Need help SLT-A58 any Alpha lenses ?

[espr3ss0]

Wanting to purchase a Macro Lens but no idea what's best for me, but the main question is ... do all Alpha Cameras fit with any Alpha Lens ? I have an A58.

[Loubella]

Hi Yes any A mount Lens for a SLT Camera would fit your camera, from Sony, Sigma or Tamron will work even old Minolta lens 

Whats good for you depends on what sort of macro you want to photograh and how much you want to spend

Sony has a nice 30mm and 50mm macro, Some people find it a bit short but again depends on what you want to do. I have a Sigma 50mm macro and its great for indoor work. A lot of people like the Tamron 90mm macro gives you a bit more distance beteween you and your subject. 

Also there are a lot of tele zooms that can do pretty good close-up, but again depends what you want to shoot!

hope this helps

[Bieomax · Accepted solution]

Sony alphas now come in 2 mount types.

1. A Mount - original mount aquired from minolta (so second hand wise you have options for minolta AF lenses too - this is the mount on the A58)

2. E mount - a new mount brought in with the NEX cameras which also come under the Alpha brand too.

How to tell which sony made lens is for which mount is by the model, any lens starting SALxxx is for the Alpha A mount cameras, any lens with SELxxx is for the NEX/ICL cameras.

macro wise will depend on how your doing it (out doors or indoors preset up) and what sort of working distance and what sort of price you want to pay, but generally the smaller the mm of the lens the closer the working distance (distance from your front lens glass to the subject) when in full 1:1 macro (1mm in real life is 1mm on the sensor)

so for example you may find (dont quote me as these aren't real figures, but are representative) a 35mm macro lens you will have to be within 5cm of your subject, but a 100mm macro you might be 20cm away from the subject.

you dont always need a macro lens, i first started with a cheap reverse lens mount with my kit lens. The mount screwed into the filter thread of the lens which allowed you to connect the lens backwards to the camera.

maybe google diy macro or reversed lens macro and there are alots of good guides and information out there.

i have the minolta version of the 100mm f2.8 macro lens for normal 1:1 macro and its a very good lens, sony have carried on making this lens when they bought out minolta, so sony have the SAL100M28 lens.

my greatest tip is if your need to this get a good tripod and a focussing rail

anyhow i'll stop wittering on for now.

i hope this helps

Kind Regards

Mark.

[espr3ss0]

I bought the A58 with a standard lens which I think is 55mm for the Camera but have discovered I'm wanting better. The main use of the Macro Lens will be for photographing Jewellery, but I'm wanting to do from ... as clear as possible and no Bokeh / to as close as possible with plenty of Bokeh. Also as strong color as possible but I'm not meaning it's saturation, this might sound a little vague.

I'm not wanting to spend a great amount but up to £500 is ok. Thanks for the replies so far.

[espr3ss0]

Are Macro Lenses without zoom / focus depth ?

[espr3ss0]

Do you know why / what significant difference is between the Sony SAL 30M28 and the 50M28 and howcome one is roughly 179 and the other 529 ? It seems for such a price jump there would be a great difference.

[Bieomax]

Yes I'd imagine that its the 17-55mm kit lens that you have.

you can get zoom lenses with a macro feature (it generally allows you to focus near the object but not alot allow the full 1:1 ratio) but zoom lenses them selves are generally a compromise on image quality/light transmission as it generally takes more glass lenses to construct a zoom to give you the flexibility to change your viewing angle/zoom in.

so most of the better macro lenses come in the prime type of lens where you have a fixed field of view but it allows them to design the lens to have better qualities, such as image sharpness, contrast etc etc.

They do have focus depth (I'm presuming you mean depth of field on this) as the aperture setting will control that, so if you want more of the image in focus you raise the F number but you'll may need to compensate that by getting more light onto the subject.

Differences between the 30m28 and 50m28 is probably down to production quality.

The 30m28 is part of Sony's easy choice range of lenses (30m28, 35m18, 50m18 and 85m28) these are fairly cheap in construction as they are mainly plastic bodies but and I mean BUT have a very good reputation for image quality (they are very nice lenses I've the 50 & 85 and looking to get the 30 or 35) another bonus is that they are small and light, which I've found very handy when going on holiday, anyhow I digress. And considering these lenses are in the 100-200 pound range you get a lot of bang for your buck (to coin a phrase)

The 50m28 is not in that range, its constructed of better quality materials. also the image quality is reported to be far better then the 30m28.

you can check out user reviews of these lenses and others on

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

they also have a very nice community dedicated to the Minolta/Sony A mount lenses & cameras (although they recently started to expand to Sony E mount system due to the closeness both of the camera systems)

Hope this goes some where towards helping

Kind Regards

Mark.

[espr3ss0]

Thanks, has been helpful.

[Trampus94]

This is a bit late, however I have a Sony A58 and for macro I use the Tamron 70 - 300 mm which has a macro facility. Brilliant lens and only £99 from Jessops or on line.