First lens for the NX300

So my cousin's wedding is in two weeks and I thought it's a good oportunity to buy my first lens, and I was thinking in a portraiture lens for nice bokeh, and I'm pending to 45mm, although the smaller 30mm looks good too. What do you guys think?

I should say that I'm a total newbie in this, the NX300 is my first camera after lots of P&S, and I want to push all of it's potential. Should I stick with my 20-55mm kit lens until I learn more about photography?

P.S.: this is my first thread in the forum and English it's not my primary language, so please excuse me if I made some mistake.

Caio Everton wrote:

So my cousin's wedding is in two weeks and I thought it's a good oportunity to buy my first lens, and I was thinking in a portraiture lens for nice bokeh, and I'm pending to 45mm, although the smaller 30mm looks good too. What do you guys think?

I should say that I'm a total newbie in this, the NX300 is my first camera after lots of P&S, and I want to push all of it's potential. Should I stick with my 20-55mm kit lens until I learn more about photography?

P.S.: this is my first thread in the forum and English it's not my primary language, so please excuse me if I made some mistake.

What kind of photography do you normally do?

I think you should figure out what focal length you'd find most useful on a prime lens to help you with your decision. Use your 18-55mm (you wrote 20-55, but I think you meant 18-55) at 20mm, 30mm, and 45mm for many shots at each focal length, and don't allow yourself to zoom. You'll see what it's like to be limited to one focal length.  You'll find yourself walking to or from an object frequently and being a lot more careful about framing your object(s).

If you do many people shots at portrait style focal lengths, 45mm will be good for you, or for pet photos at home. 30mm is a more universal focal length where it offers some zoom, but you can still do street photography with it and low light people photography. The 30mm lens is the smallest "pancake" but its focus speed is slow-ish at times. 30mm is my favorite prime focal length for APS-C, and it's the first lens I got after swapping from my Nikon gear. 20mm lens is weaker in resolution than 30mm but is more wide angle - though not really enough to do wide angle shots anyway.

Difficult to summarize in a short post, but while you can do a lot of things creatively with prime lenses, such as do stitched panoramas with 45mm prime and still do people shots with 16mm prime, but generally you'll see that some focal lengths are more preferable for your personal style. Which is why I recommend experimenting with your kit lens first to help you decide.

For what it's worth, the 45mm lens will be a lot more restricting if you go out with it and take no other lenses. Imagine it is like walking around with your kit lens zoomed in almost to the maximum magnification. 30mm will be great for street photography, and I love its field of view for people shots at parties.

yes i think the 45 is good.

best would be the 16-50 F2.0-F2.8 ( "one wedding = one lens = keep it simple" ) but i guess this would be to expensive.

What kind of photography do you normally do?

I think you should figure out what focal length you'd find most useful on a prime lens to help you with your decision. Use your 18-55mm (you wrote 20-55, but I think you meant 18-55) at 20mm, 30mm, and 45mm for many shots at each focal length, and don't allow yourself to zoom. You'll see what it's like to be limited to one focal length. You'll find yourself walking to or from an object frequently and being a lot more careful about framing your object(s).

If you do many people shots at portrait style focal lengths, 45mm will be good for you, or for pet photos at home. 30mm is a more universal focal length where it offers some zoom, but you can still do street photography with it and low light people photography. The 30mm lens is the smallest "pancake" but its focus speed is slow-ish at times. 30mm is my favorite prime focal length for APS-C, and it's the first lens I got after swapping from my Nikon gear. 20mm lens is weaker in resolution than 30mm but is more wide angle - though not really enough to do wide angle shots anyway.

Difficult to summarize in a short post, but while you can do a lot of things creatively with prime lenses, such as do stitched panoramas with 45mm prime and still do people shots with 16mm prime, but generally you'll see that some focal lengths are more preferable for your personal style. Which is why I recommend experimenting with your kit lens first to help you decide.

For what it's worth, the 45mm lens will be a lot more restricting if you go out with it and take no other lenses. Imagine it is like walking around with your kit lens zoomed in almost to the maximum magnification. 30mm will be great for street photography, and I love its field of view for people shots at parties.

Yes, you're right, I meant 18-55mm.

Now that you asked, I noticed I rarely use 40mm and up. I do mostly portrait of my family and pet, using around 30-35mm with some occasional use of 20-18mm when it's a group of people.

The PQ and sharpness of both primes are equivalent? Whichever lens I choose, I plant to bring the kit lens, just in case.

Mr.NoFlash wrote:

yes i think the 45 is good.

best would be the 16-50 F2.0-F2.8 ( "one wedding = one lens = keep it simple" ) but i guess this would be to expensive.

Yeah, this lens looks really neat, but is yet to be released here in Brazil, and if they do release it will probably cost twice the US price. I can't afford that. xD

45mm will do fine

OrdinarilyInordinate wrote:

Caio Everton wrote:

So my cousin's wedding is in two weeks and I thought it's a good oportunity to buy my first lens, and I was thinking in a portraiture lens for nice bokeh, and I'm pending to 45mm, although the smaller 30mm looks good too. What do you guys think?

I should say that I'm a total newbie in this, the NX300 is my first camera after lots of P&S, and I want to push all of it's potential. Should I stick with my 20-55mm kit lens until I learn more about photography?

P.S.: this is my first thread in the forum and English it's not my primary language, so please excuse me if I made some mistake.

What kind of photography do you normally do?

I think you should figure out what focal length you'd find most useful on a prime lens to help you with your decision. Use your 18-55mm (you wrote 20-55, but I think you meant 18-55) at 20mm, 30mm, and 45mm for many shots at each focal length, and don't allow yourself to zoom. You'll see what it's like to be limited to one focal length. You'll find yourself walking to or from an object frequently and being a lot more careful about framing your object(s).

If you do many people shots at portrait style focal lengths, 45mm will be good for you, or for pet photos at home. 30mm is a more universal focal length where it offers some zoom, but you can still do street photography with it and low light people photography. The 30mm lens is the smallest "pancake" but its focus speed is slow-ish at times. 30mm is my favorite prime focal length for APS-C, and it's the first lens I got after swapping from my Nikon gear. 20mm lens is weaker in resolution than 30mm but is more wide angle - though not really enough to do wide angle shots anyway.

Difficult to summarize in a short post, but while you can do a lot of things creatively with prime lenses, such as do stitched panoramas with 45mm prime and still do people shots with 16mm prime, but generally you'll see that some focal lengths are more preferable for your personal style. Which is why I recommend experimenting with your kit lens first to help you decide.

For what it's worth, the 45mm lens will be a lot more restricting if you go out with it and take no other lenses. Imagine it is like walking around with your kit lens zoomed in almost to the maximum magnification. 30mm will be great for street photography, and I love its field of view for people shots at parties.

Agree.  45mm is a one trick pony (it's a GREAT trick, but…).  30mm is much more versatile and less restrictive.  FWIW, 30mm focuses much faster on nx300 with latest FW.  Still not as fast as 45mm, but dramatic improvement compared to old FW in normal indoor lights.

I would vote for 30mm - It is a great balance where you can get good bokeh, but also get pictures where everything is in focus without too much trouble, which makes it a very versatile lens.

I like the 45mm pretty well but I don't use it nearly as much in practice, in part because of reduced portability since it isn't a pancake.

If you really *only* care about portraits and want the background to be very blurred, 45mm could be a bit better. (And yes, it does focus a bit faster).

Also, I find it very helpful to browse flickr for photo samples made with particular lenses or cameras. Here are a couple for the 45mm lens:

https://www.flickr.com/groups/2205987@N23/

https://www.flickr.com/groups/samsungnx45mmf18/

(as suspected, most are of people and objects/animals)

and a couple for the 30mm lens:

https://www.flickr.com/groups/samsungnx30mmf2/

https://www.flickr.com/groups/nx30mm/

(a bit of everything)

I think I'm sticking with the 30mm for versatility and small form factor. Maybe I'll buy the 45mm more down the road.

Thanks you, guys.

I vote for the 30mm f/2 as well. That lens on my NX300 fits in my pocket, and means I'm more likely to have the camera on me. It's by far the lens I use most at this point.

Caio Everton wrote:

I think I'm sticking with the 30mm for versatility and small form factor. Maybe I'll buy the 45mm more down the road.

Thanks you, guys.

Good choice. I had the same doubts (between 30mm and 45mm) and I also ended up buying the 30mm pancake lens for versatility and for being very compact.