I'm new to forum-lens questions

[Cdubs]

Hi there,

I'm new to the forum. I am a proud owner of a Sony A700 camera! I bought it because I own a minolta maxxum 400si. I've had my A700 camera now for over a year. I have two lenses, a Sigma 70-210 4-5.6, and the Minolta Lens that came with my 400si when I purchased it over 10 years ago. I have many questions and thank you to anyone who takes the time to answer, but here are my first few questions.

My Sigma lens is now broken. I took it to my local camera store because the lens makes a grinding noise on my A700 and won't focus or let me take pictures. (it just started doing it about a month or so now, so it did work with the A700 initially). Should I bother repairing it? Or just junk it? The man at the store told me it would probably cost me as much to fix it as to buy a new lens. (He didn't really look at it though, he just made a "general" observation.) So if anyone has feedback on your experience with lens repair and cost that would be great.

Ok my second question. I have obviously been on the lookout for a new lens now. I've been researching lenses on the net and came across this forum. The man at the store initially showed me the Sony A75300 lens and luckily I didn't buy it right away. Ok, so I'm now looking at this "Beercan" lens (had to do more research to find out exactly what everyone is referring too!) and I'm pretty much sold. I've seen some on ebay for $150->300 but read on another forum that one cannot know when you buy on ebay that you would be getting a "legit/real" minolta maxxum beercan lens. Is there anything I should look out for when looking at the lens? Also, any other suggestions you may have as to where to get one?


That's it for now.

Cdubs