Which lens to keep

BengaLover

I have 2 lens and want to sell one, I have the mSonyA33 camera which comes with a 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 SAM zoom lens and I have a Minolta lens that fits it which is a 28-80 0.4m/1.3ft Macro zoom..Which of these 2 would be the better all purpose lens to hang onto, I have ordered a better lens for specifically macro shots and figure I dont need to be juggling with 3 lenses.

magicbastarder

i'll answer with a question - which do you use most?

BengaLover

Just got the camera and the Sony lens came with it, and got the Minolta today. Basically what I want to know which will give me the best close up shots.
As you can guess Im a newbie..so apologies if my questions are a bit inane..:D

pixbyjohn

If you use both lens for a few months then you will be in a better position to know which one you use/like the most. Give yourself time to decide.

Gregor Samsa

It all depends on what you'll be shooting.

The 18-55 gives you a decent enough wide end (although it's not really a wide angle lens) on the A33 (APS-C sensor), so it's good for indoors or wider outdoor shots.

The 28-80 gives you a bit more reach at the long end (although it's not really a telephoto lens), so it's good for zooming on to slightly more distant objects, or isolating a subject from the background.

Both are f3.5-5.6, so neither has an advantage over the other in terms of aperture or low light use.

The 28-80 was the old kit lens in on the Mintolta Dynax film cameras. Optically, the 18-55 is probably better.

I have 2 Minolta 28-80s lying around at home from my old film cameras. I don't think I've ever bothered mounting them on my Sony DLSRs. I don't have the Sony 18-55 at all.

You say you've ordered a dedicated macro lens. The 28-80 isn't a true macro lens at all (even though it says "Macro" on it - it just can focus a bit closer than some other lenses, but it can't do 1:1 magnification), so I'd say you'll probably end up using the dedicated lens for all your macro stuff. I don't know what lens you've ordered, but if it's a proper macro prime, it will be much sharper, have wider aperture, and have true 1:1 magnification, all of which will trump either of your current lenses for macro use.

Lenses are all about needs. You're starting off, so it might take a bit of time to figure out what you need. So as pixbyjohn said, I'd hang onto the 28-80 for a couple of months and see how often you feel the need to use it. If you find you don't much, then sell it on. But be aware that there's tonnes of them about, they were a cheap kit lens to begin with, and they're not in much demand on DSLRs, so you won't get too much for it.

Macro aside, the 28-80 only gives you a 25mm advantage over the 18-55, which isn't really that much. People talk about "zooming with their feet", meaning that you don't always need lenses to cover all focal lengths - just move yourself to frame the shot the way you want it. It's usually easier to get closer to a subject than farther away from it (especially indoors or on city streets), and in the instances where you can't get closer, you can crop and zoom the photo later. You obviously can't "zoom out" later. So I'd value the wider advantage of the 18-55 over the slight zoom advantage of the 28-80 - given that they're both the same aperture.

My personal opinion is that there's too much of an overlap between the two lenses, and that the 18-55 is probably slightly better and a more useful focal range, so that would be the one to keep - but that's solely based on my shooting preferences. Something like a 70-300 would be a good complement to the 18-55 - or the Tamron 18-270, which would effectively cover the range of both lenses in one tidy package.

PS, Which macro lens did you go with?