Lens selection from scratch

Coming backinto photography after a spell away, and in the happy position of buying a new outfit from scratch - all types of photography.

What would be the ideal lens kit, bearing in mind the following ...

1. I want to make 44 inch enlargements for large wall prints, so image quality is more important than the cost.

2. Want to do some travel pics, so weight is a consideration.

3. Going to put them on an S2 or D100 body (undecided)

4. Essential that I have a decent macro facility so I can photograph spiders, bees, daisys etc

I was thinking of a short zoom, a medium zoom and a long zoom. Is it too much to hope there are clear winners.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

--
Roy

roy mckeown said:

44 inch enlargements

Click to expand...

I hope you know that this stretches every 35mm cameras capabilities (30" works for some of my 760 and D1x photos, 20" is quite safe)

Lenses:

This is my set:

AFS 17-35 (least used as we are not too much in wide angle photography)
AFS 28-70 f/2.8 great zoom
AFS 80-200 f/2.8 love this zoom
105 Micro (great macro lens)
AFS 300 if you want more

TC-14E

We have many more other lenses which hardly get used.

Uwe

roy mckeown said:

Coming backinto photography after a spell away, and in the happy
position of buying a new outfit from scratch - all types of
photography.

What would be the ideal lens kit, bearing in mind the following ...

1. I want to make 44 inch enlargements for large wall prints, so
image quality is more important than the cost.

2. Want to do some travel pics, so weight is a consideration.

3. Going to put them on an S2 or D100 body (undecided)

4. Essential that I have a decent macro facility so I can
photograph spiders, bees, daisys etc

I was thinking of a short zoom, a medium zoom and a long zoom. Is
it too much to hope there are clear winners.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

--
Roy

Click to expand...

Roy,

I just went through the same process that you are going through and I ordered a Nikon D100 yesterday. I don't think you will have any problem with 44 inch enlargements based on my experience with my current 5 megapixel camera.
I ordered two lenses after a lot of research on the Web:

a: 28-105...users seem to like it a lot. I'll use this as my primary lens and it has a 1:2 macro capability.

b: 70-300 G..this is a new lens that will give me tele capablities and is relatively inexpensive. I already have a 1.6x auxillary lens so this should give me all the tele that I probably will want.

I want to keep the number of lenses to a minimum because of the problem of dust on the CCD sensor that seems to bother some people a lot.
Hope I guessed correctly....Bill Wolberg

I started from scratch last January with my D1x.

I have the last 3 lenses that Uwe mentioned (plus the teleconvertor) and I'm thrilled with their perfomance.

When I travel "suoer light" I take the 28-105 zoom plus my 50mm 1.4 for low-light shooting.

Think about investing in one of the 50mm primes, I get tons of use from my 1.4D, with the 1.5X effect on the focal length it becomes a rather nice portrait lens. Everyone seems quite happy with the 1.8 version as well (may be one of the best lens deals out there).

Enjoy,

Jil

My advice:

Stay light, and don't overbuy. Buy one lens at a time. Start with the 50mm 1.8/D: $90.

The 80-200 AFS is too heavy for handheld use. Wait for the VR version.

Remember: If you invest too heavily in lenses, switching to Canon will be more expensive later on. As digital photo technology is still developing, the winner has not yet been decided.

Consider this: Below the D1X, the Nikon lineup includes many bad cameras.

roy mckeown said:

Coming backinto photography after a spell away, and in the happy
position of buying a new outfit from scratch - all types of
photography.

What would be the ideal lens kit, bearing in mind the following ...

1. I want to make 44 inch enlargements for large wall prints, so
image quality is more important than the cost.

2. Want to do some travel pics, so weight is a consideration.

3. Going to put them on an S2 or D100 body (undecided)

4. Essential that I have a decent macro facility so I can
photograph spiders, bees, daisys etc

I was thinking of a short zoom, a medium zoom and a long zoom. Is
it too much to hope there are clear winners.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

--
Roy

Click to expand...

thanks for the replies folks - great to get first hand advice.

Hi Roy

It's a mine field! Clearly the obvious choice for quality is

17-30 afs
28-70 afs
80-200 afs

but you'll have a lot to carry around! And you'll still need a macro lens

what I have is:
Sigma 15-30
Like the extra bit of WA - nice and sharp - reasonable close focus
Nikkor 24-85 f2.8
Lovely small lens - sharp - 'macro' works well
Nikkor 70-180 micro f4/5.6

This is also a great lens - it's not perfect above about 300yards, but the macro facility is wonderful, it doesn't weigh (or cost) as much as the 80-200 and it's wonderfully sharp.

Everything is compromise, but I've come to be pleased with this lot.

kind regards
jono slack

roy mckeown said:

Coming backinto photography after a spell away, and in the happy
position of buying a new outfit from scratch - all types of
photography.

What would be the ideal lens kit, bearing in mind the following ...

1. I want to make 44 inch enlargements for large wall prints, so
image quality is more important than the cost.

2. Want to do some travel pics, so weight is a consideration.

3. Going to put them on an S2 or D100 body (undecided)

4. Essential that I have a decent macro facility so I can
photograph spiders, bees, daisys etc

I was thinking of a short zoom, a medium zoom and a long zoom. Is
it too much to hope there are clear winners.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

--
Roy

Click to expand...

--
Jono Slack
http://www.slack.co.uk

I disagree on 17-35 AFS. The resolution of D1X does not do justice to wide-angle lenses.

Remember: the 80-200 is HEAVY.

Jono Slack said:

It's a mine field! Clearly the obvious choice for quality is

17-30 afs
28-70 afs
80-200 afs

but you'll have a lot to carry around! And you'll still need a
macro lens

what I have is:
Sigma 15-30
Like the extra bit of WA - nice and sharp - reasonable close focus
Nikkor 24-85 f2.8
Lovely small lens - sharp - 'macro' works well
Nikkor 70-180 micro f4/5.6
This is also a great lens - it's not perfect above about 300yards,
but the macro facility is wonderful, it doesn't weigh (or cost) as
much as the 80-200 and it's wonderfully sharp.

Everything is compromise, but I've come to be pleased with this lot.

kind regards
jono slack

roy mckeown said:

Coming backinto photography after a spell away, and in the happy
position of buying a new outfit from scratch - all types of
photography.

What would be the ideal lens kit, bearing in mind the following ...

1. I want to make 44 inch enlargements for large wall prints, so
image quality is more important than the cost.

2. Want to do some travel pics, so weight is a consideration.

3. Going to put them on an S2 or D100 body (undecided)

4. Essential that I have a decent macro facility so I can
photograph spiders, bees, daisys etc

I was thinking of a short zoom, a medium zoom and a long zoom. Is
it too much to hope there are clear winners.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

--
Roy

Click to expand...

--
Jono Slack
http://www.slack.co.uk

Click to expand...