Help with a Nikon D50 and Lens
Help with a Nikon D50 and Lens
Author
Discussion

Sue

Original Poster:

217 posts

243 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
quotequote all
Hi Guys,

I need some help please, I just went to use our Nikon D50 and the lens has come loose. Can it be repaired and if not what would be a good lens to replace it that would do close up photos for eBay, as well as outside, we already have a good long distance Zoom lens.

Many Thanks

Sue smile

Simpo Two

92,891 posts

295 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
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Can you define 'come loose'?

Sue

Original Poster:

217 posts

243 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
quotequote all
Simpo Two said:
Can you define 'come loose'?
The internal lens is rattling around, it is a DX AF-S Nikkor lens if that helps with the type of Lens.

Cheers for the quick response.

Sue

Simpo Two

92,891 posts

295 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
quotequote all
Sue said:
The internal lens is rattling around
That sounds rather bad - normally you'd have to drop it to do that kind of damage.

Assuming it doesn't work then you have to decide whether to repair or replace. www.fixationuk.com will give you a quote for repair but if this is the 18-55mm I'm guessing it is, it's probably not worth it. You could either get the same again, or the 18-70mm which is a good lens.

Edited by Simpo Two on Monday 2nd February 13:40

Sue

Original Poster:

217 posts

243 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
quotequote all
Simpo Two said:
Sue said:
The internal lens is rattling around
That sounds rather bad - normally you'd have to drop it to do that kind of damage.

Assuming it doesn't work then you have to decide whether to repair or replace. www.fixationuk.com will give you a quote for repair but if this is the 18-55mm I'm guessing it is, it's probably not worth it. You could either get the same again, or the 18-70mm which is a good lens.

Edited by Simpo Two on Monday 2nd February 13:40
Thank you very much for your advice, I will look into the lens you suggested.

Cheers,

Sue

Simpo Two

92,891 posts

295 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
quotequote all
Happy to help; post again if you get stuck.

(I didn't pick up on your 'close-up' point, assuming the lens you had did the job sufficiently well)

Kinky

39,944 posts

299 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
quotequote all
Actually John - is there a good lens that would give you really good close-ups (jewellery and suchlike) through a good mid-range general lens?

MTIA,

K

andy-xr

13,204 posts

234 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
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SamHH

5,078 posts

246 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
quotequote all
Kinky said:
Actually John - is there a good lens that would give you really good close-ups (jewellery and suchlike) through a good mid-range general lens?

MTIA,

K
It depends just how close you want to get. A true macro lens has a magnification of 1:1; i.e. a subject 5mm across will fill 5mm of film or sensor. Almost always these are fixed focal length lenses so although they can be used for normal photography, their usefulness as an all-round lens is limited. There are quite a few mid-range zoom lenses that have a better-than-normal but still not quite macro level of magnification ability (somewhere between 1:2 and 1:4). Often these have "macro" in the name. That might be good enough for stuff like jewellery.

Another alternative is to make a normal lens focus closer by using extension tubes, close up lenses, reverse mounting it or reverse mounting another lens onto the front of it. Some of those things result in the loss of some functionality and the image quality might not be quite as good as dedicated macro lens, but they are cheaper.

Edited by SamHH on Monday 2nd February 20:46

Simpo Two

92,891 posts

295 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
quotequote all
Kinky said:
Actually John - is there a good lens that would give you really good close-ups (jewellery and suchlike) through a good mid-range general lens?
I'm not sure that any true macro lenses are zoom lenses, so that and 'general mid-range' are mutually exclusive, although you could press a 60mm macro into service as a standard/portrait lens. Alternatively you can hire my Nikkor 105mm and you get a free Simpo behind it biggrin

SamHH has the rest of the info. The Sigma 18-50 f2.8 is not a proper macro lens (much as their marketing department would wish it) as the magnification is only 1:3 - that may be sufficent, or you could use a kit lens and crop like fury; it all depends what you want to photograph. Here are two links from a watchstrap:



Edited by Simpo Two on Monday 2nd February 21:54

Kinky

39,944 posts

299 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
quotequote all
Simpo Two said:
it all depends what you want to photograph.
Yeah - the inevitable $1m question smile

As Sue says - ebay photography, and such like - mainly small sized items , but then at the same time can be used as a general purpose, every-day portrait-type lens.

I know quality is not a key issue specifically to eBay, but it is still a specific requirement .... to go along with the the tent & lighting that you so kindly advised about a few months ago thumbup

K

SamHH

5,078 posts

246 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
quotequote all
Assuming you already have a 'mid-range' zoom lens, a macro lens in the 50mm to 100mm range can be quite useful; they're usually fastish (f2.8) and have good optical quality so like Simpo says, you can use it for all sorts of stuff. This was taken with a 105mm macro lens:



Sorry to drag this so far off topic BTW.

andy-xr

13,204 posts

234 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
quotequote all
I linked that Sigma as I have it. It'll focus fine from about 15-20 cms back from your subject. Obviously if you're going for the type of photo Simpo posted above it's not going to be the best hitter, but it's fairly cheap and makes a good job of most things.

Constant F2.8 was the attraction for me over the kit 18-55 F3.5-5.6, other ability was an added bonus

Dogsey

4,301 posts

260 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
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I love my Sigma 70mm f2.8 EX, true macro and a focal length just about ideal for portraits, I use it on a D50 too.

Lens

A fairly high number of the photographs on my Flickr site were taken with this lens, particularly all of this set

Simpo Two

92,891 posts

295 months

Monday 2nd February 2009
quotequote all
andy-xr said:
I linked that Sigma as I have it. It'll focus fine from about 15-20 cms back from your subject. Obviously if you're going for the type of photo Simpo posted above it's not going to be the best hitter, but it's fairly cheap and makes a good job of most things.
Agreed, if budget is a factor then it looks like a good deal!

(I suppose we'd better go away and leave the OP in peace now!)

Sue

Original Poster:

217 posts

243 months

Tuesday 3rd February 2009
quotequote all
No, it's okay, I am enjoying all the comments and suggestions and am looking into the different options. smile

Cheers

Sue

P.S. - John - hows the battery on your Jag these days?