When she was starting out, I bought my daughter a D3100 and 35, and NO other lenses.
As a Smurfone jockey, the fixed focal length kept it simple, intuitive and analogous with what she was familiar with with the smurfone, as has been mentioned, like when film SLR's came with just a fast-50 on the front, wide 'max' aperture, makes for bright view-finder; lack of zoom makes you consider composition more carefully, and 'simple' non zoom construction tends to offer very good IQ for the cash they cost.
Possible shallow DoF effects are a very, very VERY small part of what these lenses can do, and using max-aperture to get it, whilst the AF sticks the red-dot on the subject and plonks that DoF arbitrarily where it happens to fall, limits even that to an even smaller range of usefulness.
Daughter having worked through O and A-Level and now doing her Degree in photography, loved that lens, and the discipline of being limited to that being almost her only lens, and making it work for her, rather than expecting the lens to do the job she hopes, just by being.
With access to all my lenses; for the Electric-Picture-Maker, the 55-300, got her exited for about twenty minutes with monster zoom 'close'. The 180Deg full round fish was utterly lost on her. The 8-16 UWA, intrigued her, but didn't delver instant 'wow', and begged too much 'work' for her to get much from it, straight off the stops... which left her ferreting through the old film cameras and borrowing my M42 primes, (and adapter) for 'alternative' lenses most often.
The Pentacon 29mm prime, has pretty similar Angle of View to the DX35, and slower f2.8 max aperture, so didn't get much attention. My Ziess 50/f2, did, especially when she started doing close ups, macro and more conventional portraiture. Eventually begged buying her the DX50 prime for EPM. Most interesting phenomenon of that, though, was WHEN she came to try getting 'selective' rather than simply 'shallow' focus effects; first she discovered that the fast aperture alone isn't really what gets it, and chasing ever lower f-number's is something of a fools errand.
What she appreciated most about that lens, was the optimised for manual operation focus control, and the large travel on the focus ring, that allowed a much more refined 'touch' to focus, and the resistance/damping on th ring, that meant it stayed where she set it, rather than traveled or crept. Clear focus distance scale, wth DoF scale brackets, also helped her exploit the lens for real 'selective-focus' effects, putting the DoF zone around her subject where she wanted it, NOT focusing slap on her subject as begged by split-field center-spot or red dot. Something difficult to impossible with an Electric-AF lens, that doesn't have the DoF brackets to help, and assumes you will leave the electrickery to pick the focus distance!
The Hanimex 135/F2.8, quickly found her favour when she had sussed this, for close up and portrait, with ever so shallow DoF and a very much wider range of critical focus, giving at relatively moderate apertures much more subtle 'focus fade' out of the DoF zone, rather than the almost clinical separation of subject and scene, that makes the subject appear almost as if they have been photo-shopped into the picture, so often obtained with very wide apertures, often on shorter focal length lenses.
The DX35 and DX50 primes then, in the range of kit 18-55 for Angle of Veiw, are likely to stay in the gadget bag and NOT be used in place of the kit, unless you wish to use the wide aperture for shallow focus effect. As such, the brghter view-finder will little be exploited. The demand of having to 'zoom with your feet' and be more consderate of compostion, will likely not be experienced, let alone normalised to a dscipline, and ALL they will be used for IS wackng the aperture to the max, making the SoF a razor blade, making subjects look photo-shopped into the back-ground, and looking smug, telling people "Yeah, fantastic lens, that one; Cant do that with a Kit!"
11-16? Is a UWA. Great lens. Personally I picked the Siggy 8-16 for the extra wide, which is something 'if' you get 'into' wide angle photography you will almost undoubtedly want more of from a wide. In my case, most often used for opening up small spaces, woking up close, rather than trying to grab enormouse expanses of very big ones, at moon and more sort of focus dstances, as with Astro.
UWA's are an acquired taste, and they are very VERY difficult to work with, even more so work with WELL.
I dont do astro-photography, but, pretty sure many exponents of that will suggest similar; more scene rarely does more 'photo' make; usually just more 'boring'. For starting out in that genre, I believe that the conventional advice is to use a telescope, or long zoom, and learn to pick your subject, before you try grabbing whole galaxies!
On a slightly more terrestrial scale, the 'wow' of an ultra-wide-angle is so often completely lost, on big spaces, the lens packing ever so much more 'boring' in the frame, as well as actually unwanted 'clutter' from the lack of discipline in composition and checking corners and paying attention to so much detal, made so small by the lens. While, the huge angle of view also makes the angle of incidence an awful lot more critical, and just a couple of degrees more tilt up or down or left or right, completely alters the composition, more the perspective, so the lens begs INORDINATELY more from you to make it work and get what you hope for.
Long Lenses; deliver a lot of 'wow' from having such a narrow angle of view, croppng so much distracting detail from the scene and delivering the bt of interest, large and with maimum impact in the frame. Making them reletively that much easier to get results with, almost straight off the stops. Wde's are completely the other way, and they demand so much more from you, to 'get' seemngly so little from them, so much more subtely.
SO! Reviewing your prior posts... I would suggest Richard-Prior "Vote None of the Above!" You have jumped in to the pursuit, very very recently, what, three months ish? You have an ENORMOUS amount of enthusiasm and excitement, but even more AMBITION... but seems not a heck of a lot of patience, or know how, nor the diligence to work at getting it...
"Can I take proffessional Shots with an Entry DSLR?" thread, is revealing in the underlying motive, that camera kit is expensive, so IF you can sell picturs, that may help you buy all the toys you aspire to, to help make it a more 'profitable' hobby....
BUT... it also demonstrats the flutter-bye effect pretty well.... in that thread you wanted to specalise in 'pet portraiture'... which you seemed to believe would be 'easer' than child or baby pictures, your own baby being inconveniently unco-operative when it came to posing.... back-ground ad studio set ups too expensive/difficult to arrange, even for baby's or pets, so Pets in the Park... lets try flog snap-shots of peoples pets in the park.... 'cos it look 'easy' and don't cost nuffink to do!
Seriously, its like watching an accident running around looking for a place to happen,wondering whether a Guy-Fawkes night banger is as good as a hand-grenade, or whether to buy a shot-gun!
You will, I am sure, take only that advice that suits yor own ideas, right now, and you will continue to let your enthusiasm and GAS take you wherever that enthsasm drives... BUT!!!!!
Here and now? You have more kit in your mitt, in an entry level DSLR and twin kit-lenses, than most photographers could ever aspire to in years past, when a camera usually had a single fixed, and fixed focal lenth lens, and they HAD to be a little more disciplined; find the genre that interested them, and practice practice practice to master it with the kit they had... NOT flitting from genre to genre, expecting the kit to do all the work... and other people to subsidies or pay for their play!
I would say, IF you have to spend money on anything photo-related here and now and find vent for your new found photo-enthusiasm... go find a photo-course at a local college of FE... Show the discipline of turning up every Tuesday night or whatever, do what you are TOLD not what you PLEASE, with the gear you got.. and the accessories college will likely supply.
Get some basics learned; sample some different genres in the assignments set by the tutor, and explore some of the possibilities in photography.. NOT the gadgets!
Reel in the ambition some, find vent for the enthusiasm, and learn a heck of a lot along the way, BEFORE you buy so much gear to stick on top of the wardrobe, for your baby to e-bay when they shuffle you off to a home, after you have completely lost the plot and your enthusiasm findng so much you CANT do, rather than something you CAN let alone the thing you, note, YOU not your camera or your lenses or your gadgets, can do 'well'.
NOT, I suspect the advice you hope for or want, and probably even less appreciate... BUT stands just the same.
If you wish to ignore it... carry on, but both! the DX35 is a fantastic lens, I'm sure you will be wowed by the shallow focus it can delver. The Tokina UWA is a great bit of kit, again, I am sure you will be impressed by the big skies it can cram in the frame.. neither is a bad lens, but here and now, I really think either is a bad choice... I really don't think may actually 'help' you to achieve very much right now, just feed the GAS, the flutter-bye effect, and your errant pre-conceptions about 'the gear'.
Your call.
The OP has. How can we explain to him that he needs to go a bit longer and not wider...
