Nikon 50mm f/1.8 D AF Lens

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Mike McCarthy

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Mike
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Hi,

I have been reading good things about the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 D AF Lens.

I am thinking of getting one to learn about depth of field, as the kit lens
(18-55) on my D3000 doesn't provide much in the way of DOF. However, I understand that it will not autofocus with the D3000. Could someone tell me how difficult is it to manually focus? I am very new to photography, so have no experience of manual focus. Any thoughts welcome.

Thanks

Mike
 
Spose the easy way for you would be to switch your 18-55mm to M & twist = manual focusing....

IIRC you have a little green dot in the view-finder as well - once that stays as a steady green dot then you have your subject in focus....

If you can handle that then I would imagine that you can manual focus the nifty-fifty...

No doubt someone will be along to explain an more technical way of doing so :naughty:
 
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Yeah, use the dot. Im not sure of the D3000 does, but my d700 even tells you which way to turn the focus ring to achieve focus.
With practice its not that hard.
 
TCR4x4 said:
Yeah, use the dot. Im not sure of the D3000 does, but my d700 even tells you which way to turn the focus ring to achieve focus.With practice its not that hard.
Click to expand...


:thinking: Does it.... I've never noticed that :$
 
its not all that easy to MF on a crop sensor. The view finder is fairly dark - if you wanted to play with DoF I'd go for either one of the newer 50 f/1.4 as the more expensive option or the 35 f/1.8
 
Mike I have a 50 f1.8 and also a 35 f2, the 50mm is a superb lens, however once I got the 35mm the 50mm never got a look in, I prefered the focal length of the 35mm on the cropped sensor body.

Your options and be able to auto focus are the 50mm f1.4 G, or the 35mm f1.8.

Both are very good lenses, but they are going to cost more than the 50mm f1.8.
 
I have this for my D5000 so have the same issue, found that switching on the rangefinder as well as looking at the green dot helped a lot too.. its fine when i'm shooting table top stuff or have time to faff about with focusing outdoors but do tend to use my 35mm more than any of my lenses
 
The 50/1.8 will be easier to manual focus than the 18-55 as it's brighter and the focusing ring is much better than the sloppy one on the zoom

I would however greatly favour getting the smashing 35/1.8 even though it is more expensive - manual focusing isn't much fun.
 
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