Camera Conundrum

I've been enjoying my Sony α DSLR-A200 for over a year now, but the 18-70mm f3.5 zoom lens that came in the box just isn't cutting it anymore.  I need more.  Like these:

1. The 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 Zoom Lens ($249.99): perfect for when I need telephoto zoom.
2. The DT 50mm f/1.8 Lens ($124.99): perfect for when I want to take crisp portrait photos that cause an artistically blurred background in low-light conditions.
3. The DT 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 Zoom Lens ($649.99): perfect for when I want to take wide-angle shots of the landscape when hiking.

The problem is that I don't have $1000+ to blow at one time.  So, my question is whether I should buy myself #1 and #2 this Christmas and #3 next Christmas, or vice versa.  What can I say?  It's a hard knock life.

2 comments:

George said...

You want #1 and #2 now. You can take decent wide angle, deep field pics with your point and shoot. You can't take shallow depth of field portraits without the short f-stop lens though.

Mike Cary said...

What are you taking photographs of that would require you to own the telephoto lens? I would get the last two. I have my prime lens on about 75% of the time and it works just fine. Just be prepared to get used to using your feet instead of your zoom! It's really a great idea since you seem to take quite a few pictures at parties and on hikes. The prime lens works great for the former and the wide angle zoom seems like a no-brainer for the latter.

Also, I don't know anything about Sony, but I assume that is not a full frame camera so you might want to make sure that lens will actually be 50mm. I have an APS-C camera, and in order to get a 50mm focal length, I actually have a 30mm prime lens. Something in the 28-30mm range will suffice. But like I said, I don't know Sony. On my camera, a 50mm lens is the equivalent of 80mm on a full frame sensor camera.