Advice on lens

[infiniteever]

Hi all,

I'm new to foruming and all. I've been reading CS for a while now so I thought of just posting something. I have a question on whether it is advisable to get new lens. I own a D80 with kit lens, 50mm f1.4 nikkor, tamron 90mm f2.8 and a sigma 20mm f1.8. I'm going to HK next month and I was wondering if I should get another lens like a mid range zoom, something like 24 - 85mm? I'm still a student by the way and still working on my portfolio.

[zac08]

Originally Posted by infiniteever Hi all, I'm new to foruming and all. I've been reading CS for a while now so I thought of just posting something. I have a question on whether it is advisable to get new lens. I own a D80 with kit lens, 50mm f1.4 nikkor, tamron 90mm f2.8 and a sigma 20mm f1.8. I'm going to HK next month and I was wondering if I should get another lens like a mid range zoom, something like 24 - 85mm? I'm still a student by the way and still working on my portfolio.

Get wat you need.

Do you need such a lens?

[infiniteever]

well it will be like a sometimes i need it, sometimes i don't? because since I have prime lens, i'll be unable to zoom to get the framing I would want at the spur of the moment? I have spoken to some friends of mine regarding this. but they said not to get it. they told me to work within this restriction of unable to zoom. to be able to frame pictures with primes.

[zoossh]

Originally Posted by infiniteever well it will be like a sometimes i need it, sometimes i don't? because since I have prime lens, i'll be unable to zoom to get the framing I would want at the spur of the moment? I have spoken to some friends of mine regarding this. but they said not to get it. they told me to work within this restriction of unable to zoom. to be able to frame pictures with primes.

u can consider the zoom if you need to react fast to a rapidly changing situation that is beyond time allowable for lens changing or walking for the right frame.

[zac08]

Originally Posted by infiniteever well it will be like a sometimes i need it, sometimes i don't? because since I have prime lens, i'll be unable to zoom to get the framing I would want at the spur of the moment? I have spoken to some friends of mine regarding this. but they said not to get it. they told me to work within this restriction of unable to zoom. to be able to frame pictures with primes.

you got the kit lens right?? so won't it overlap??

For primes, I work with them quite often too and framing using primes is an exercise of the legs and your eyes... once you're used to it, you'll know exactly when it can be done or not...

I change lenses pretty often on the street.

[gymak90]

I personally prefer wide angle primes and zooms for the rest of the range.

I would say a zoom lens is handy. And some zoom lenses give good quality images. So why not?

[ZerocoolAstra]

Originally Posted by infiniteever Hi all, I'm new to foruming and all. I've been reading CS for a while now so I thought of just posting something. I have a question on whether it is advisable to get new lens. I own a D80 with kit lens, 50mm f1.4 nikkor, tamron 90mm f2.8 and a sigma 20mm f1.8. I'm going to HK next month and I was wondering if I should get another lens like a mid range zoom, something like 24 - 85mm? I'm still a student by the way and still working on my portfolio.

in my humble opinion, your lens collection is pretty darn good already.
You have:
18-135 kit lens
20 f/1.8
50 f/1.4
90 f/2.8

Your primes are quite nicely spaced out in terms of focal length.
The 50/1.4 and 90/2.8 are quite well-regarded, if I'm not mistaken. The 20/1.8 is an unknown to me.
But basically your glass is not bad.
What sort of photography are you trying to pursue that your 4 lenses cannot cope with?

If you REALLY want to help the global economy by spending $$$, I would recommend getting the Nikkor 18-200VR and then selling the 18-135 kit lens.

[infiniteever]

thanks so much for your many advices! yeah the thing is that I know my lens are nicely spread out which makes me NOT buy a zoom lens just in between. I was planning to do event shooting or weddings for friends etc so I thought the zoom lens would be very useful instead of me keep changing lens. The kit lens zoom range is perfect its just that the fstop is quite lousy with 3.5. I did consider the 18 - 200VR before but its quite big, bulky and expensive and travelling will be a problem. Which is why I considered 24- 85 f2.8. Someone pmed me suggesting 35 - 70 f2.8.

Well I do realise that I AM getting a zoom lens just for the sake of working in my comfort zone instead of working with my restrictions. But anyhow, thanks a lot for your advices. If you have any lens within the zoom range with budget of below $800 with a good fstop, please do recommend me. (:

[ZerocoolAstra]

Originally Posted by infiniteever thanks so much for your many advices! yeah the thing is that I know my lens are nicely spread out which makes me NOT buy a zoom lens just in between. I was planning to do event shooting or weddings for friends etc so I thought the zoom lens would be very useful instead of me keep changing lens. The kit lens zoom range is perfect its just that the fstop is quite lousy with 3.5. I did consider the 18 - 200VR before but its quite big, bulky and expensive and travelling will be a problem. Which is why I considered 24- 85 f2.8. Someone pmed me suggesting 35 - 70 f2.8. Well I do realise that I AM getting a zoom lens just for the sake of working in my comfort zone instead of working with my restrictions. But anyhow, thanks a lot for your advices. If you have any lens within the zoom range with budget of below $800 with a good fstop, please do recommend me. (:

if your main focus is event photography, and therefore you want a zoom lens with a large aperture < $800, you can't do better than a Tamron 17-50 f/2.8
If you get it new, that's $500+
If you get it 2nd hand, you should have enough left over from your 800 budget for an SB-600 (assuming that you don't have a speedlight).

How about that??

[infiniteever]

that sounds fantastic!
do you have any photos produced by it?
but at the same time, the 17-50 would not work on full frame right?

[ZerocoolAstra]

yup you're right on that. Actually I did not know, but just checked the Tamron website.

The "AF17-50mm F/2.8 Di-II LD Aspherical" is a lightweight, compact, fast standard zoom lens designed exclusively for digital SLR cameras, expanding the product concept of the popular SP AF28-75mm F/2.8 zoom lens.

Di II: Lenses are designed for exclusive use on digital cameras with smaller-size imagers and inherit all of the benefits of our Di products. These lenses are not designed for conventional cameras and digital cameras with image sensors larger than 24mm x 16mm.


It looks like the 28-75 f/2.8 is an FX lens, but the 17-50 is for the DX-crop sensors.
At present, only a few high-end cameras from N, C, S are FX cameras.
If you stick to your D80 and perhaps upgrade to D90/D300 in the future, the Tamron will still work well.

[infiniteever]

Originally Posted by ZerocoolAstra It looks like the 28-75 f/2.8 is an FX lens, but the 17-50 is for the DX-crop sensors. At present, only a few high-end cameras from N, C, S are FX cameras. If you stick to your D80 and perhaps upgrade to D90/D300 in the future, the Tamron will still work well.

well, i wasn't thinking of upgrading my body so soon. but i was thinking of heading on to film.

[ZerocoolAstra]

but you want to do event photography with a film camera?
wow, that'd be quite expensive.
I think you'd only be taking a certain type of photo with film, to get that grain, right?
Probably something really artistic or such. I doubt you'd be doing event photography with film.
My suggestion is D80 + 17-50 f/2.8 for event photography, travels, misc, etc.
and film SLR + primes for your artistic shots.

So you can consider selling your 18-135 to help fund the 17-50...