D70 Lens Recommendations?

SciurusNiger · July 26, 2007

I love macro work and I love shooting wildlife. My Nikon D70 18-70mm kit lens can get reasonably "down and dirty" but definitely lacks oomph for decent distance shots.

I'm looking for recommendations for both a good zoom lens (especially) and a macro lens.

Thanks!

PJ.

wendoureecat · July 27, 2007

Although only being new to this forum i thought i would let you know that i use the Tamron 90mm macro lens and have had no problem with it at all on my D70s. Have used it for macro, flowers and portraits and wouldnt swap it for the world.

K

Seymore · July 29, 2007

RE: a good zoom... I have an 80-200/2.8 AFS and find it a good match to my needs.

Depending strongly on what you are wanting to spend, the 80-200 AFD ($500-700 used), AFS (if you can find one, now discontinued. ~$800-1100 used) or the 70-200 VR ($1200+) may be lenses to consider. But once you spend this type of money on a lens like these, you'll see that it is money well spent!

HTH...

Takeda · July 30, 2007

For the macro (micro), I highly recommend the 105mm f/2.8 VR

For the zoom, I have 2 that are outstanding: 1) 17 55mm f/2.8, and 2) 70 200mm f/2.8 VR

greenpea · July 30, 2007

Takeda wrote:

For the macro (micro), I highly recommend the 105mm f/2.8 VR

I love my Nikon 105 2.8 macro, however if you don't want to spend too $750+, and your willing to deal with not quite macro, the Tamron 70-300 does a suprisingly good job on close up work for under $200.

Another even more affordable option is to get a Nikon or Canon close up lens. If fits like a filter on the front of your lens, kinda like reading glasses for your existing lens so you can focus a lot closer. The Nikon close up lenses are under $40.

dangin · July 30, 2007

tamron 18-200 or 70-300. not true macro persay, but more like close focusing. and a bargain price compared to nikkor lenses. take the money you saved and spend it on a good tripod, a scrim, and a light.

Matthew Saville · July 30, 2007

SciurusNiger wrote:

I love macro work and I love shooting wildlife. My Nikon D70 18-70mm kit lens can get reasonably "down and dirty" but definitely lacks oomph for decent distance shots.

I'm looking for recommendations for both a good zoom lens (especially) and a macro lens.

Thanks!

PJ.

For dedicated (1:1 life size reproduction) Macro work, you'll have to buy a fixed prime lens. If the zooming power is more important to you, you're really not going to get much macro power unless you get the old Nikon 70-180 macro zoom, which does 1:1.32 without attachments and 1:1 with an accessory "closeup attachment"...

You can get Sigma 70-300 "Macro" zoom lenses which go up to a decent 1:2 macro, but they are mostly cheap plastic and mine only lasted me about a year before it literally fell aparat. (But then again I'm tough on gear)

One option is to get a sweet f/2.8 zoom like a Nikon 80-200 or 70-200, and use a closeup filter. Because these lenses are already amazingly sharp, a closeup filter is dooable. Not sure if I could recommend the closeup filter on the likes of the Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 though, because it is a bit softer. If you go that route be ready to shoot at f/8 or f/11 a lot.

Personally I just broke down and paid the price for a Sigma 150mm HSM Macro, and I am oh-so-happy with it. It is one of THE sharpest lenses on the market, it's f/2.8 performance beats some lenses f/8 performance I kid you not. And with this much sharpness, I can afford to put a 1.4x teleconverter on...

Good luck chosing a macro lens! Remember, pretty much any 90mm, 100mm or 105mm macro lens is going to be wayyyy sharper than any 70-300 zoom, let alone an 18-200 zoom or something. Personally I'd say go with a nice prime f/2.8 macro lens and just let the fixed focal length help force you to SEE better and move around more, to compose better photos...

=Matt=

Matthew Saville · July 30, 2007

dangin wrote:

tamron 18-200 or 70-300. not true macro persay, but more like close focusing. and a bargain price compared to nikkor lenses. take the money you saved and spend it on a good tripod, a scrim, and a light.

Dan's got a great point though: Don't go buying a sweet, expensive f/2.8 zoom or macro prime and then try to shoot macro hand-held or with a cheesy tripod! Invest ~$300 in a decent tripod and you will be 100x happier than with a cheapo $100 tripod, TRUST ME!!! I wasted money on TWO mediocre tripods before I saw the light...

=Matt=

Van Isle · July 31, 2007

I love my nikkor 18-200 as a walking around, rarely take it off the camera lens. But I'm still thinking I might swap it for the nikkor 70-200. I'm not sure if the extra range of 18-200 is worth the softness, smaller aperature, etc. I still find myself swapping between the stocker 18-70 and the 18-200 sometimes anyway, but I'm not afraid to swap lenses lots of times anywhere I need to. Gotta get the shot, right?

And I'd like to echo the advice of previous posters: Get good gear! Unless you have a paying photog gig right now that you need a certain piece of gear for that you can't afford, wait until you have the $$$ for the good gear. You'll only end up spending it later when you get more discriminating. The tripod is a perfect example, but I think the idea extends to all gear. The D70 is way better than I am as a photog, and I try to only feed it good lens and speedlights to make it happy.

Cheers,
VI

SciurusNiger · August 12, 2007

Conclusions
Thank you all for sharing your thoughts.

After much thinking, continuing to do my daily shoots and examining the results, and doing a lot of researching, I've decided to go with the pros' old workhorse 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF Zoom-Nikkor. While I'd love to get my hands on the new 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor, the difference between the two lenses doesn't justify the price difference right now. (Even if I don't buy any new clothes for a whole year....)

My conclusions are thus:

You get what you pay for. Nikon glass is top of the line.
The 80-200mm remains in the bag of some of the best nature photographers in the world.
I have a serious commitment to photography. Shooting for over 20 years off and on, I've spent this entire past year learning about and working with my D70, taking shots just about every day.
I won't "outgrow" the 80-200mm; it will do what I want for a long, long time. Even if I later decide to upgrade my camera body.

So it's finally off to the store. Results will be in my gallery of dailies, of course!

Seymore · August 12, 2007

SciurusNiger wrote:

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts.

After much thinking, continuing to do my daily shoots and examining the results, and doing a lot of researching, I've decided to go with...

SciurusNiger · August 12, 2007

I think I'm in love! Here is my very first shot (no, the curious customer in the camera store doesn't count).

No post-processing (except downsizing) was required. I'm particularly impressed with the lack of noise in the sky (a recurring issue with my 18-70mm kit lens).

Next year...pro body....

D70 Lens Recommendations?

Comments