On Sun, 22 May 2011 22:21:08 +0200, D. St-Sanvain
wrote:

Hello,

Jon Anderson a écrit :
After years of dreaming and lusting, I finally have a quality camera, a Sony
A700.
...
So looking for recommendations on some good basic lenses. Zooms are a given,
but also quite open to fixed focal.
And, any sites to recommend with tips on getting good aviation shots?

Looking forward to finally taking shots worthy of sharing here.

As I know nothing about Sony cameras, I'll speak only of focal length,
not of the quality of the lenses which I have never used.
But let's see at your need closer.
What you want is spotting outside fences (in flight), attending to
airshows (in flight, rolling, static), visiting museums (static)...

The A700 has a x1.5 factor : a 100 mm focal long lens, fitted on a A700
body, will give you pictures as if they were taken with 150mm lens on
argentic films.

Sony cameras may be fitted with non-Sony lenses (Tamron, Minolta...)
which are sometimes cheaper.

For taxiing a/c, something like a Tamron 55-200 would be ok.
For fly past, you may need someting like 300 or 400mm. They have a
28-300, Sigma has a 70-300.
Image stabilisation is interesting at these lenths...

Nice thing bout Sony (and the Minolta DNA they contain) is that the
camera body has image stabilization built in. Any lens attached then
becomes stabilized by default.

Next steps are 400 and 500mm, but the price is "longer" too :s

Rob a bank and go for the Sigma 50~500 "Bigma" super zoom. I love
mine and get very good results; the zoom range makes it useful for
almost any airshow situation beyond closely packed static displays.
Hefty *******, though - you'll need a strong arm...

That's for the focal. Hope you'll find information about quality/price.

Second that. Looks like you are already getting good info from the
great folks here.

Bob ^,,^