| Author | Message | ||
     Pwnzor |
I don't want to hijack the other Nikon thread, so... What's a good lens to get for my wife's camera? I don't really want to spend $1000 She does a lot of close up work under artificial lights. We have those big white umbrella things, with "natural" light bulbs. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Meh. Should have hijacked it.  I am assuming it is a Nikon D5100? What does she have now? Does she have any "prime" lenses? Like a 35mm F1.8 AFS DX lens? About $159, and it can do some things the zooms can't begin to touch. It doesn't zoom, but who cares for studio work. The 50mm F1.8 would be a good one to consider also. Because they are DX lenses, the 35mm acts like a 50mm used too, and the 50mm acts more like a 70mm. Both lenses are good value for the money. | ||
| Reepicheep |
BTW, that is a sweet little camera! | ||
| Pwnzor |
I'll have to look at it when I get home. I bought her the set that came with the camera body, and two lenses. A short one and a longer one... maybe 300mm? I'll get back to you. Thanks for the quick response. | ||
| Jeepinbueller |
I have the 35mm f1.8 for my D90 that I shoot with almost 90% of the time. The 50mm f1.8 would be a nice addition, but I'm more interested in the 18-200mm f3.5——I borrowed one from a friend to take the place of my 35mm and 55-200mm on a tripe to Iceland last year. He almost didn't get that lens back. Your wife wouldn't get any use out of it unless she works outside, though. She'd probably like the 50mm very much for portrait work. (Message edited by jeepinbueller on May 04, 2015) | ||
| Damnut |
I have a D90 with a 50mm f1.8 and it's a great low cost lens, especially for studio work. The lenses that you got her were probably the 18-55mm f4-5.6 and a 55-200mm f4-5.6 or something like that. Those two are pretty standard. | ||
| Reepicheep |
I get nervous when the "zoom range" is too far. It feels like any kind of lens like that I can afford will probably suffer in terms of quality. The 18-55 and 55-200 are great in terms of bang for the buck and flexibility provided you have enough light (which you often do). The 50mm would be great for getting portraits without having to jam a camera in somebodies face. The 35mm would be better for landscape and architecture. Something even wider would be even better, but costs get stupid fast. | ||
| Pwnzor |
18-55mm f4-5.6 and a 55-200mm f4-5.6 Those be them. It does seem that you need a lot of light to get good pictures. Outside, they're great. Inside, up close to her dolls... she goes through a lot of work to get good pictures. So... is this good? Or what about this one? | ||
| Reepicheep |
I would stick with the Nikon glass. When you factor in quality, there really isn't any price premium for the brand. And there are non Nikon lenses that are just as good, but you never know which are which, and some of the expensive non nikon lenses are staggeringly bad (I've used one on a friends camera). That lens you linked to on Amazon is an FX lens. That is more expensive, and is a better lens, because it can handle a larger image sensor on a ***really*** high end camera. A DX lens is for cameras with a smaller image sensor. That smaller sensor is a little less demanding on the lens, and you can build the DX lenses a little less expensively. There are a lot of DX Nikons out there. I'm trying to figure out of the D5100 is a DX or and FX camera. I think it is DX. The Amazon selector says that lens will work with the D5100, but you can always use the FX lens with both FX and DX cameras. It's the other way that doesn't work well, a DX lens on an FX camera will either not work at all, or it will have poor quality around the edges at some F-Stop settings. I don't know for sure. The specs for the D5100 says it has a DX sensor though. So I would think it is a DX camera and can use DX lens, meaning you could get that same Nikon lens in a DX format for $159 or so. Ah. Ok. Now I think I am getting it. Looks like the *only* DX prime (non zoom) lens Nikon makes is a 35mm focal length. So if you want a 50mm, you get the better FX lens. If you want a 35mm, you can get a DX version for $160. Both the 35mm and 50mm would be very useful lenses on that D5100. The 35mm will feel like a normal lens, the 50mm will feel like a little telephoto lens. I chose the 35mm because I can often get closer to get a picture, but sometimes just don't have room to back up. I wanted more wide angle. Though in hindsight, if I had gotten the 50mm, I might have been able to use it as a baby telephoto (with great light sensitivity) for "closer" indoor sports like kids basketball. It would work really nice for studio work also, provided your studio is big enough or your things in the studio are small enough. Both lenses are great choices. (Please, somebody who isn't new into the Nikon world please correct me if I am getting any of this wrong....) | ||
| Reepicheep |
Oh, and here is a nice little decoder cheat sheet I googled up: From: http://www.dslrgeeks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4 AI, AI-S: Nikkor lenses produced after 1977 have an automatic indexing feature that eliminated the need to manually align the aperture ring when the lens was mounted. The first lenses to include this feature had the AI or AI-S designation. However, all optics introduced after 1977 have automatic indexing (except for G Series lenses, because they have no aperture ring), whether that's included in the lens code or not. E: Nikon's Series E lenses are bargain-priced optics with great image quality, but less rugged mechanical innards suitable for use by non-professionals. They frequently include aluminum or plastic parts where brass is used in the most costly Nikkors. However, their lens mounts are all metal, so Series E lenses are more rugged than you might think. D: When a D is included in the lens name, the lens is capable of communicating focus distance information to the camera, which supposedly helps with 3-D matrix metering and flash photography. G: Lenses with this marking have no aperture ring. The aperture must be set by the camera, either automatically or by holding the EV/Aperture button and spinning the command dial (on the D50). The only caveat you should know is that these lenses cannot be used on older cameras that require an aperture ring. AF, AF-D, AF-I, AF-S: Various AF designations show that the lens is an autofocus lens. The secondary code letter provides additional information: D is a D-type lens; I focuses through an internal motor; S focuses or fine-tunes focus manually even with AF engaged. DX: All DX lenses are designed exclusively for use with digital cameras having the 1.5x crop factor. Their coverage circle isn't officially large enough to fill up a full 35mm frame (although the 17-55mm f/2.8 DX lens actually covers the full frame well from 28-55mm). The digital only design means that these lenses can be smaller and lighter than their full-frame counterparts. VR: These lenses have Nikon's vibration-reduction technology, which shifts lens elements to counteract camera shake or movement, and allow taking photos without a tripod at slower shutter speeds. ED: The ED designation indicated that the lens has elements made of extra-low dispersion glass, which tends to reduce chromatic aberration and other defects. Some lenses use a LD (low dispersion) or UD (ultra low dispersion) marking. Micro: The term micro is Nikon's Designation for a macro lens. IF: This code means that the lens has internal focusing, so the length of the lens doesn't increas or decreas as the lens is focused. IX: These were produced for the Nikon's Pronea APS film cameras. Although many standard Nikkor lenses could be used on the Pronea 6i and Pronea S, the revers is not true. DC: The DC stands for defocus control, which is a way of changing the appearance of the out-of-focus portions of an image, especially useful for portraits or close-ups. This information is an excerpt from the book, Nikon D50 Digital Field Guide, written by David D. Busch. |
