Advise Needed?

[FrogmanTan]

To the experience and expert,

hi,....I own a Nikon D3100...the basic camera for a starter like me...
I wanted to buy a lens that fullfill mt criteria below...
1. Not so heavy
2. able to shoot people or any subject with blur background which i do not need to zoom in
3. I dont need really wide angle, normal will do
4. I dont shoot sinery a lot, more of shoot ppl...best I have 1 lens for all...
5. I have a len that able to zoom rather far, this give me a blur background but when i shoot near, i dont get it..

 

[avsquare]

4. I dont shoot sinery a lot, more of shoot ppl...best I have 1 lens for all...

Then there's no lens suitable. This whole world is full of SIN. Especially human, sinful creatures :bsmilie:

In any case, since you don't need really wide angle, shoot more of people, wants to have background blur, I think either Tamron's 17-50 f/2.8 or Nikkor AF-S 17-55mm f/2.8G will do. It's a general purpose zoom. What generally differs from them is the price, of course there are other things like build, optics etc but you may not be able to notice off hand or really matters as a starter.

Alternatively, your kit lens actually can do the job. But for the background blur part, you'd probably need to read up abit about "Depth of Field", and how the distances between camera-subject-background can actually give you background blur no matter which lens you using. Just that the higher grade lens probably gives you better quality blur, which you have to pay the price for it of course..

 

[tecnica]

no such lens exists.

 

[Cowseye]

To the experience and expert,

hi,....I own a Nikon D3100...the basic camera for a starter like me...
I wanted to buy a lens that fullfill mt criteria below...
1. Not so heavy
2. able to shoot people or any subject with blur background which i do not need to zoom in
3. I dont need really wide angle, normal will do
4. I dont shoot sinery a lot, more of shoot ppl...best I have 1 lens for all...
5. I have a len that able to zoom rather far, this give me a blur background but when i shoot near, i dont get it..

50mm F/1.8 fulfill most of your needs. Just zoom with your legs for point 5.

 

[Shizuma]

50mm F1.8 - C & G (Cheap and good!)

 

[Blur Shadow]

I favor the new AF-S 50mm f/1.8G.

The image quality is superior and it can auto focus on your D3100.

 

[luckyorange]

I favor the new AF-S 50mm f/1.8G.

The image quality is superior and it can auto focus on your D3100.

And the price is good too

 

[thomsonthet]

Hi bro,
Tamron 17-50 f2.8, cheap and good. Been using for a year and happy with it. Only thing is it will struggle at night shots, low lights. Hunts a lot.
50 mm 1.8G even cheaper. Go and try out. I'm sure ull be happy since it'll be an upgrade to ur kit lens.

 

[Prince Photogenic]

50mm F/1.8 fulfill most of your needs. Just zoom with your legs for point 5.

Agreed with Cowseyes, if you are not too lazy to walk/run to manually zoom, the 50mm f/1.8 is a good choice and relatively inexpensive. I believe will you will be able to get this lens at Nikon BNS..

to cover your points/requirements:
1. It's very light
2. f1.8 is large enough to achieve the blur background (my advise is dun go down to 1.8, set your aperture at 1 or 2 stops smaller will be enough)
3. It's not a wide angle
4. It's a portait lens, so not wide angle (may also means you can leave this at home when you want to take scenary but I'll leave this to the landscape guys to share)
5. Like Cowseyes say, use your feet

Hope this helped

 

[rhino123]

To the experience and expert,

hi,....I own a Nikon D3100...the basic camera for a starter like me...
I wanted to buy a lens that fullfill mt criteria below...
1. Not so heavy
2. able to shoot people or any subject with blur background which i do not need to zoom in
3. I dont need really wide angle, normal will do
4. I dont shoot sinery a lot, more of shoot ppl...best I have 1 lens for all...
5. I have a len that able to zoom rather far, this give me a blur background but when i shoot near, i dont get it..

Read something about aperture and DOF... how aperture will influence your depth of field.

Well... when you know that, then you would know why when you zoom rather far, they gave you a blur background.

Second, you want a lens that is normal in term of wideness, may I know what is normal to you? Some people think 18mm is normal enough, other thinks that 24mm is good enough, anything wider than that would be too wide... and still some find that 10mm is the norm for the type of photography they are into.

If you want 1 lens to do most thing, get a 18-200mm or 18-270mm lens, that would cover almost all ranges.

 

[henry soh]

Tamron 18-270mm with sony nex7 and adapter covers full range.

 

[rhino123]

Tamron 18-270mm with sony nex7 and adapter covers full range.

Nikon D3100 is a very very capable camera, there really is no need to jump ship to any other school of cameras here.

In actual fact, TS doesn't even need to upgrade lens, all he need to do is to understand more on DOF, aperture, shutter speed and most probably ISO and he will do just fine.

 

[fmeeran]

Tamron 18-270mm with sony nex7 and adapter covers full range.

you do realise that the 18-270 will cover the same range as the nex7 on the D3100 right?

 

[fmeeran]

50mm F/1.8 fulfill most of your needs. Just zoom with your legs for point 5.

I favor the new AF-S 50mm f/1.8G.

The image quality is superior and it can auto focus on your D3100.

+1

50mm f1.8 would be the lens to go with. Just remember to buy the AF-S version for autofocus on your D3100 and for better quality bokeh.

 

[FrogmanTan]

thanks all for the idea..

1, how much is an AF-S 50mm/1.8G
2. where can i get it ?

 

[luckyorange]

thanks all for the idea..

1, how much is an AF-S 50mm/1.8G
2. where can i get it ?

Was quoted $269 @ slrr last time. Please call or visit the shop for the latest price,

 

[FrogmanTan]

sorry...what is slrr?

 

[Prince Photogenic]

sorry...what is slrr?

SLR Revolution.. it's on level 4 at Funan..

 

[FrogmanTan]

thanks all for the advice and recommendation

 

[gauntlet71]

You might also want to consider a Nikon 35mm f1.8 AF-S DX. It's small and light and I keep it on my D7000 all the time.

For your cropped DX sensor like mine it equates to roughly a 50mm normal/standard lens. As others said just use your feet to zoom in and out.