Sony A57 Camera Question

[Parker]

Apologies if this is on the wrong place but I'm not sure where else it should go.

As some may know, I was in the market for a camera recently but other things came up and I stopped looking. But now I have the opportunity to purchase a brand new, never used Sony A57 camera for $300 so I'm looking for advice as to whether or not it is a good purchase.

A friend of mine offered it to me before he puts it on Craigslist, this is what he says it comes with.

Sony A57 camera body, 18-55mm lens, battery, battery charger, Sony camera strap, USB cable, CD rom, manual and guides. All in the original retail box.

Pictures...

As said, I know very little about camera and photography but I'd like a decent camera to take pictures of cars, animals, scenery and whatnot.

I appreciate any comments and advice.

 

[Mike Rotch]

This is the right place compadre

Here are my views, as an Alpha (a-mount) system user:

Pros of your opportunity
Decent price for a brand new A57. You could probably resell it on ebay for a $100 profit
There is nothing wrong with the camera vs comparable Canikon options
It will definitely do the job if you are going to use it as a camera to do casual photography

Cons of your opportunity
If you want to go beyond casual photography and are looking for variety of lenses, you're going to be disappointed. It seems Sony DGAF about a-mount users and apart from one or two cropped frames 35mm and 50mm lenses, the offerings are paltry. This means you'll have to look to Minolta lenses, which are pretty cheap, pretty good, but again, not mega in terms of variety. You can get into M42 manual focus legacy lenses as I did but eventually it just becomes easier to move to e-mount, which is what I recently did.

So it really depends on what you want out of it; something to do a bit of dabbling in photography, and something that will be very capable when you do reach for it, or something you'll envisage taking further as a hobby.

For the former, good deal. For the latter, think hard.


/2c

 

[ShaolinMasta]

Totally agree with the previous comment

Indeed having a camera with e-mount will solve a lot of problems in the selection of lenses.

Just wanted to add that regardless of the lens mount, a good lens will still have a hefty price. There is a considerable amount of very good lenses for a-mount in addition to Sony lenses such as Sigma (especially new "art" line of lenses), several wide-angle zooms from Tamron and Samyang lenses. In other words, you can pick up analogue to expensive Zeiss lenses suitable for a variety of creative purposes.