Buying walkabout lens for A200 Any advice?

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GafferTape

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I’ve recently upgraded from a Fuji bridge to the Sony A200, after playing around with my friends Canon 450. I’ve taken it out for a couple of days of random city shooting, and have no complaints, enjoying the camera.

I’ve been thinking about upgrading the kits lens, although at the moment I have no problems with the lens, as I’m just starting out.

However, I have family coming in from US, and if there’s an opportunity to pick up a good lens for a good price, then that would be great. I had a look at the prices in B&H (place that will most likely be used to buy from) and Warehouse Express, and the one that jumped out at me is the Tamron 28-80, which is £90 on WE, but only $79 in B&H.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/97386-REG/Tamron_AF77M700_Zoom_W_A_Telephoto_AF_28_80mm.html

I’m after a nice/decent walkabout lens, that can do anything from general landscape to macro-ish type photos. Would the Tamron be a decent upgrade on the kits lens? Ideally I would like something with a bit more range, as having from the bridge world with an 18x optical zoom, I did slightly miss having a longer range. The Tamron 18-200 is $260, which is a bit more than WE, but they are showing it out of stock...

I was just after some advise on what I could get brought across from the US at a decent price.

Thanks in advance, apologies for the waffly approach…
 
What lens do you have now?

I ask as I can't see how the Tamron 28-90 would be an upgrade so a standard 18-55 style kit lens. Sure you get a bit of reach but loose the wide end and the reach you get is not much at all really.Maybe a 70-300mm to give you the reach you need?
Or is there a 50mm F1.8 you can get cheaper for a Sony?
 
That Tamron gets very similar scores on Dyxum to the kit lens, both not brilliant.
IMO you would be better off with a metal bodied 35-105 from Ebay, I think there are at least 2 of them currently on Ebay. Here is one of them 400045442160, just as plently of questions if buying on Ebay.
 
Thanks for the comments. That's the 28-80 Tamron out then. I’ve got the 18-70 Sony kit lens. I guess I need to go back to figuring out what I want from a walkabout lens, and then see if it’s any cheaper in the US. The 35-105 looks interesting, but just wondering a bit whether the lack at the lower range will be very noticeable.

Ideally, I’d probably want something in the 17-105+ range, but presumably there are cost implications on that… So with that in mind, I'm going to change the title of this thread to think about what I need in a walk about lens.
 
My 35-105 is on my a200 for 90% + of the time, if I need to go wider I pop the 18-70 on.
Sony do a 16-105, which gets much better Dyxum reviews, but I don't know if anyone here has one, but will probably cost around the £400 mark
 
I'm selling a 35-105mm f3.5-4.5 Minolta lens if you are interested?

I can't list it on these forums yet so it's listed on another forum at the moment!:shake:

Here's a pic of it:

DSC00665a.jpg
 
A Minolta 75-300 on ebay was/is £110. No idea about getting used from the US, but might be cheaper.
 
GafferTape said:
The Tamron 18-200 is $260, which is a bit more than WE, but they are showing it out of stock...
Click to expand...
tamron 18-250mm is much better than the 18-200mm & probably the best "1 lens does it all" for Minolta/Sony fit (the Sony version based on it is even better but dearer) but given the £/$ exchange rate I'm not sure that it's currently worth importing stuff from the US (especially if you consider potential VAT charges & warranty issues).
 
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