Recommend lens + flash for my D80 please?
Discussion
Christmas is coming and I'm getting nagged for my wishlist.
I'm a novice with a Nikon D80 with the 18-135 kit lens. I love the body and the controls and sometimes I get cracking photos from the lens. But just as often I'm disappointed with the (un)sharpness or the colour noise, especially now as the daylight is weaker. The lens seems to have a sweet spot at about 100mm.
Most of my photos at the moment are informal hand-held portraits of the family (you know, new babies etc.) but I know I need to get out and expand my range of subjects. The camera is always on aperture priority mode and the aperture is as wide open as possible. I like a shallow depth of field and have taken some photos of which I'm enormously proud. I hate photos taken with the built-in flash and will go to ISO1600 to avoid using it. (Sometimes this works out really well but other times there's just too much noise.) I don't use RAW format because I don't yet understand post-processing techniques well enough to get the best from it.
I think I want two things: a better lens with a wide aperture for short-range work and a flash that's usable.
Lens: should I choose a fixed 50mm? There's a Nikon f1.4 50mm lens for £184 through CameraPriceBuster. Any good? Will this transform my low-light shots compared with my kit lens? (I think the kit lens gives me a max. of f4.8 at 50mm.) Do I *need* to go as low as f1.4 or could I choose the f1.8 for half the price?
Or do you think I'll find the fixed focal length too restrictive? I don't think anybody is going to pay the £300+ to buy me a better zoom lens, so I could buy myself one in the Jan sales if necessary, but I don't want to render a new 50mm redundant by doing so.
Flash: what sort of flash should I buy for casual indoor photos? It's got to be simple to use (and fully compatible with the camera, I guess) but powerful enough to allow photos that don't look like snapshots from a compact camera (which the built-in flash usually does). Maybe the Nikon SB600 for £150?
I'm not desperate to use Nikon-brand accessories but I do want fully compatible ones.
Thanks for reading this far. Would welcome suggestions and ideas from you expert chaps.
I'm a novice with a Nikon D80 with the 18-135 kit lens. I love the body and the controls and sometimes I get cracking photos from the lens. But just as often I'm disappointed with the (un)sharpness or the colour noise, especially now as the daylight is weaker. The lens seems to have a sweet spot at about 100mm.
Most of my photos at the moment are informal hand-held portraits of the family (you know, new babies etc.) but I know I need to get out and expand my range of subjects. The camera is always on aperture priority mode and the aperture is as wide open as possible. I like a shallow depth of field and have taken some photos of which I'm enormously proud. I hate photos taken with the built-in flash and will go to ISO1600 to avoid using it. (Sometimes this works out really well but other times there's just too much noise.) I don't use RAW format because I don't yet understand post-processing techniques well enough to get the best from it.
I think I want two things: a better lens with a wide aperture for short-range work and a flash that's usable.
Lens: should I choose a fixed 50mm? There's a Nikon f1.4 50mm lens for £184 through CameraPriceBuster. Any good? Will this transform my low-light shots compared with my kit lens? (I think the kit lens gives me a max. of f4.8 at 50mm.) Do I *need* to go as low as f1.4 or could I choose the f1.8 for half the price?
Or do you think I'll find the fixed focal length too restrictive? I don't think anybody is going to pay the £300+ to buy me a better zoom lens, so I could buy myself one in the Jan sales if necessary, but I don't want to render a new 50mm redundant by doing so.
Flash: what sort of flash should I buy for casual indoor photos? It's got to be simple to use (and fully compatible with the camera, I guess) but powerful enough to allow photos that don't look like snapshots from a compact camera (which the built-in flash usually does). Maybe the Nikon SB600 for £150?
I'm not desperate to use Nikon-brand accessories but I do want fully compatible ones.
Thanks for reading this far. Would welcome suggestions and ideas from you expert chaps.
I'm a Canon man myself, but you won't go far wrong with the F1.8 50mm, if you love your bokeh (not bukakke) then you'll be amazed at the depth of field you get with it compared to F4.8.
Not having played with an F1.4 lens I couldn't tell you how much better it was than the F1.8, but at double the price it had better be a hell of an improvement.
The fixed focal length isn't so much of an issue as it's ideal for portraits and forces you to move about to get ideal shots of everything else and improves your ideas on composition.
The other advantage is that you can shoot that much faster shutter speeds, making a flash even less of a necessity indoors or in low light.
Not having played with an F1.4 lens I couldn't tell you how much better it was than the F1.8, but at double the price it had better be a hell of an improvement.
The fixed focal length isn't so much of an issue as it's ideal for portraits and forces you to move about to get ideal shots of everything else and improves your ideas on composition.
The other advantage is that you can shoot that much faster shutter speeds, making a flash even less of a necessity indoors or in low light.
I was the same as you up until about a year ago. D80, hated flash and would crank the iso right up and frown on anyone using flash. Have to say though I've learnt alot in teh past year about getting the best results, and used properly a flash can make a monumental difference to the quality of your shots, and be almost invisible. I can dig out some stuff later if you like.
Go with the Nikon flash ( I have a SB600 and it's great, powerful enough, but not too big). TTL-BL mode is brill (canons are really lacking here), as it's a ttl metering mode that is designed to blend ambient light and flash. Works well, but (even with a lot of SLR experience) the learning curve with a modern flash system is really high. The Manual is bigger than the D80's...
Have a F1.8 50mm also. One of my favourite lenses and the one I took my fav ever image with (link in my profile). Great, and supposedly sharper than the F1.4. Whilst I would quite like a F1.4 for those extreme candlelight type situations, the minor difference in DOF doesn't make too much difference, and you have to be even more precise on the focus. Be prepared for a lot of out of focus shots at F1.8 (though usually best to stop down to F2.2 or so). Also, if your lens or camera front or rear focuses, at F1.4 that could be the difference between a sharp ear lobe, and a sharp pupil. Go with the F1.8 and get a flash as well.
If you're realy struggling with noise (for something important), you can always turn of in camera noise reduction and sharpening, and do this later in post processing (or use the RAW), something like Noise Ninja will do a better job than the camera.
Go with the Nikon flash ( I have a SB600 and it's great, powerful enough, but not too big). TTL-BL mode is brill (canons are really lacking here), as it's a ttl metering mode that is designed to blend ambient light and flash. Works well, but (even with a lot of SLR experience) the learning curve with a modern flash system is really high. The Manual is bigger than the D80's...
Have a F1.8 50mm also. One of my favourite lenses and the one I took my fav ever image with (link in my profile). Great, and supposedly sharper than the F1.4. Whilst I would quite like a F1.4 for those extreme candlelight type situations, the minor difference in DOF doesn't make too much difference, and you have to be even more precise on the focus. Be prepared for a lot of out of focus shots at F1.8 (though usually best to stop down to F2.2 or so). Also, if your lens or camera front or rear focuses, at F1.4 that could be the difference between a sharp ear lobe, and a sharp pupil. Go with the F1.8 and get a flash as well.
If you're realy struggling with noise (for something important), you can always turn of in camera noise reduction and sharpening, and do this later in post processing (or use the RAW), something like Noise Ninja will do a better job than the camera.
IMHO there's only one really good answer to your lens needs, and it's going to cost you £850 in the shape of the Nikkor 17-55 f2.8. I love this lens - I bought it for weddings but now it's my general-purpose lens too. There are cheaper alternatives but there's sure to be a trade-off somewhere. I think the 50mm will be too long for indoor group work. I have the f1.4 and frankly don't need it - you may get a faster shutter speed but the DOF is unworkably shallow for what I do, and the results are a bit soft.
As for a fully compatible flash, the SB600 or SB800 are the ones, and will interface perfectly with the camera.
Right, that's about £1100 gone - what else do you need ?
As for a fully compatible flash, the SB600 or SB800 are the ones, and will interface perfectly with the camera.
Right, that's about £1100 gone - what else do you need ?
Simpo Two said:
IMHO there's only one really good answer to your lens needs, and it's going to cost you £850 in the shape of the Nikkor 17-55 f2.8. I love this lens - I bought it for weddings but now it's my general-purpose lens too. There are cheaper alternatives but there's sure to be a trade-off somewhere. I think the 50mm will be too long for indoor group work. I have the f1.4 and frankly don't need it - you may get a faster shutter speed but the DOF is unworkably shallow for what I do, and the results are a bit soft.
As for a fully compatible flash, the SB600 or SB800 are the ones, and will interface perfectly with the camera.
Right, that's about £1100 gone - what else do you need ?
As for a fully compatible flash, the SB600 or SB800 are the ones, and will interface perfectly with the camera.
Right, that's about £1100 gone - what else do you need ?
Nice!
Actually, man has a point if you can stretch to a 17-50 F2.8 or 18-50 F2.8 that will make a massive difference to your photography. Maybe the nikon is overkill (what's that like twice the cost of a D80 these days?) But the Sigma EX and Tamron ain't bad.
I have had a D70s for around 3 years, so pretty similar to your D80, and have been slowly adding kit but didn't want to go overboard on expensive lenses and flashes that I wouldn't end up using. However I did get an SB400 flash with an off-camera extension cord which makes a huge difference to indoor portraits, with or without daylight, as well as a 50mm f/1.8 for some portrait work at a party. Put these two together and you have a fair amount to work with and learn from for a total spend of £200 which can't be bad!
Thank you thank you thank you. I really appreciate your responses. This is really useful info, such as the reminder about just how shallow the DoF will be at f1.4.
Sadly, as much as I might love the idea of a top-line Nikkor lens I have other hobbies that need the money more than the photography does. In time, when my photography skills have improved, I might be able to do justice to such a lens but for now I need to learn technique more than I need the kit. I'll check out the Sigma and Tamron options though - something more affordable might swing me away from the fixed 50mm lens and towards something more flexible. Prices for these seem to be in the £350-£400 range. Sound about right? I sense that I'm not going to get a huge difference in aperture compared with my kit lens though - if the lowest stop is f2.8 that's not much bigger than the f3.5 of my kit lens so I'm not sure that they'll transform my experience.
Based on what you've all said above, I think the 50mm f1.8 lens will give me a baseline for the best quality and the best possible chance of taking technically good photos, and from that position I can work on my composition and creative skills.
The SB600 flash is the one I'll put on my list.
Sadly, as much as I might love the idea of a top-line Nikkor lens I have other hobbies that need the money more than the photography does. In time, when my photography skills have improved, I might be able to do justice to such a lens but for now I need to learn technique more than I need the kit. I'll check out the Sigma and Tamron options though - something more affordable might swing me away from the fixed 50mm lens and towards something more flexible. Prices for these seem to be in the £350-£400 range. Sound about right? I sense that I'm not going to get a huge difference in aperture compared with my kit lens though - if the lowest stop is f2.8 that's not much bigger than the f3.5 of my kit lens so I'm not sure that they'll transform my experience.
Based on what you've all said above, I think the 50mm f1.8 lens will give me a baseline for the best quality and the best possible chance of taking technically good photos, and from that position I can work on my composition and creative skills.
The SB600 flash is the one I'll put on my list.
sublimatica said:
I sense that I'm not going to get a huge difference in aperture compared with my kit lens though - if the lowest stop is f2.8 that's not much bigger than the f3.5 of my kit lens so I'm not sure that they'll transform my experience.
But it's constant throughout the zoom range, and you'll get a brighter viewfinder and more accurate AF.You could also consider a wide-angle prime, something around 35mm f2.0 perhaps, but to me at least the flexibility of a zoom is very important.
One thing when changing to fast lenses is to remember that when used at or close to max aperture, you have to be careful choosing your focus point, otherwise you can find the subject is slightly out of focus... it's also tempting to leave it on max aperture just 'because you can', when it's not always the best choice. I use mostly use mine around f3.2 - 3.5, but consciously crank them to around f5.6 - 8 for groups and other times when I need some DOF.
Simpo Two said:
sublimatica said:
I sense that I'm not going to get a huge difference in aperture compared with my kit lens though - if the lowest stop is f2.8 that's not much bigger than the f3.5 of my kit lens so I'm not sure that they'll transform my experience.
But it's constant throughout the zoom range, and you'll get a brighter viewfinder and more accurate AF.How about this 24-70mm Sigma lens? Any thoughts?
Simpo Two said:
One thing when changing to fast lenses is to remember that when used at or close to max aperture, you have to be careful choosing your focus point, otherwise you can find the subject is slightly out of focus... it's also tempting to leave it on max aperture just 'because you can', when it's not always the best choice. I use mostly use mine around f3.2 - 3.5, but consciously crank them to around f5.6 - 8 for groups and other times when I need some DOF.
Yeah - learning and playing more with DoF is something I want to do, but my existing lens makes that difficult to achieve because of the relatively poor light performance. Given that lenses are available with a constant f2.8 max aperture I might find this purchase is a revelation. 
Simpo Two said:
You could also consider a wide-angle prime, something around 35mm f2.0 perhaps
The 35mm f/2 AF-D lens is lightweight, gives good quality results, nicely wider than a 50mm, takes small size filters (52mm IIRC - don't quote me without checking), autofocus quite quickly 'cause tehre's not much glass to move and is generally a pretty much all-round nice-guy. Combined with the price (not sure if you couldn't find one about £120-150 s/h, but) I think probably sub £200 brand new, it's a good value lens. Behaves better on digital sensors than the wider primes, which generally are a bit old in design and can be a tad under-brilliant on any of the latest digital sensors, especially when you start pixel peeping. Lens hood essential.Edited by beano500 on Wednesday 26th November 12:32
Simpo Two said:
One thing when changing to fast lenses is to remember that when used at or close to max aperture, you have to be careful choosing your focus point, otherwise you can find the subject is slightly out of focus... it's also tempting to leave it on max aperture just 'because you can', when it's not always the best choice. I use mostly use mine around f3.2 - 3.5, but consciously crank them to around f5.6 - 8 for groups and other times when I need some DOF.
Thanks John, that might be THE revelation for me with my Nikkor 17-55/2.8 as I do vary the aperture but have found it to be not so sharp at maximum. I ha put that down to me not being steady enough or shutter speed being wrong.Sorry for the thread hi-jack.
YB
sublimatica said:
How about this 24-70mm Sigma lens? Any thoughts?
It's a generally well-regarded lens but heavy and there are a few reports of bad copies. Takes a pricey 82mm filter iirc. The 24-60 on the other hand is considered a hidden gem - misses little off the long end, but noticeably lighter and more consistent in terms of build quality and reliability, and cheaper-to-buy-for 77mm thread to boot. There's a new 24-70 out Jan/ Feb iirc.
Agree with whoever said 50mm could be too restrictive. Whilst it's bright and sharp, it's too long to be useful for close-up candids.
As for flash, SB600 or, if you choose to afford, SB800 would give future flexibility whilst increasing your shooting and lighting options immediately. Nikon's CLS is great but, with the 600 only, I find it flawed: the on-camera flash triggers the off-camera unit with light just right to ensure that, as the shutter opens your subject's eyes will instinctively close. Best way to avoid this is and retain CLS functionality is with SU-800 but that's yet more cash.
Thanks for your reply (and particularly this bit):
There's a new 24-70 out Jan/ Feb iirc.I'm going to go across to Park Cameras (they're near me) and have a look/play with the 24-70mm. I'm not sure I'm ready for filters yet (apart from a Skylight to protect the lens) but this is worth bearing in mind. I'll discuss the options with them - I've always found PC to be very helpful. They may have other Sigma lenses in the range.
Cheers.
AndWhyNot said:
sublimatica said:
How about this 24-70mm Sigma lens? Any thoughts?
It's a generally well-regarded lens but heavy and there are a few reports of bad copies. Takes a pricey 82mm filter iirc. The 24-60 on the other hand is considered a hidden gem - misses little off the long end, but noticeably lighter and more consistent in terms of build quality and reliability, and cheaper-to-buy-for 77mm thread to boot. There's a new 24-70 out Jan/ Feb iirc.
Cheers.
AndWhyNot said:
sublimatica said:
How about this 24-70mm Sigma lens? Any thoughts?
It's a generally well-regarded lens but heavy and there are a few reports of bad copies. Takes a pricey 82mm filter iirc. The 24-60 on the other hand is considered a hidden gem - misses little off the long end, but noticeably lighter and more consistent in terms of build quality and reliability, and cheaper-to-buy-for 77mm thread to boot. There's a new 24-70 out Jan/ Feb iirc.
Agree with whoever said 50mm could be too restrictive. Whilst it's bright and sharp, it's too long to be useful for close-up candids.
As for flash, SB600 or, if you choose to afford, SB800 would give future flexibility whilst increasing your shooting and lighting options immediately. Nikon's CLS is great but, with the 600 only, I find it flawed: the on-camera flash triggers the off-camera unit with light just right to ensure that, as the shutter opens your subject's eyes will instinctively close. Best way to avoid this is and retain CLS functionality is with SU-800 but that's yet more cash.
VxDuncan said:
If I understand your post correctly you are trying to trigger the SB600 remotely using the pop-up flash in commander mode? If so you can get round the blinking issue by fitting an IR-pass filter to the flash, such as the SG-31R. The sensor on the SB600 is covered in Red plastics - it only responds to IR, hence you can filter the flash from the pop up and speedlights to IR only.
I'd read that before but, without trying very hard, I haven't been able to get hold of an SG-31R. Doesn't it also reduce range?Well I went and spoke to the chaps at Park Cameras and had a play with the 24-70mm Sigma lens. The one they've got in stock is second-hand but in mint condition.
It's big and heavy! Wow. But it does seem to give bright photos. In fact, IMHO they're too bright. Some were definitely blown out. I was taking photos in the shop in the evening so the light was low and all over the place, but the photos were definitely worse than those taken with my kit lens. To be honest, I was disappointed.
Do you folks find that lenses are calibrated differently for exposure? Should I expect to have to stop the camera down to compensate for the bright lens, or shouldn't the camera's metering system compensate automatically? I've never tried a different lens before.
I want to go back and try the same lens in the daylight. Should I expect to get identically-exposed photos for both lenses?
Would appreciate any further advice on offer.
It's big and heavy! Wow. But it does seem to give bright photos. In fact, IMHO they're too bright. Some were definitely blown out. I was taking photos in the shop in the evening so the light was low and all over the place, but the photos were definitely worse than those taken with my kit lens. To be honest, I was disappointed.
Do you folks find that lenses are calibrated differently for exposure? Should I expect to have to stop the camera down to compensate for the bright lens, or shouldn't the camera's metering system compensate automatically? I've never tried a different lens before.
I want to go back and try the same lens in the daylight. Should I expect to get identically-exposed photos for both lenses?
Would appreciate any further advice on offer.
AndWhyNot said:
The 24-60 on the other hand is considered a hidden gem - misses little off the long end, but noticeably lighter and more consistent in terms of build quality and reliability, and cheaper-to-buy-for 77mm thread to boot.
To follow up on this info specifically, the 24-60mm lens is now discontinued. Park Cameras had no other fixed-aperture zoom lenses to offer me at anywhere near this price level.To reply to this topic in case anybody's interested, I've tested a brand new version of the secondhand Sigma lens that was giving me weird exposure results, and it's much more in line with my kit lens's exposure. So clearly this secondhand lens has a problem. The excellent assistant in Park Cameras was as confused as I was.
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