Lens choices

[Chris Johnston]

I've been looking at various options for a zoom and the Laea2 and the a mount sal 1650 2.8 might be a viable option for one of my cams. (b&h had the la ea2 for 309 yesterday, noticed it's back to $400 now)

Anyway, I'd like to ask a few questions to kind of solidify my decisions.

Do you have a la-ea2? If so is the current functionality similar to the la ea1? (basicly, just get the ability to move the iris, and no autofocus or IS?......on the fs100)

Secondly, the "special notes from Sony" say this.....
Aperture setting for video capture is fixed at the maximum aperture of the lens or f/3.5, whichever is lower (AF-C).

Maybe I'm missing something but.........what does that mean? If I've got a 2.8 lens, can I only get 3.5? or if I've got a 4.5 lens I can somehow magically get 3.5 out of it? I'm not sure at all what that means???????

Basicly just looking for a good zoom in that (16ish to 55ish) range that I can at least adjust apeture with. (If I get AF or IS, that's just a bonus...)



EDIT.......I found this on the VG10 with la-ea2

Aperture is set to F3.5 when you record movies with autofocusing. When you are using a lens with an
F3.5 or smaller F-stop, aperture is set to the maximum F-stop of the lens. When you want to set your own
value for aperture to record movies, select [Aperture Priority] or [Manual Exposure] in [Shoot Mode],
and select manual focusing. If you change the aperture while recording a movie, the noise may be heard
or the screen may become brighter while the camcorder is processing the adjustment.

I'm not sure but as I read it , if you want autofocus and you're using a 2.8 lens, then you will ONLY get autofocus at 2.8. If you change it to 5.6 (or anything other than 2.8) then it manual focus only.