Hi . I currently own a Sony A200 and have three lenses, kit lens 18-70, Sigma 70-300 and Minolta 50 mm f1.7. The A200 is a camera I enjoy using but the higher iso performance isn't brilliant and of my lenses the 50 mm is great but the AF speed on the others is sluggish in anything but good light . So my question is when i go to upgrade in the future should I upgrade the body or the lenses, I suppose I am asking is good glass more important than a good body? Which way would you go ? I should say it takes a long time for me to get the finances available to change gear so I couldn't just do a complete change of body and lenses .
What to upgrade?
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- keith
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buy better glass is the short answer.
good glass now will still be good glass in years to come, look at the minolta 50mm you have now-it's years old but still takes cracking shots. it's no good changing to a super-duper camera will a massive megapixel count and fancy sensor if the lens on the front is sub-standard, it will need good glass to resolve those millions of pixels and get a sharp image.
the weak link in your set-up is the 18-70mm kit lens, so i'd be looking at upgrading that before looking at other bodies. the tamron 17-50mm f2.8 get's good reviews and it's constant aperture of f2.8 should help shoot at lower iso's that your kit lens so it'll help redice noise. another option would be the sigma 17-50mm f2.8 but at £550ish it's over £200 more expensive than the tamron.
i had the same thoughts as you about changing from sony before xmas but i'd read about the quality of the old minolta lenses and thought i should at least give them a go. my girlfriend bought me the 50mm f1.7 and 70-210mm f4 'beercan' and i can honestly say i love them. the beercan in particular shoots well above it's price range (search beercan on flickr for examples).
i'm replacing my 18-55mm kit lens with the tamron 17-50mm f2.8 and i reckon i should be well enough set up to upgrade my body when sony get round to replacing the a700.
good glass now will still be good glass in years to come, look at the minolta 50mm you have now-it's years old but still takes cracking shots. it's no good changing to a super-duper camera will a massive megapixel count and fancy sensor if the lens on the front is sub-standard, it will need good glass to resolve those millions of pixels and get a sharp image.
the weak link in your set-up is the 18-70mm kit lens, so i'd be looking at upgrading that before looking at other bodies. the tamron 17-50mm f2.8 get's good reviews and it's constant aperture of f2.8 should help shoot at lower iso's that your kit lens so it'll help redice noise. another option would be the sigma 17-50mm f2.8 but at £550ish it's over £200 more expensive than the tamron.
i had the same thoughts as you about changing from sony before xmas but i'd read about the quality of the old minolta lenses and thought i should at least give them a go. my girlfriend bought me the 50mm f1.7 and 70-210mm f4 'beercan' and i can honestly say i love them. the beercan in particular shoots well above it's price range (search beercan on flickr for examples).
i'm replacing my 18-55mm kit lens with the tamron 17-50mm f2.8 and i reckon i should be well enough set up to upgrade my body when sony get round to replacing the a700.
Thanks for the reply lexie. I did think that would be the answer but its good to have a second opinion. Have to agree with your thoughts on the kit lens it isn't the best and the lens I was thinking of changing it for is the Tamron 28-75 f2.8 lens ( around £350), I have read good reviews of it, not sure if its wide enough though. the other route I am considering is going for prime lenses because I have been so impressed with the Minolta 50mm it just produces such sharp images with great colours. The Minolta 28mm f2.8 ( cheap on ebay!) or the Sony 35mm and 85mm are the ones I have considered. Thanks again for the reply