My Turn For Camera Help

Actually that lens is not good ( I have one) it just doesn't measure up to the capabilities of the A 57 & A65. I am not sure what reviews were read for the above conclusion but the reviews I have read have been less than flattering. As for extension rings for macros.....I found them very disappointing on my A 65, and my A380 my previous camera. The biggest problem was that at times the electrical contacts in the extension ring would not line up properly and the camera would indicate a no lens error....The results going fully manual were disappointing

For the price of the extension rings at Adorama a Minolta AF macro would be a much better buy. Going very cheap now and buying extension rings IMHO risks ending up more expensive than getting a solid second hand macro lens straight off. I say that because that was my experience.

that link takes us to the work of a very well experienced photographer, not some one learning. And it is pictures of insects not coins

I would suggest again, from my experience using extension rings on a A57 is disappointing, and as I found a waste a money. Now that I have gained a lot more experience I am sure I could go back and use the extension rings with better results but I wouldn't recommend it for someone new to macro photography. I repeat based on my experience.

Congratulations! Your A57 is one of the best APS C cameras made and a better camera than most on this forum use. I am a regular Sony shooter (A77 24megapixel) with over 50,000 shots on my camera. Not all good of course. You will be happy to know that you have many exciting options with your A57.

First, let me correct some of the MISINFORMATION given to you by Superdave, one of the best shooters on the forum, but alas, not a Sony shooter. You can use your camera with a remote shutter device which will fire your camera untouched by human hands. This is important! They can be had on ebay for about $5. Make sure you get the one for SONY CAMERAS as the others will not work for you.

I recommend the Vivitar 55mm macro lens, in M42 mount. It is a manual lens and great for coin photography. You can buy it for about $100 on ebay, like I did. It is a sharp 1:1 macro that will give you excellent professional coin photos. M42 to Sony adapters are also cheap on ebay. The lens and adapter work fine in program mode. Just set the ISO to 100 or 200 in program mode, set the aperture you want on the lens and focus it. Use a copy stand ($30 ebay) I prefer 100 watt CFL lamps in my portable lighting. Try to get as close to 5500 Kelvin temperature (daylight) lamps as possible.

Actually, taking good sharp coin photos is quite technical, but easy to do if you follow all of the steps. You are trying to take a well focused photo and eliminating all possible vibration at the same time. I use a couple of cheap $3 goose neck lights from Walmart. I put them as close (1 to 2 inches) as possible to the coin with more light. This prevents some of the underlighting problems others have experienced on this forum. I stick the lights right next to the coin at 10 o'clock and 2 oclock. I mostly shoot 200 year old coppers. Other metals will possibly need other lighting schemes.

To fucus the camera, I prefer a focusing rail for fine focus. $20 on ebay. On your camera your probably have a smart telephoto button or the like. If you go into the menu and find the area that gives options for that button, you can change it to a magnification button. When you do this, it will magnify your lcd screen or evf to about 15 power. You can then get a very fine focus with your lens and focusing rail. The movement of the camera under magnification will also show you the great need for a good copy stand and the remote triggering device. When you take a shot, DO NOT MOVE AROUND and let the camera settle down before shooting. Good luck and happy shooting.

By the way, go to Gary Friedman's website and buy his digital manual for your A57. It will help you understand your great camera! I bought the one for mine.

I should have made similar comment earlier. I started using Sony's because I was "conned into it at the camera shop I went to. However that con led to me sticking to the sony brand. My first as noted earlier was an A380 ( a true DSLR). It had been sold to me as being really good for Macro. However when I moved up to the A65 this year I soon realized how limiting the A380 had been. I suspect you will never regret your buy of the A57. From time to time I run into the odd cannon or Nikkon user who are disparaging about the Sony system. Ignore those people as they usually have never used a Sony system and it is obviously brand loyalty the are displaying.

Good luck with what ever lens system you get for Macros..... I did a check on the Minolta 100mm macro. Sony is actually still producing that lens( as the Sony 100 mm macro).Earlier I noted that the Maxxum lens were not the best Minolta lens to get..but checking some reviews I see that in this case the 100mm maxxum macro is actually a good deal. The only "problem being you will not have AF-D function(This is a function that enables the camera to track moving subjects I have never used it and suspect it is only on the A99) and automatic lens correction with the older Minolta lens.


Here is a solid review of the 100mm (but look at reviews of other candidate lenses on-line)

http://www.kenrockwell.com/minolta/...f28.htm#perf


One of the most useful places for getting user reviews on lenses is:

http://www.dyxum.com/lenses/results...IDLensType=2

One other thing you may want to do is check to see that the Cameras firmware is up to date. There was a release of a firmware upgrade at the beginning of this year....but some shop purchased camera may have the older version. Its pretty easy to update the firm ware.

Tough crowd here, but I'll still offer my opinion...

The 18-55 kit lenses offered by the various manufacturers are not really optimum for studio vertical macro shots. They can be OK in the field, or in a horizontal setup, but what I found from both my Canon and Nikon kit lenses is their zoom rings tend to creep when held vertically. This makes using them for coins very problematic, beyond any quality or other issues. Now, regarding those quality issues, these lenses are good within their intended macro ranges, but they don't do well at closer focus due to curved-field distortion. In the field, this is not such a problem since you must stop-down anyway to get reasonable DOF. But for coins, stopping down that much will cause significant overall loss of sharpness, and most folks don't want to mess with stacking, so you will end up with sharp centers and fuzzy rims...

You know, he's probably got something there. I had no such problem when I was experimenting with my Canon 18-55, but it goes back to what I mentioned about production variances in lenses - I might have had a "good" one from that standpoint.

Hated it optically, though.

I can't believe how much I'm learning from this thread... thanks to everyone that has shared their knowledge.

I just ordered a remote from a Chinese seller and had to share the feedback left on my ebay account:






Someone must have provided them with a list of comments to copy and paste with these intructions at the top of the list.