Lenses – Pros and Cons

While I can’t tell you the right lenses to buy for your particualr needs… I can give you some feedback/impressions about the particular lenses I am using or have used in the past.

Nikkor 10.5mm f2.8 Fisheye: I never thought such a specialized lens could provide me with so much use. I’ve won several awards with this lens because the unusual images you get are, well, unusual. A plain boring scene can be turned into this nifty surreal image with the 180 degree angle you get from a fisheye. I like to turn it towards the ground to make it look like the earth is round… and then put a tree, person or animal in the middle. It looks like the object is “on top of the world.” There are many fisheye lenses… but using older ones on a DSLR body (with magnification) make the effect look wonky. This is the only situation where magnification doesn’t really help when you want to use an older lens. However, the 10.5mm lens made for DSLR work great.

Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom – This lens is all right. I bought it as a kit lens a long time ago and it’s served well for the wider range. I wish I had saved pennies and purchased a 2.8 that offered a wider range (like a 12mm to 25mm).

Tamron 17-35mm f2.8: This is a great lens but, alas, I purchased it for a film camera and the magnification on my digital body means that it isn’t that useful in my photography right now. I’m planning on selling it (along with my other wide angle) and buying a 2.8 that has a wider range so I can do more with landscape photography.

Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D AF – This is the same lens I discussed earlier. It’s small, has a low price tag, allows you to shoot in really dark situations and it’s an 80mm on a digital camera. You really can’t go wrong.

Nikkor Nikon 80-200mm f2.8D ED AF Zoom – This is a fantastic lens that stays at 2.8 no matter if you are shooting at 80 or 200mm. Again, magnification means it’s actually a 300mm zoom. Zooms are great because you can adjust your focus distance depending on where your subject is located. Not so great with subjects that are always far away (like the macaws seen here), but really awesome for docile wildlife like deer. It also has a macro function that works beautifully.

Nikkor 105mm f/2.8D AF Micro, or 105 Micro for short – This is probably Nikon’s most used macro lens, probably because the lens can serve triple duty. First of all, it is a macro photography lens and it allows you to take photographs at a 1:1 reproduction ratio (on a 35mm body), which means that a 24 by 36 mm subject will fill the entire frame. Second, it makes a very good general purpose short telephoto lens. Third, it is also at least a very reasonable portrait lens (although, with magnification it may be too much of a telephoto on a digital SLR). I really love this lens for macro photography.

Nikkor 300mm f4 manual focus – While a “prime” lens doesn’t offer the flexibilty of a zoom… it’s still an ideal choice for getting the best results in your work. This is the same lens I discussed earlier and, considering it cost only $350, it’s light & the focusing is so smooth, it’s one of my favorite lenses. I never leave home without it.

Nikkor 600mm f5.6 manual focus ED Glass – Again, I paid a lot less for this lens (which is actually a hefty 900mm on a digital body and also has the famous Nikon ED glass!!) because it’s an older model and it’s manual focus. I spent $1,599 USD – but consider that a newer model would go for at least $5,000 to $25,000, depending on the f stop. Some may argue that 5.6 is a bit too narrow of an f stop but I find the compression with telephoto lenses means that I wouldn’t want to shoot a 900mm subject with anything wider than 5.6 (2.8 would make the focus far too shallow on such a far away subject). Although… for closer subjects 2.8 is magic!

In the past, I have also used the Sigma 70-300mm 3.5-5.6 and the Tamron 200-400mm 3.5-5.6 and both served well as affordable zooms while I was learning about photography. I have since sold them to pay for the lenses I currently use.

Why I LOVE and Highly Recommend Manual Focus

I used to be terrified of focusing manually. On most auto focus lenses, the focus ring is small and more difficult to use… also there’s something really easy about just allowing your camera to do the focusing work for you. I was afraid I couldn’t react quickly enough to moving subjects and that I wouldn’t be as good as my camera’s auto focus. Now I see the errors of my ways.

For wildlife (or people), you want to make sure the main subject’s eyes are in perfect focus. You won’t be able to sell any image if the eyes aren’t in focus. If you shoot a subject 10 feet away at 2.8 and use auto focus, the camera will choose the object closer to the camera (usually the nose, cheek, or eye brow… not the eye itself). A 2.8 aperture means that you will have such a soft depth of field that the eyes will appear out of focus. The older (and more affordable) manual focus lenses have the most beautiful focusing rings you’ve ever seen. I find it much easier to use manual focus on my 300mm f4 lens from the 1970s than my newer autofocus 80-200mm zoom (using the auto focus feature). Unfortuately, I find the focusing ring on the newer models a little bit pooey… but I did want to make the case for why I think manual focus lenses from the 1970s are the greatest things since sliced bread!

Rule of Thumb for Fast Subjects

You may already be aware that your shutter speed should be at least the same as the distance of your lens. For instance, you need to shoot at least 1/300th of a second if you are using a 300mm lens or hand shake will make your picture look really blurry. And anything larger than 300mm should be put on a tripod (preferably one with a ball head for wildlife work). With magnification, you may be able to get away with shooting a 300mm (a 450mm on your digital) hand-held… at 1/450th of a second or higher…)in a pinch… but investing in a good ball head tripod will really improve your results if your lens is higher than 300mm.

From Isnare.com