looking at new leses for my sony A350

[carnige]

hey guys im looking to buy 2 or 3 new lenses for my A350

what they will be used for are weddings some of the time. allot of portret work. and sports photography...

i have found that with the weddings i have been asked to do i have a 28-70mm lens which some of the time i find its not long enuff.... and i have a 55-200mm lens which is not shor enuff. so i was thinking of looking at some thing that has a wider length...

for the portret work and probably be used for the nice formal wedding shoots is a 50mm prime lens 1.8 or 1.4... i wont some very nice sharp pics.

and for the sports i was thinking of some along the lines of a 200 to 500 MM lens that can get down to around 5.6-6.5???

dose this sound ok or are there better options out there that ive missed? im still quite new to all this. ive still only got my twin lens kit with allot of accessoires

[Boo53]

Carnige

I have no real knowledge of whats involved in wedding work (other than that I have enough hassle dealing with owner builders and wouldn't ever consider getting involved with anything that involves Brides), but do you have a budget in mind.

Also if you're going to be doing wedding work, and getting paid for it I guess, perhaps up the budget for the lenses for that area and leave the sports side of it for the time being.

And then, of course, there's the matter of what sport. My sport, these days is Bushwalking, so largely landscape type shots. A long lens would be great for wildlife but I'm not going to carry that weight for 20-30km. Basketball is probably ok with a 200mm lens, as would be lawn bowls. Cricket & football could need 500mm or so, etc:

[carnige]

well i dont charge for wedding photography. at this stage i dont see my self good enuff to garentie gr8 shots so i only do it for fun... my wife and her frend runs a wedding planing buisness so ive been given alot of oppertunity to photograph weddings. so my misses offers her clients the opp of having a back up photographer for free so it gives me experance.

i just went out today and got my self a 50mm DT F1.8 prime lens.

the sports i do is manly motor sports i race in hill clime events. and like going down to the race way to photograph some. i allso like to wonder down the state football games to get some nice pics there.
i dont realy have a budget i have a bit of money saved up. but like i said i am still a noob so i dont wonna buy the best of the best if i dont know enuff to use its potentul. that being said i still dont wonna have to upgrade when i do get to that stage lol.

[Boo53]

I don't do weddings, so no idea there, but for footy something like the sigma 150-500 would probably be quite good, but I don't know whether you would be allowed to take it in to an AFL ground.

Perhaps if you posted into the sport & motor threads you'd get better advice - this sort of thing is probably more subject oriented than brand oriented - having said that I've got a couple of lenses off ebay, one a used Tamron 70-300 that would be a good start for football and cost around $100 (came from adelaide actually), and a brand new Konica-Minolta zoom that I'm quite happy with. Konica Minolta AF lenses generally fit sony alpha cameras

[MattyJKirk]

Depends on what sport you are doing...each sport requires different lenses and some require multiple lenses, I have the 70-300G and it handles most of the sport I cover but sometimes suffers from DOF issues as it is 5.6 @ 300.

[SimonG]

It depends on budget and whether you are looking to upgrade to full-frame in the future.

On your APS-C camera, perhaps something like the tamron 17-50 2.8 would be better for weddings vs 24-70? That can be found quite cheap, but apparently sharp. Combine with Sigma 50-150 2.8 or 70-200 2.8? My CZ16-80 gives great range, and beautiful IQ, but I think you would want the f2.8 for weddings/portraits.

If you are happy to use your 50 1.8, then maybe a Minolta 20/24/28 prime would be a good combo. A macro lens might be a useful prime to add too, e.g. tamron 90 2.8 could double as a nice portrait lens (although maybe a little long).

Just some ideas…