Inspired by Alfredo, I saw her at the Mall yesterday-and a question

[Mira]

Wht

I have a Sony Alpha 100 18/70.
On Craigslist someone is offering a lens for it, Sony SAL 50F18
and it supposedly is designed for portrait photographs.

Is that worth it?
I don't have any idea what I'm talking about, but you guys will know.

[alfredo]

1. Beautiful baby. The composition is very good too.

I took 138 photos at a local Latino festival. I will be showing some soon.

[NV Whino]

2. First of all, beautiful portrait

Second, I found (when I was doing more people stuff) that the 135 mm telephoto I had at the time was ideal for portraits. It allowed you to get back aways and not get in people's faces and yet still focus in close. The slight telephoto aspect tended to flatten the face and prevent the big nose syndrome. The 50 mm I had the time, although a sharper lens, didn't do that. Probably the slight softness added to flattering portraits, too.

[Mira]

6. Thanks NVWhino - I rarely ever try people with my telephoto - don't think about it

actually. I am a bad one for asking permission and then just click clicking away, and then hopefully there is something worthwhile in the bunch.
I think I'll sit on my deck or porch and try some photos of pedestrians with the telephoto.

[alfredo]

8. You can get those 90 degree mirrors for you telephoto.

I used one in situations where there are a lot of camera shy people.

[hippywife]

3. What a cutie pie.

No wonder you couldn't resist take the shot. :hi:

[JeffR]

4. Simply wonderful portrait, Mira.

The expression on that face confirms my feeling that babies have just arrived from another planet and are puzzled and fascinated by earthlings, and remain so until they eventually acclimate to this world and consider themselves earthlings too, sometimes grudgingly.

As to your lens question, that 50mm will be functionally a 75mm on your camera, a pretty good focal length for portraits.

I found this review of the lens:

Pros:

* very good image quality at the center and the edge of the frame,
* insignificant chromatic aberration,
* small distortion,
* fairly well corrected coma,
* very good work against bright light,
* quite fast autofocus,


Cons:

* noticeable astigmatism,
* vignetting larger than in with competitors,
* autofocus could be more accurate and quieter,
* too much plastic in the body

http://www.lenstip.com/168.11-Lens_review-Sony_DT_50_mm_f_1.8_SAM_Summary.html

Canon and Nikon have been making nifty 50s - sharp, fast and cheap - for years, and it's nice to see Sony providing something comparable. I dropped a C note for my Canon 50mm 1.8 and love it. It's weightless compared to my other lenses. That's due to its all-plastic construction, which will be an Achilles heel when and if I ever drop it, but at least the replacement cost won't break the bank. It's decent for portraits, but especially useful as a street lens.

To over-generalize a little, most primes will give you better image quality than most zooms. They also force you to move around when you're composing a shot; never a bad thing. I'd say if you can get this for a good price, go for it.

[Mira]

5. Thank you so very much for taking the time to give me precisely the info I needed.

I'm coasting about to upgrade my camera in general if I can find one I can afford. My flash stopped working on the Alpha 100 and I think I'd like to get a Alpha 500. I rarely ever use flash, but the idea to not have it makes me feel weird.
The 100 works just fine except for that flash issue, and I'm thinking I'll keep it happily with that portrait lens on it or my 100-300 telephoto lens on it.

I agree with you about babies. They love me for some reason, and the parents rarely don't allow me to photograph them. Sometimes though they balk.
I always offer to send them the best one by email and I always follow through.

Additionally I also happen to believe that babies sometimes miscalculate the whole thing and decide that where they landed is not what they had in mind. Then they go back and try again.
(crib death)
There are those who will now think I am even more nuts than they already thought before.
I'll deal with it.
:)
thanks again!

[JeffR]

7. My pleasure!

(And you might be right at that about babies miscalculating.)

[Solly Mack]

9. I love it. Her expression!!!

[DisgustipatedinCA]

10. regarding the lens

Hi, Mira.

I shoot Canon, so I don't know much about Sony. But I do know that all manufacturers of DSLR's make a 50mm prime, usually more than 1. It looks like this is the case with Sony also. They make an f/1.8 model, and and f/1.2 model. The wider-aperture (f/1.2) will always cost more, and is typically of metal construction. The less expensive model has less of a maximum aperture (f/1.8 vs. f/1.2) and is typically made of plastic and very affordable. In the case of Canon, they have 3 models of 50mm's: f/1.2, f/1.4, f/1.8.

I have the f/1.8, and it's my sharpest lens, bar none. This is the experience that most shooters have with their 50mm lens, irrespective of who is making it. Apparently, engineering a 50mm lens, which is close to "normal" human vision, is not difficult for lens engineers. First, prime lenses are always sharper than zooms. Creating a zoom lens is all about tradeoffs. A prime lens won't zoom, but it doesn't have to be engineered with those tradeoffs, and so it's always sharper.

That said, I don't use the lens very much, mostly because portraiture isn't my mainstay.

As to the focal length of 50mm: your Sony camera appears to have a 1.5X crop sensor. This just means that you have to multiply the focal length by 1.5 to get the effective focal length. So your 50mm gets you 75mm. On full-frame cameras (and old film SLR's), portraiture is considered ideal between 50mm and 85-90mm. So on your crop camera, the 75mm lands squarely in the standardly-accepted portraiture range. It's a slight telephoto lens, which tends to be kinder to the shape of people's faces than a wider lens would be.

I'm not sure what prices you're seeing on Craigslist, but the eBay market looks like the median price for this lens is about $170.