Picking a lens...

[Jennifer2010]

Hi everyone,

Thanks to Terry, I've decided on getting the Sony a77.

I'm trying to decide on a lens, and I'm having trouble narrowing things down...

1) Since I'll be shooting indoor volleyball both photos and video, I'm assuming I would want a focal length range that goes up to around 85 - 100, but low enough to where I can stand right on the side of the court and have the whole team in the shot for video. During video, the zoom in/out is important, so I would want to avoid having two separate lenses.

This is the lens I'm looking at for that point: DT Carl Zeiss 16-80mm f/3.5-4.5 Zoom

2) I've seen some other lenses for Nikon and Canon but I know there's some compatibility issues there. Are there adapters I can use, or is that something I don't even want to go near?

3) Is there a way to change depth of field without having to rely on the aperture? For videos of the whole team, I would want most everything in focus instead of just a player or two, opposed to just tracking one player.

Here's the other lenses from Sony I was looking at...

16-35 (Seems like not enough zoom)
24-70
28-75

I'm not sure why their prices vary so much...

I was looking at their other lenses as well such as the 70-200mm but I'm worried that the 70mm will be too zoomed for recording the entire team in one shot while standing on the court.

I see an 18-250mm which sounds perfect but it's only $600, so it makes me wonder if the quality would be lacking compared to others. Price is no option btw...

Anyways, thanks so much for your insights!

[Jennifer2010]

So I'm looking at my Canon XA10 camcorder specs and it's a 10x zoom cam (about half what I need, since 20x is the minimum I'd want) and it says:

Focal Length: f-4.25-42.5mm (35mm equivalent 30.4 - 305 35mm)

I am assuming that the 42.5mm is what I should be looking at for comparing to a lens to buy for the a77.

If so, that makes me feel like I must narrow the lenses down to
28-75mm f/2.8 Zoom Lens
or
DT Carl Zeiss 16-80mm f/3.5-4.5 Zoom

Thoughts?

[Chris350]

So I'm looking at my Canon XA10 camcorder specs and it's a 10x zoom cam (about half what I need, since 20x is the minimum I'd want) and it says:

Focal Length: f-4.25-42.5mm (35mm equivalent 30.4 - 305 35mm)

I am assuming that the 42.5mm is what I should be looking at for comparing to a lens to buy for the a77.

If so, that makes me feel like I must narrow the lenses down to
28-75mm f/2.8 Zoom Lens
or
DT Carl Zeiss 16-80mm f/3.5-4.5 Zoom

Thoughts?

Throw out the equivalent from above. Toss the 10x-20x, stuff it doesn't apply with DSLR, as zoom is all in the lens. This is why I listed a range of lenses in my first post to cover focal lengths form 16mm all the way out to 300 mm. You need to cover 24mm for wide angle to a minimum of 85mm for court side. See above post regarding light, and buy an f2.8, you will most likely be unable to use supplemental lighting in a high-school or college gym.
These are 35mm equivalents. If the A77 is a DX (non full frame) sensor you will be looking for a lens that starts in the 16-18 mm range since the crop factor changes the field of view of 35mm or full frame lenses.

Rules of thumb:
FX or 35mm standard lens is 50mm, on a crop sensor this effectively becomes a 75mm lens which is a short telephoto length.
DX (crop sensor) standard is about 35mm which is wide angle range on FX/35mm

Crop factor is generally about 1.5, meaning 35mm covers 1.5 times (more than) the area of the DX (crop) sensor. Even FX sensors are not full 35mm equivalents, but the difference is negligible.

[OldClicker]

Hi everyone,

Thanks to Terry, I've decided on getting the Sony a77.

I'm trying to decide on a lens, and I'm having trouble narrowing things down...

1) Since I'll be shooting indoor volleyball both photos and video, I'm assuming I would want a focal length range that goes up to around 85 - 100, but low enough to where I can stand right on the side of the court and have the whole team in the shot for video. During video, the zoom in/out is important, so I would want to avoid having two separate lenses.

This is the lens I'm looking at for that point: DT Carl Zeiss 16-80mm f/3.5-4.5 Zoom

2) I've seen some other lenses for Nikon and Canon but I know there's some compatibility issues there. Are there adapters I can use, or is that something I don't even want to go near?

3) Is there a way to change depth of field without having to rely on the aperture? For videos of the whole team, I would want most everything in focus instead of just a player or two, opposed to just tracking one player.

Here's the other lenses from Sony I was looking at...

16-35 (Seems like not enough zoom)
24-70
28-75

I'm not sure why their prices vary so much...

I was looking at their other lenses as well such as the 70-200mm but I'm worried that the 70mm will be too zoomed for recording the entire team in one shot while standing on the court.

I see an 18-250mm which sounds perfect but it's only $600, so it makes me wonder if the quality would be lacking compared to others. Price is no option btw...

Anyways, thanks so much for your insights!

First, bad news - according to today’s news/rumors, you may have a hard time finding an A77 due to the floods in Thailand. May be Feb. before they start shipping again. If you cannot wait that long, back to the other brands.

Sports photography is one of the hardest to buy lenses for – really bad light and fast action. You will be amazed how dark a gym is. Lenses in general (whatever brand) - you are going to be looking at the compromise between convenience, image quality (IQ) and cost. Since cost is relatively unimportant, for you that’s going to mean mostly zoom range (and size/weight) vs. image. It is very unlikely that you are going to get what you want in one (or even two) lenses. For the low light, you are going to need ‘fast’ lenses. ‘Fast’ means wide aperture (low f/stop numbers) like a constant f/2.8 (vs. something like the f/4.5-5.6).

I would recommend:

Body – A77 (Canon 7D, Nikon D7000) - $1200-$1600
The A77 bundled lens (I don’t know what would be the Canikon equivalent) – 16-50 f/2.8 - $600 with the body
70-200mm f/2.8 - $1800-$2500
50mm f/1.8 (or even f/1.4) since these are fast, value lenses - $60 (used) to $400

Then go out and try shooting and see what shots you can’t get with this gear. That will tell you what else you need.

Also, a flash (and really learning how to use it) is a real asset to any kind of photography.

I also want to be sure you realize that expensive equipment does NOT make photography more ‘auto’, but actually makes it harder in that you need to learn how to get the functionality out of the equipment. It’s going to take time and a lot of practice.

Terry

[Jennifer2010]

Thanks so much for the advice, guys! I have no problem waiting for the a77 as I plan on buying in May or early June of next year - which gives me plenty of time to sort all of this out. I'm hoping maybe Canon or Nikon would come out with a 1080/60p video function... but either way the a77 seems awesome.

Okay, so I totally understand getting a 2.8 for low lighting in gyms. I'm wondering, using that aperture - does that make the depth of field really shallow? Is it possible to use a low aperture but have a higher depth of field - for say when I'm recording video and want the entire team in focus? Or does that have to do with focal length as well?

Also, what's wrong with the 16-80mm? Or the 24-70? I'm clueless as to why the 16-80 is cheaper than the 24-70. The 24-70 is double the price...

24-60 @ 2.8 = $1799. SAL-2470Z | Carl Zeiss® 24-70mm f2.8 Zoom Lens | Sony | Sony Store USA

16-80 @ 3.5 = $899. SAL-1680Z | SAL-1680Z - Carl Zeiss® Vario-Sonnar T* DT 16-80mm f/3.5-4.5 Zoom Lens | Sony | Sony Store USA

Maybe the aperture is what's making it cost more? Then again, the 28-75 @ 2.8 is cheaper than both at $799 - SAL-2875 | 28-75mm f/2.8 Wide-Angle Lens | Sony | Sony Store USA - Although it's not a CZ.

[NoKnees]

A few things play into the cost, especially between those two lenses...

The 24-70mm Zeiss is a full-frame lens and has a built in silent focusing motor. It also supports a wider aperture as you noted, with very high quality glass large enough to support full-frame cameras like the a900. This is a heavy lens.

The 16-80 Zeiss is also high quality, but is an older design with a mechanical "screw-drive" motor for focusing and is designed for the crop sensor (APS-C) cameras like the models a100 through a700 as well as the a33-a77. It's also marginally slower (smaller aperture), which is less costly to build and will require more light to shoot effectively with.

Oh, and the older 28-75mm f2.8 is an older design as well, mechanical focusing, and not nearly as sharp wide open as the Zeiss options above. "OK" for some stuff, but I would not recommend it for low-light indoor action work... I tried one and sold it pretty quickly... It wasn't very sharp wide open, and had focusing issues with sports...

For your use, ideally you'd want an SSM version of the 16-80 lens, but that's not an option. The kit 16-50mm f2.8 lens may actually be your best bet to get started, as someone else suggested. Then, if you find you need more zoom, look into purchasing an additional 70-200mm f2.8 lens to get closer to the action.

When shooting video, you'll want to use a lens with an internal silent motor. The 24-70mm has this, as well as the new kit 16-50mm. Otherwise, you'll hear a lot of noise from the mechanical focusing system used in other lenses. This can be avoided if you use an external mic which the a77 supports.

The example you give of trying to get a greater depth of field to show the entire team when you zoom out, rather than the shallow depth of field of an individual when you are zoomed in, is primarily controlled by the aperture, but distance and wide angle vs zoom play a big part. In general you get a greater depth of field at a set aperture when shooting at a wide angle compared to being zoomed in. Example:

16mm f2.8 focused 20 feet away gives you a depth of field that starts a little less than 10ft from you going to near infinity. Generally sufficient.

50mm f2.8 focused 20 feet away gives you a depth of field starting 17.5 ft away going to about 23ft. Giving you just about 5 ft of area in focus.

To play around with these numbers, check out: Online Depth of Field Calculator Pick something like the Sony a700, as it's an APS-C sized sensor as well. Plug in different apertures and zooms to get an idea.

Keep in mind, if you are shooting video, you'll need to practice a bit with the manual video settings on the a77. By default I think it tries to shoot at f3.5 with an ISO limit of 1600. This may not give you the results you need so you'll need to play with some of the other video modes like aperture priority, etc..

No matter the gear, you'll need to work a bit to get good results. Don't get frustrated if it doesn't come easy, and never stop asking questions.

[Jennifer2010]

Thank you for the response! I think my best bet will be the 24-70, then... Then if I need more zoom, I'll get another. Thanks for the help, very much appreciated!

[Jennifer2010]

Forgot to ask again - am I able to look at other branded lenses and use an adapter? Or is that something I want to stay away from when getting started?

[SmartWombat]

I would stay away from adapters.

[NoKnees]

What Paul says, steer clear of adapters. The only other lenses to consider would be Tamron or Sigma, as they make versions specific to the Sony A-Mount, and offer some with their own silent motors built in. Both make a pretty good 70-200mm range f2.8 for about half the price as Sony. Need to make sure they offer their motor in the Sony mount first though.

As for your initial lens choice, the 24-70mm is solid, good quality, and will hold it's value well. I own one and definitely like it, but it seems better suited for a full frame camera like the a900 due to the 24mm at the wide end.

The concern is that there is a big difference between 24mm and the 16mm on the kit 16-50mm Sony f2.8 lens. This cannot be understated. You mentioned you'll be on the sideline so the 16mm might be a better choice if you want to get shots of the team huddles during timeouts, and things like that.

If anything, I'd order the a77 with the kit 16-50mm lens and try that out first. Normally I'm not one to push the kit lens, but this one has been redesigned to show-off the a77. It's definitely not your average kit lens.

If you don't like it, you can resell it for the full cost you paid to add it to the kit, as they are not readily available to purchase separately yet and people do want them. You can easily pick up a Zeiss 24-70mm from most high end camera stores these days. SonyStyle always has them in stock for quick delivery as well.

If the kit lens works, that frees up some money to spend on a good 70-200mm f2.8 lens, which sooner than later, you will find you can't live without.

[Jennifer2010]

That sounds like a good plan, I'll do that. Will have to wait until spring before I end up buying anything but will make sure to remember that. Thanks so much for the help!!!!