What lens to get with a Sony a77 body

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The Sony a77 comes with a 16-50mm f2.8 kit lens which seems to be very good but I was thinking of just getting the body and a better lens. The only ones I can find with equivilant zoom are either the Sony 16-35mm f2.8 ZA Vario-Sonnar T* lens or Sony 24-70mm f2.8 Vario-Sonnar T* Zoom Lens.

Do their quality greatly outweigh the kit lens?
 
The 2 Zeiss lenses you mentioned are around £1400 each. There's no way it's worth 'paying' £900 more than the excellent 16-50 f2.8 kit lens.

The 16-50 f2.8 SSM is much better than the usual 'kit lenses' you get. It actually gets the same average mark for sharpness on Dyxum forums as the 24-70 does!
 
Sony 16-50mm F/2.8 is a fantastic lens.

Fast focusing, silent, well built and sharp.

Because the A77 is crop the 16-50mm makes a great companion over the 24-70 variants.
 
Indeed, the 16-50 f/2.8 really isn't a kit lens as such, it's £550 on it's own, and for that price, the quality is excellent.. Bought as a 'kit' you get a healthy discount on the lens which is probably why it's so

Some people often look at the CZ16-80 f/3.5-4.5 which has almost identical performance to the 16-50, but you get the extra zoom length, sacrificing the low light f/2.8.. And the 16-80 isn't SSM (so not quite silent focussing in video, and possibly a little slower focussing?)
 
The 24-70 is a full frame lens though. So if you're not looking to go full frame in the future i'd stick to the 16-50mm.

Vignetting isn't really a problem though is it? It's very easily taken out in post.

I think the 24-75mm true focal length of the 16-50mm is nicer as a single lens than having the 36-105mm of the Zeiss on a 1.5 crop camera. Having the wide angle, at least for me it was, was much more versatile.
 
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There will be some aspects of the Zeiss lenses that are better than the Sony 16-50 f2.8. I don't think it's worth paying the extra premium for though.

I'd much rather get the 'kit' lens and something like the Sigma 70-200 f2.8 OS HSM for around £900 (or £1500 for the Sony if you can stretch that far). That'll be a great setup.
 
fozzybear said:
There will be some aspects of the Zeiss lenses that are better than the Sony 16-50 f2.8. I don't think it's worth paying the extra premium for though.

I'd much rather get the 'kit' lens and something like the Sigma 70-200 f2.8 OS HSM for around £900 (or £1500 for the Sony if you can stretch that far). That'll be a great setup.
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That's true. With regards to a prime lens would the Sony 35mm f1.4 G or Sony 50mm f1.4 lens be more suitable for portrait, group and wide angle landscape shots?
 
For a pure portrait lens the 50mm would be better. The 16-50mm would be good for the rest of those shots you mentioned.
 
Thanks. Regarding a telephot lens I have a Tamron 70-200 5.6 atm so will want an upgrade. Two choices are the Sigma 70-200 f2.8 or the Tamron 70-200mm f2.8. According to DPReview:

the Sigma's not as sharp, according to our tests, and the Tamron doesn't have ultrasonic focusing.
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I'm not too concered about ultrasonic focusing so the Tamron seems to give it a slight edge.
 
David Kilpatrick made an interesting note about the 16-50 SSM on an EVF camera here

After using the Alpha 77 for a bit I realised that f/2.8 does make a significant difference to the EVF. I guess I missed this out from my test report. With an optical finder, you don't get any significant gain in brightness much past f/4, depends on the finder screen but the best ones like the A700/A900 get brighter up to f/2.8 (the grid screens) - however, they only get brighter up to f/2.8 because they are darker at f/4... etc. Modern consumer camera screens like the A580 are designed to be as bright as possible at apertures like f/3.5 to f/6.3 commonly found on zooms.

BUT EVF finders get brighter in direct proportion to the lens used, in low light. So, a 16-50mm used at 50mm at f/2.8 is passing twice as much light at the CZ 16-80mm at 50mm, and even more relative to the 18-55mm kit lens or the 16-105mm, or the 18-250mm (etc) which are generally f/5 to f/5.6 at 50mm. These lenses may be two stops less in light transmission.

That means the EVF has to apply two stops more gain in low light and you get a worse viewing image. Also, I realised that the new focusing module responds better to f/2.8 lenses.
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