sharp basic zoom for D50?

Jamprint · May 23, 2006

I have the D50 with the 18-55 kit lense since 2 weeks.I'am still studiying the owners man. and trying to reach the best possible shots but mainly at tele it is not crystal clear and even some closer pictures are on the soft side in program P and the factiry settings.

It may be very true that I still cannot shoot photos and use the possibilities of this cam, but IMHO such a camera had to make sharp,well saturated photos even in default settings without afterwork in Photoshop, as it was the case quite recently with my daughters film camera Canon EOS 300V, with kit lens EF 28-90/1,4-5.6,if I remember me well, with ASA 200 and 400 35 mm films, no picture was missed, all well lighted and crystal clear...in setting P, others default,near or tele.

It is maybe a silly question but - out ot that I have to learn how to shoot good photos-which lense would you suggest me on a moderate price level which is sharp in all situations, has natural colors,range 24-105 mm acc. to 35 mm film?

I do not want to make artistic shots,just on the everydays life, street scenes, buildings,landscapes,family, some indoor,trees, flowers etc.

The Nikkor 18-70 DX, Sigma 17-70/2,8-4 or some lens from film slrs i.e Sigma 24-135/2,8-4 ?
I would very much appreciate your comments,thank you in advance.
Andras

Robert N · May 23, 2006

You are right, the tele end is the weak point of the 18-55, but between 18-35mm it's a nice lens. Why don't you keep it for wide angle shots and add a Nikon 28-200G? For your purposes you won't find a better, cheaper and more versatile lens.
--
Regards,

Robert

AWT · May 24, 2006

But you will only get the best out of the D50 with post-process sharpening as this is kept to a minimum in-camera.

dumbo · May 24, 2006

How are you looking at the pics from the D50? At 100% on the screen? Downsized w/o sharpening?
How did you look at the pics from the 300V? Printed from a lab? What size?

Labs do adjust the pics before they are printed. Color correction, contrast adjustment etc etc, ie the post processing you have to do yourself with digital. If you send the pics to a lab, though, they often do those adjustments on the digital files to if you not tell them otherwise.

If you cannot get a decent A4 sized print from the D50 and the 18-55 you either do something wrong or have a faulty camera.

Could you provide some sample images together with shooting data? Preferably 100% crops of a full size image.

Jamprint said:
I have the D50 with the 18-55 kit lense since 2 weeks.I'am still
studiying the owners man. and trying to reach the best possible
shots but mainly at tele it is not crystal clear and even some
closer pictures are on the soft side in program P and the factiry
settings.
It may be very true that I still cannot shoot photos and use the
possibilities of this cam, but IMHO such a camera had to make
sharp,well saturated photos even in default settings without
afterwork in Photoshop, as it was the case quite recently with my
daughters film camera Canon EOS 300V, with kit lens EF
28-90/1,4-5.6,if I remember me well, with ASA 200 and 400 35 mm
films, no picture was missed, all well lighted and crystal
clear...in setting P, others default,near or tele.
It is maybe a silly question but - out ot that I have to learn how
to shoot good photos-which lense would you suggest me on a moderate
price level which is sharp in all situations, has natural
colors,range 24-105 mm acc. to 35 mm film?
I do not want to make artistic shots,just on the everydays life,
street scenes, buildings,landscapes,family, some indoor,trees,
flowers etc.
The Nikkor 18-70 DX, Sigma 17-70/2,8-4 or some lens from film slrs
i.e Sigma 24-135/2,8-4 ?
I would very much appreciate your comments,thank you in advance.
Andras

Thomas Comerford · May 24, 2006

Jamprint said:
I have the D50 with the 18-55 kit lense since 2 weeks.I'am still
studiying the owners man. and trying to reach the best possible
shots but mainly at tele it is not crystal clear and even some
closer pictures are on the soft side in program P and the factiry
settings.
It may be very true that I still cannot shoot photos and use the
possibilities of this cam, but IMHO such a camera had to make
sharp,well saturated photos even in default settings without
afterwork in Photoshop, as it was the case quite recently with my

I'm afraid not. Point-and-shoot cameras will do that, but the default settingss in a DSLRs are usually fairly conservative. People who are serious about photography don't want a camera that gives them over-the-top saturation/contrast/sharpening unless they specifically ask for it.

In particular the default sharpness level on the D50 is very conservative, so you will need to turn that up.

Jamprint said:
daughters film camera Canon EOS 300V, with kit lens EF
28-90/1,4-5.6,if I remember me well, with ASA 200 and 400 35 mm
films, no picture was missed, all well lighted and crystal
clear...in setting P, others default,near or tele.

With film, the Lab that develops the pictures will fix the exposure-mishaps and give you nice sharp colourful images.

Jamprint said:
It is maybe a silly question but - out ot that I have to learn how
to shoot good photos-which lense would you suggest me on a moderate
price level which is sharp in all situations, has natural
colors,range 24-105 mm acc. to 35 mm film?
I do not want to make artistic shots,just on the everydays life,
street scenes, buildings,landscapes,family, some indoor,trees,
flowers etc.
The Nikkor 18-70 DX, Sigma 17-70/2,8-4 or some lens from film slrs
i.e Sigma 24-135/2,8-4 ?
I would very much appreciate your comments,thank you in advance.
Andras

cwysan · May 24, 2006

I second the recommendation of the 28-200G--can typically be found for a little over $300. The range will cover you in most situations and the lens performs admirably for the price. Keep the 18-55 for any wide angles shots you may want.

Though I haven't used it, I've read good things in this forum about the 28-105, which is in the same price range.

Search this forum and the Nikon SLR Lens Talk forum for more detailed discussions on these lenses. Good luck.

Jamprint · May 25, 2006

dumbo said:
How are you looking at the pics from the D50? At 100% on the
screen? Downsized w/o sharpening?

On a 17" fine TFT computer screen,in 100% and downsized,without sharpening.

dumbo said:
How did you look at the pics from the 300V? Printed from a lab?

I took the film to the lab, the negative was ready in an automatic device within 20 minutes after that it was put in a scanner and from there into my pendrive, at home i put them on my pc from the pendrive and watch on screen as said above.Did not ask for paper prints.

dumbo said:
What size?
Labs do adjust the pics before they are printed. Color correction,
contrast adjustment etc etc, ie the post processing you have to do
yourself with digital. If you send the pics to a lab, though, they
often do those adjustments on the digital files to if you not tell
them otherwise.

If you cannot get a decent A4 sized print from the D50 and the
18-55 you either do something wrong or have a faulty camera.

Shall try to do.

dumbo said:
Could you provide some sample images together with shooting data?
Preferably 100% crops of a full size image.

I certainly I would but don!t know how to put them up here. it.

dumbo said:
Jamprint said:

I have the D50 with the 18-55 kit lense since 2 weeks.I'am still
studiying the owners man. and trying to reach the best possible
shots but mainly at tele it is not crystal clear and even some
closer pictures are on the soft side in program P and the factiry
settings.
It may be very true that I still cannot shoot photos and use the
possibilities of this cam, but IMHO such a camera had to make
sharp,well saturated photos even in default settings without
afterwork in Photoshop, as it was the case quite recently with my
daughters film camera Canon EOS 300V, with kit lens EF
28-90/1,4-5.6,if I remember me well, with ASA 200 and 400 35 mm
films, no picture was missed, all well lighted and crystal
clear...in setting P, others default,near or tele.
It is maybe a silly question but - out ot that I have to learn how
to shoot good photos-which lense would you suggest me on a moderate
price level which is sharp in all situations, has natural
colors,range 24-105 mm acc. to 35 mm film?
I do not want to make artistic shots,just on the everydays life,
street scenes, buildings,landscapes,family, some indoor,trees,
flowers etc.
The Nikkor 18-70 DX, Sigma 17-70/2,8-4 or some lens from film slrs
i.e Sigma 24-135/2,8-4 ?
I would very much appreciate your comments,thank you in advance.
Andras

Click to expand...

dumbo · May 25, 2006

Jamprint said:
On a 17" fine TFT computer screen,in 100% and downsized,without
sharpening.

At 100% it corresponds to a print size of allmost 20x30". You would probably look at an image that size from 2-3 meters, or so. If you back off from your screen a little, does it still look soft?

Downsized images does always have to be sharpened since you lose the crispness in the downsizing. For web sized images an USM applied in Photoshop with settings 100, 0.4 and 1 is a good stating point.

Jamprint said:
I took the film to the lab, the negative was ready in an automatic
device within 20 minutes after that it was put in a scanner and
from there into my pendrive, at home i put them on my pc from the
pendrive and watch on screen as said above.Did not ask for paper
prints.

Where they of the same size (number of pixels) as the D50 images? The lab might have adjusted the pics digitally in the scanning process and also applied sharpening.

Jamprint said:
Jamprint said:

Could you provide some sample images together with shooting data?
Preferably 100% crops of a full size image.

Click to expand...

I certainly I would but don!t know how to put them up here. it.

You have to host the images somewhere. You can get a trial account at pbase.com, for example. When you have uploaded them there you just paste the link to the actual image here.

HDClown · May 25, 2006

For 18-200 range:

The Nikkor 28-200G comes highly recommended for a lower end price. The 18-200VRII highly recommended at the top end for this range.

The Sigma 18-200DC falls right in the middle of the 2 prices and has shown to offer some excellent results.

If you don't need to go that high, then I don't think there is a better lens for the money then the 18-70DX. You can get a new imported version (1 year warranty) from BH Photo for $270, or a brand new one from buydig.com for $319.

The Sigma 17-70 is slightly faster, being f/2.8-4.5 vs f/3.5-4.5. It's also about $50 more. I don't know much about it's quality compared to the 18-70. I'd personally go for the 18-70 because it's a DX lens, ED-IF glass, and AF-S. It's got all the Nikkor goods except VR, and for $320 price tag, that's impressive.

Jamprint · May 30, 2006

Thanks for suggesting Nikkor 28-200 G.
Can you tell me the exact type with identification of that lense,thank you.
reg: Andras

saga · May 30, 2006

Few posters have already mentioned that it is not the lens issue here.

I mean that lens is not the best u can get abviously but no matter what lens you'll get your pix will not be very "colorful" with default settings.
You have to adjust you camera to achieve the results you'd like.

With film you didn't have such in camera settings as color, contrast, sharpnes... etc., did you?
All that was done automaticly for you in lab (PP).

If you really want to have a good results learn you camera before you spend money for new lens and gain nothing but more disapointment and then probably will try to switch to canon or some other brand because you don't like pix you "camera takes".

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sharp basic zoom for D50?

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