18-70 mm lens

[Southsnapper]

My 18-70mm kit lens has gone off for repair, it was a week out of warranty but Sony don't want to know, trying to get through to them was a nightmare and expensive using their publicised phone number, I eventually gave up and sent it off to an independent camera repairer who want £90.00 to take it apart and find the fault with the fault coder, actually a screw in piece unscrewed and fell otu unnoticed by me , long winded a bit but that's the background.

I know some one who has a Konica Minolta 18-70mm lens with little use for sale for £30.00, my question is, is the Sony lens which I had basically re-badged or Konica Minolta?

I was going to buy the lens anyway as it's cheap as chips, if I'm not happy with it it will be stop gap till I save my pennies for a replacement.

Also on offer for £20.00 is a Sigma 24-70mm, would one or the other be a better buy?

Robert

[harveyzone]

I know some one who has a Konica Minolta 18-70mm lens with little use for sale for £30.00, my question is, is the Sony lens which I had basically re-badged or Konica Minolta?

I was going to buy the lens anyway as it's cheap as chips, if I'm not happy with it it will be stop gap till I save my pennies for a replacement.

Also on offer for £20.00 is a Sigma 24-70mm, would one or the other be a better buy?

The 18-70 is the same as the Sony one so you should see no change. They are widely available and fairly cheap, but £30 still sounds a very good price.

What is the Sigma 24-70mm? There are more than one. I have a 24-70 f/2.8 EX DG DF and it is far superior to the kit lens in most respects. There is also an F/3.5-5.6 which I believe is comparable to the kit lens, but loses the wide end so you may as well get the Minolta.

[Southsnapper]

The Sigma is a 3.5-4.5 28-70mm.

I was wondering if the Sigma image quality would be any better then the kit lens, to my untrained eye, I was very pleased with the Sony 18-70mm, but then coming from a point and shoot to a Dslr I suppose any lens could be an improvement.

Looking on the interweb it appears that the focusing distance of the Sony, is slightly shorter then the Sigma, a slight advantage of 30mm.

It's all a bit daunting to some one new to Dslr's

[KevinBarrett]

There is literally no point in getting the 18-70 kit lens repaired unless you've got sentimental reasons for keeping it. They are very inexpensive and the world is not about to run out of them.

I have been unable to find anything about this Sigma 28-70/3.5-4.5, but it will be far too little focal length for a non-full frame camera--particularly if you've already been used to 18-70, but it would give you some of that focal length at larger apertures than you had before. You might be better served by looking to the future and finding a lens you'll still use after you get your 18-70 back.

[Southsnapper]

Thank you for your help, I'll just get the 18-70mm and then pester you all as to what i should get next