Need Your suggestions for a lens

eyeguy · May 13, 2009

I will be purchasing a Nikon D90 with the kit lens soon and am looking at getting a better lens. This is were I need your help and suggestions. I will be shooting portraits of Families, kids, babies, and will be working towards sooting some weddings. I will also be doing some Travel photography and general shooting.

I am looking at getting some kind of fast glass to do all this but don’t wont to spend foolishly,

Thanks for your suggestions

swintonphoto · May 13, 2009

I would look at the 3rd party lenses- they are a much better price than the Nikkors.
Normal Range:
Tamron 17-50 2.8
Sigma 17-70 2.8-4.5
Sigma 18-50 2.8 Macro
Telephoto Zoom:
Sigma 70-200 2.8
Tamron 70-200 2.8

I would get one of the lenses in the normal range and one in the telephoto range. All of these lenses are dynamite. My brother has the Tamron 17-50 2.8 that he uses as his main lens on his Nikon DSLRs and LOVES it. Art Scott has a lot of experience with Sigma lenses and always has good things to say about them.
These will save you a ton of money and serve you very well. You could do just about anything with two of these.

eyeguy · May 14, 2009

Thanks for your help

swintonphoto wrote:

I would look at the 3rd party lenses- they are a much better price than the Nikkors.
Normal Range:
Tamron 17-50 2.8
Sigma 17-70 2.8-4.5
Sigma 18-50 2.8 Macro
Telephoto Zoom:
Sigma 70-200 2.8
Tamron 70-200 2.8

I would get one of the lenses in the normal range and one in the telephoto range. All of these lenses are dynamite. My brother has the Tamron 17-50 2.8 that he uses as his main lens on his Nikon DSLRs and LOVES it. Art Scott has a lot of experience with Sigma lenses and always has good things to say about them.
These will save you a ton of money and serve you very well. You could do just about anything with two of these.

Thanks for your help

The Sigma lenses are looking good to me I am looking at the Sigma 17- 70 2.8 first then will look at 70-200

Tiziano · May 15, 2009

I have the kit lens on a D60 at work. Not too happy. It just seems cheap (as does the D60 to me).
Personally I'd skip the kit lens. Get the body and go with the Sigma 17-70mm Macro.
I did for my home setup (D90) and love it. Of course I've bought lots of other additional lenses since.:D

eyeguy · May 15, 2009

Thanks for your help

Tiziano wrote:

I have the kit lens on a D60 at work. Not too happy. It just seems cheap (as does the D60 to me).
Personally I'd skip the kit lens. Get the body and go with the Sigma 17-70mm Macro.
I did for my home setup (D90) and love it. Of course I've bought lots of other additional lenses since.:D

I was thinking of just going for the body and a good lens. what do you think of your Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 Macro ?

swintonphoto · May 15, 2009

I haven't ever used it but here is a good review:
http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/349/cat/31

The site has great reviews of other lenses as well (such as the tamron)

Tiziano · May 15, 2009

eyeguy wrote:

I was thinking of just going for the body and a good lens. what do you think of your Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 Macro ?

Love it! It looks and feels like a pro lens to me and is the lens I leave on the cam. The images are sharp.

I bought it just after they announced the 24-70mm f/2.8. I waited for awhile but they didn't announce the price so I jumped on the 17-70mm. Glad I did as the 24-70mm lists at $1400!

ATM I'm just beginning to get my SmugMug site up.
The site is here. All of the slideshow pix are with this lens, used as a macro. So far I've 2 pix in the gallery section as well and they are also from this lens.

FWIW, looking at my sig you can tell which lenses I have. So far my 'worst' lens in the Nikkor. Bear in mind that you get what you pay for and that lens is not the quality or price of the others. It'll work until I can handle another grand or so.:D

eyeguy · May 15, 2009

Thanks for your help

Tiziano wrote:

Love it! It looks and feels like a pro lens to me and is the lens I leave on the cam. The images are sharp.

I bought it just after they announced the 24-70mm f/2.8. I waited for awhile but they didn't announce the price so I jumped on the 17-70mm. Glad I did as the 24-70mm lists at $1400!

ATM I'm just beginning to get my SmugMug site up.
The site is here. All of the slideshow pix are with this lens, used as a macro. So far I've 2 pix in the gallery section as well and they are also from this lens.

FWIW, looking at my sig you can tell which lenses I have. So far my 'worst' lens in the Nikkor. Bear in mind that you get what you pay for and that lens is not the quality or price of the others. It'll work until I can handle another grand or so.:D

I love your Home Page, How did you do that Looks fantastic. thanks once again for the lens information.

ban25 · May 15, 2009

For portraits, you might want to try the 50/1.4. It should be just about the right length on a D90. The G version has the benefit of manual focus override, but if you're on a budget, the D version is substantially cheaper.

Tiziano · May 16, 2009

eyeguy wrote:

I love your Home Page, How did you do that Looks fantastic. thanks once again for the lens information.

You're welcome.

As far as the homepage goes, it's all Flash, hosted on my own server (including the slides for the show).
-First I got a picture of the cam and selected the LCD area using the magic wand in PS. Then I deleted that, made it transparent and saved as a PSD file (PNG's and GIF's looked terrible since I've a feather where the LCD was and the cam).
-Next I sized the slide show images and saved them out separately.
-Then I jumped into Flash, put the cam image on a layer near the top and the movie clip that would import the slides on the bottom. Also I imported the first slide so the main movie would load with that displaying.
-I then coded it to remove the first slide after all the other slides loaded and the show had begun.
-Finally I published many times, playing around with the jpg quality options to find a happy medium between file size and image quality. I think I ended up with 40 on the scale.

I may end up switching to no Flash and use Mootools to get the show going. Undecided ATM.

ntotrr · May 19, 2009

eyeguy wrote:

I was thinking of just going for the body and a good lens. what do you think of your Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 Macro ?

A also have the Sigma 17-70mm DC lens. It's quite good, no regrets at all about getting it. Being a DC lens, it's small and light.

Need Your suggestions for a lens

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