Suggestions needed for a Nikon DX Lens for Indoor photography

[Vamshi Krishna]

HI All,

I have a Nikon D7200 and I am asked to take photos for an indoor event. I don't have much space to move around. I am looking for wide angle fast lens for this purpose

I have a 35mm prime but even that is not wide enough. I used the kit lens 18-55mm before, but its difficult in low light conditions.

I am looking at below options. Guide me which is better.

Tokina 11-16mm - is the distortion too bad from the wide angle?

Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8

Tamron 10-24

Please let me know any other options as well

 

[Entropius]

I don't know how wide you need, how fast you need, or how cheap you need, or whether you need VR, but the Sigma 18-35/1.8 is very good. (no VR, and it's around $700).

 

[Leonard Migliore]

HI All,

I have a Nikon D7200 and I am asked to take photos for an indoor event. I don't have much space to move around. I am looking for wide angle fast lens for this purpose

I have a 35mm prime but even that is not wide enough. I used the kit lens 18-55mm before, but its difficult in low light conditions.

35mm is not wide at all on DX. It's a 52mm equivalent.

Note that, if you're taking pictures of people, you will tend to have problems with perspective distortion at focal lengths below about 30mm. This is not due to lens distortion, it's due to being too close to the subject.

The 18-55 is f/3.5 at 18mm. Do you expect to need a faster lens than that?

I am looking at below options. Guide me which is better.

Tokina 11-16mm - is the distortion too bad from the wide angle?

As I noted, the lens itself does not distort that much. It's the perspective effects from being too close that distorts. I don't see any way out of that.

Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8

That only gives you 1/3 of a stop at full wide angle. Hardly worth it.

Tamron 10-24

There's 2 of those. They're both f/3.5-f/4.5 so you're not going to get any improvement in lens speed out of them. Also, I had the old one and it's terrible.

Please let me know any other options as well

Flash is probably the best option. Get an SB-700 and use bounce flash with the kit lens. Alternatively, let the ISO float up to 3200; that should still look good.

 

[fishy wishy]

I'd say for DX, a 16/17/18-50/55 f2.8 stabilised lens would be a good standard to aim for- though a bit short. I've used maybe half a dozen of them and started off a little survey of them here .

I found on other sensor formats a 24-120 equivalent very handy for indoor events (not sports) because it allows you to zoom in for a head to waist shot without buzzing about so much and making yourself distracting. An 18-50 is too short for that. You could also try a 17-70 or 16-80.

 

[YRUNVS]

My vote would be for the Sigma 17-50 2.8OS and a flash.

If you are new to flash photography, I'd spend a little time reading about the do's and don'ts of on camera flash use.

Cheers,

Diallo

 

[ruifonikon]

Get a Nikon Speedlight flash (SB-700 is always a good choice) and test with your current lenses, you'll get a huge upgrade. Learn how to use the flash indoors. Get a fast lens later, like the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 Art, for example.

Good luck.

 

[Robert1975]

I'm curious, why do you find 18-55 insufficient? VR gets you down to 1/5s, and if you know when to press the shutter, you will avoid motion blur. Unless they ask you for 60x40in prints, D7200 looks great at ISO 3200, even at ISO 6400. For people/event photos I usually downsample to 6MP anyway.

If you really think you need something better, Tokina 11-16 is the best choice. It's fast, sharp, great build quality. The new Tamron 10-24 VC also looks very good. But I still believe 18-55 VR II, or AF-P, produces best results in most situations for the fraction of the size and money.

35 1.8 is also fantastic, but fixed "normal" focal length.

 

[PatMann]

You've discovered Nikon's failure to support DX as a full camera system including a range of lenses for indoor, night street and event shooting.

I suggest you borrow a full frame camera and a 24-70 zoom, or a 24, 28 or 35mm f/1.8 prime lens depending on what your event is, to supplement your D7200. For event shooting, I like shooting with two bodies with fast primes at different focal lengths.

My personal first choice for a single FX lens (on an FX camera) to supplement your DX system would be the 28mm f/1.4 as a long-term investment for event shooting. There is no good DX choice, though IMO the best available would be the 16-80 f/2.8-4.

 

[RRowlett]

16-80 f/2.8-4.0 DX VR; 17-55 f/2.8 DX (no VR)

Need wider? 12-24 f/4 DX. No VR but it's less necessary at shorter focal lengths.

These are among the fastest Nikon DX zoom lenses in the wide-ish range.

 

[johnny_mnemonic]

Get a Nikon 17-55 2.8 (used they can be had pretty affordably) and an sb-700 speedlight. Event shooting really requires a speedlight in my opinion cause you never know whats going to happen or how crappy the light is going to be. I tend to avoid 3rd party brands due to past experiences with low light autofocus speed and flash exposure but I know people have good luck with them.

 

[johnny_mnemonic]

and just to add the speedlight is probably the best single thing to improve indoor event shooting. you would be surprised at how great pictures can look with properly bounced flash and kit lenses. ive had to use backups before (d90 with 18-55) + a bounced flash and they looked pretty good for an emergency situation

 

[baloo_buc]

Use an external flash bounced on the ceiling.

 

[JeffryZ]

Some events may not allow a flash like concerts or stage performances. Sometimes events in churches also do not allow flash. I think 11- 16mm would be too wide. My two choices would be either a 17-55mm f/2.8 or my new favorite, the Sigma 17- 35mm f/1.8.