Thread: Flickr: Discussing lens-HELP in Nikon D40/x/50/60/5000/3000 and Friends Club

Everyone should have a manual focus nifty fifty. They are so cheap there's just no excuse not to try one out. Worst case scenario is you find you can't be bothered doing the manual focus/ exposure guesstimating thing, so you sell it on losing little if any money.

200mm is short for the moon and short for birds. Here's an uncropped photo of the moon taken with a Nikon 75-150mm lens and a Tokina 2x tele-converter giving a maximum of 300mm, at which the photo was taken:

if you're in the market for "cheap lens just to see if you wanna go no-metering", I'd also suggest getting a used lensbaby. I think a lot of them are cheap and you get a 50mm focal length and f/2 at the most open.... I often take that instead of my 50mm just cause its fun to play with.

thank you for the response. yes i get the lens with the camera and i think i need longer lens, so what should i buy then? thx for the link, give me more information :D

Sports (what kind)? Landscapes? Wildlife? etc.

awesome. thanks

although i find a 50mm not the perfect focallength for a prime on dx, but that's just my personal opinion. you might find it a comfortable focallength.

As a student without a lot of money like you, i'll reccomend Tamron 70-300 as a cheap all-around tele lens: good colors, good bokeh, dirty cheap. Until you don't do lots of concert/theather photography should be fine for a while. Watch out for the Bim [built-in motor] version, specific for D40/60/3000/5000.

The 55-200 is way short for the moon, mostly too short for birds, slow to autofocus in not-so-great light, and not super-sharp at the long end. It should be an adequate portrait lens, provided you don't need a wide aperture to blur busy backgrounds. The 70-300 will be better at practically everything, although for birds, I certainly prefer a prime with a tripod collar. Re: moon and focal length: This is a 400mm f/5.6 with a 1.4x TC...

I'll break with the pro-zoom crowd and recommend Nikon's 35mm 1.8; it's $200 solid in low light, and really nice for portraits. That it is a fixed focal length will force you to think and move more to make your compositions, rather than relying on the flexibility of the zoom. The 50mm is also not a bad choice at all, but I find it a little too long for shooting in small rooms. That said, the 55-200 is a pretty decent...