Getting started: Nikon d5100 & 35mm f/1.8g?

skysh4rk

skysh4rk

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Hi all,

I'm a complete novice who is looking to take his first plunge into photography (outside of the point and shoots and iPhone) and purchase a digital slr in the next few days (budget around £500-£600).

I've scoured the internet for information and have visited several local camera shops to get a feel for what I want.

Initially I wanted either an entry level Nikon or Canon, but once I settled on Nikon as my preferred brand, a few friends strongly recommended moving up to the d5100 rather than the entry d3100. I understand that the d5100 sensor is superior and that it takes better low light shots, but was wondering if the additional £100 or so was justifiable.

Regarding lenses, many friends and store employees were pushing the 55-200mm zoom as a good second lens (a friend is giving me his spare 18-55mm kit lens), but I just get the feeling the zoom is not quite right for me. I think that I'd like to experiment with some really shallow depth of field shots, so, as I understand it, I'd be better with a lens with a wider aperture. I got to try the 35mm f/1.8g at Jessops the other day and it just felt like the right lens for me: light, versatile, sharp, and fast (or at least I thought so). Any thoughts on this lens to start?

Another consideration is that this camera will be used often by my girlfriend to take pictures when I compete in the high jump (indoors and outdoors). From my understanding, the 35mm should be good indoors with the wide aperture, although I'm guessing we may require greater focal length as spectators can often be seated far away from the event.

I'm not sure if the 85mm 1.8g lens might be worth picking up in the future for this type of situation?

Anyway, enough of my rambling; any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Use the 18 - 55 for a few weeks. You will then have a collection of shots and you can see which focal lengths you used the most. For example if you find you tended to use mostly at 55 then a 50 would make more sense that a 35. You will also find that 35 (or even 55) is pretty limited when you are not close to your subject but that all depends what shots you tend to take.
I use a 28 on a compact and a 50 on a DSLR and happy with both whereas others would hate to be limited to 50.
 
35G is a really great lens, i would definitely recommend it but remember the field of view on a 50mm is around 70mm because the body is DX and the lens is FX
 
Even though i own the brilliant 35, and don't own any zooms, I'd say use the free 18-55 for a while aswell. Costs you nothing to do this and you'll know your style by the end of it. If, like me, you end up with a cluster of EXIF around the 35mm (DX) mark then you know you're a standard prime person. If you like 24mm, then the prime for you is going to cost, I'm afraid....
 
Hi Skysh4rk and welcome to TP :)

One thing to bear in mind when choosing lenses for the D5100 (or D3100 for that matter) is that you need to see "AF-S" in the description for it to auto-focus on that body. Non AF-S lenses will still function but you'll have to manually focus them and that's not always easy on the entry level Nikons due to the smaller and slightly darker viewfinder.

It's easy to get carried away and forget this detail when starting out.

Whatever you buy - enjoy :)
 
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+ the d5100 is a far better body than the D3100, definitely worth spending the extra cash on it but if you want a bit more, the D90 can be had for the same price of a new D5100 secondhand
 
Many thanks to everyone for all of the advice.

Judging by many of the responses, it sounds like I'd be wise to play around with the 18-55mm for a bit to get a feel for my preferred focal length.

I'll also be certain to keep a lookout for compatible lenses. I knew that some types of Nikon lenses wouldn't autofocus on the D5100, but I wasn't aware that it would be more difficult to manually focus on the camera due to the viewfinder.

Callumduff, I think I'm leaning toward the D5100, but if I were interested in a second hand D90, where would I look to pick one up? How significant is the difference between these two cameras?

Can the D90 use those other lenses that Bristolian mentioned that won't autofocus on the D5100?
 
skysh4rk said:
Can the D90 use those other lenses that Bristolian mentioned that won't autofocus on the D5100?
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Yes it can, (which means you can pick up the cheaper 50 f1.8 - s/h around £50) plus it has a top LCD which means you can change more settings without going into the menus at the back.
 
ShoeQueen said:
Yes it can, (which means you can pick up the cheaper 50 f1.8 - s/h around £50) plus it has a top LCD which means you can change more settings without going into the menus at the back.
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Hmmm... I do like that the D90 offers a greater variety of lenses in terms of both cost and choice.

That said, I've already been convinced to move up from the D3100 to the D5100 and I'll need to draw the line somewhere. Moreover, the additional costs of the D90 would also limit potential lens purchases in the immediate future.

Does the D90 offer any significant advantages for sport, particularly athletics?
 
yes, the D90 can use all the lenses and more which the D5100 can use.

i would try some online specialists like Grays of Westminster, London Camera exchange or MPB but i would go to a shop and handle the D90 to get a feel first. It is a much larger body with a top LCD screen and i would also look at comparison website for the capability of the D5100 and the D90 :)
 
the D90 is also more adjustable with having the top LCD screen to see what setting your camera is at
 
Okay, I'll definitely need to pop into the local Jessops to better compare these cameras.

The girlfriend will also be using this camera, so I'd like to get her input as well in this regard.

A new D5100 certainly fits nicely into the budget right now, but a cursory examination of lenses and their prices suggests that more money could be saved in the long term with the D90, if I'm understanding correctly

That savings, however, depends on how much we ultimately use the camera and the number of lenses we intend to buy, which we won't know until we have a camera and see how often and in what ways we use it...
 
This month I've bought the D5100 with the 35mm f/1.8 and have no regrets at all. A solid purchase and I can highly recommend it as your first camera.

My previous camera was a D40 which I used with the 18-55 kit lens. A pretty decent lens and has its uses but don't expect the same sharpness and overall quality from this lens as you would from the 35mm 1.8
 
Check out some of my posts - then get the D90 secondhand :)
I also use the excellent 35mm most of the time :)
 
skysh4rk said:
A new D5100 certainly fits nicely into the budget right now, but a cursory examination of lenses and their prices suggests that more money could be saved in the long term with the D90, if I'm understanding correctly

That savings, however, depends on how much we ultimately use the camera and the number of lenses we intend to buy, which we won't know until we have a camera and see how often and in what ways we use it...
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You've got it spot on :thumbs: they are both very capable cameras, just have a few things which differentiate them (the AF motor, top LCD).

My first DSLR came with an 18-55 kit lens, but I really learnt the proper basics of photography with the 35mm f/1.8 G - it is a fantastic lens.
 
skysh4rk said:
Callumduff, I think I'm leaning toward the D5100, but if I were interested in a second hand D90, where would I look to pick one up? How significant is the difference between these two cameras?

Can the D90 use those other lenses that Bristolian mentioned that won't autofocus on the D5100?
Click to expand...

You can pick up a D90 on eBay for about £400. I did my research before buying my D5100 as I was deciding between the two. I opted for the D5100 because it has greater overall image quality, the sensor is better and I didn't NEED the extra controls the D90 has, nor did I NEED the in-built focus motor.
 
Thanks again to everyone for all of the good advice; lots to consider.

Because I'll be sharing this camera with the girlfriend (both in use and cost), I'm more inclined to buy the camera body new. If it were only for me, I'd probably have gone the second hand route.

We're going into town on Sunday to look at the cameras and figure out which features we NEED (e.g., in-built focus motor vs. better sensor, etc.) and those which we can live without.

I'm very glad to hear the positive reviews of the 35mm f/1.8 G.

I think we'll be happy no matter what we ultimate decide on.
 
Hmmmm... it turns out that the lens we're getting from a friend is the 18-35mm f3.5-4.5 and not the 18-55mm that I'd originally thought.

As I understand it, that lens will not autofocus on the D5100.

As a number of folks on this thread have recommended experimenting with the 18-55mm to get a feel for preferred focal length, is it still worth picking up the 18-55mm to do that?

I want to get a prime lens (35mm or 50mm) in the near future, but the 18-35mm isn't going to allow us to get a feel for the 50mm length.

It also seems a bit unwise to have a bunch of lenses covering similar focal lengths.

Thoughts?
 
I got a D90 as my first dslr. It's awesome and should serve you well. There's one at Harrison's at the moment, second hand with 12 months warranty for 350. Just saw it and thought of this thread.

For about a year I shot almost exclusively with the 50mm 1.8 afd. I think the 35 might have been better as I did want a bit of extra room at times but not having a zoom shouldn't restrict you (depending on what you shoot of course!)

Hope that helps

S
 
just get a 35mm, it never feels to restricting and if you want to get closer, just take a few steps forward :thumbs:
 
Sir SR said:
I got a D90 as my first dslr. It's awesome and should serve you well. There's one at Harrison's at the moment, second hand with 12 months warranty for 350. Just saw it and thought of this thread.
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After seeing your post, I showed the D90 from Harrison's to my girlfriend and she thought it was a good idea, but wanted to compare it to the D5100 and D3100 in person first.

So we went into Jessops this morning to check out all of the aforementioned cameras and I could just see that the D5100 was the best fit for her and, to be honest, I think it's a great camera for the both of us to share. We got the D5100 body for £350 between price matching and Tesco club card vouchers for Jessops, so I think we did okay.

If I'd been buying the camera for only myself, I probably would have chosen the secondhand D90, but for now, the D5100 will do the trick.

Thanks for the tip though.

callumduff said:
just get a 35mm, it never feels to restricting and if you want to get closer, just take a few steps forward :thumbs:
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We picked up the 35mm 1.8g and have been playing around with it this afternoon. So far we're loving it.

We have also ordered a secondhand 18-70mm from MPB. I saw some folks on this forum talking very fondly of the 18-70mm, so I figured we'd give it a go as it wasn't very expensive and it offers slightly more reach than the 18-55mm.

So we'll have one zoom and one prime to start, each reasonably priced, to get a feel for what we like.

I hope we haven't made too many rookie mistakes, but I certainly think we're going to enjoy the camera.
 
There's no difference in the output of any of these cameras in skilled hands. A D5100 is a very worthy choice; and if it felt the best in your hands then it's better than a D90, a D7000 or a D800; no point reading specsheets or pixel forums.

World-changing images have been shot on far, far less. Have fun!
 
have fun with the new lenses and body
 
The remaining Jacobs store in Leicester has a number of used D3s for sale,one was only £1,100 but was grotty.The ones they had for around the £1,500 mark looked pretty good though.
They had an ex hire D700 for £1,200 but I think that one went.
I keep popping in because there is used stock coming in all the time.
 
Jack Flash said:
The remaining Jacobs store in Leicester has a number of used D3s for sale,one was only £1,100 but was grotty.The ones they had for around the £1,500 mark looked pretty good though.
They had an ex hire D700 for £1,200 but I think that one went.
I keep popping in because there is used stock coming in all the time.
Click to expand...

Must have been a senior moment. Could have swore I was on a thread about going full frame.
Forgive me.
 
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