronger lens in the 50mm or longer focal length would be a better option for 1/2 body length portraits or head shots.