Please help me choose a lens

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casfan

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Looking to get another lens i just have a kit lens at the moment.
I do like doing macro stuff, but am going on holiday soon so also want a lens with a decent amount of zoom with it. I haven't specialised as yet so just want a lens that i can get a lot of use out of.

I have a nikon D40.

The ones I'm looking at are
Tamron 55-200mm f4-5.6 Di II LD Macro Lens - Nikon Fit £104
Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 Macro DG Lens - Nikon Fit £123
Tamron 70-300mm f4-5.6 Di with AF Motor - Nikon Fit £131
Tamron 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 AF XR DI II - Nikon Fit £170
Sigma 70-300mm f4-5.6 APO Macro Super DG Lens - Nikon Fit £173
Nikon 55-200mm f4.5-5.6 G AF-S DX Black Lens £181

Which should i get?
 
I'm a little puzzled as to why you want a medium length zoom to go on holiday. For family portraits, the kit lens should be sufficient. For landscapes, the kit lens wound down to about 20mm or so will do.

If you're serious about macro photography, I would go for a proper macro lens as suggested by mastertrinity.

I do a lot of wildlife photography, if you go that route I would suggest at least a 70-300mm zoom.
 
so im covered more or less for landscapes and portraits :)

Off to florida so my thoughts on the longer (medium zoom i was thinking one that goes to 300mm ) was for if we went into the zoo, animal kingdom etc or to get some good shots at kenedy and to get some good pics from in the parks.

I'm happt to be guided as i have no clue at to what will be the best solution.
 
The guys are right in what they say. You really need a sharp fast lens for macro work.
I think what you are hoping is that you can get an all purpose lens to cover your holiday scenarios and also use it for macro, but it isn't very practical. I don't know the lenses you have mentioned so I can't really advise on the pro's and con's of each one, but at those prices non of them will be optically perfect. Although the Tamron 18-200mm is very slow at the long end it may be okay if you are going somewhere nice and sunny, but not so good on a wet day in the UK. However I have an 18-200mm lens that I use a lot because it is convenient to just keep the one lens on during days out. Do a search on the web for reviews on those lenses and see if one is better than the rest, if not, and if my budget was limited, I would probably opt for the 18-200mm. You can sell it after your holiday and put the money towards something a bit better or the macro lens if you are still keen on that.

I just had a look at the Camera Labs review of the 18-200mm. It looks like a good travel lens to me.
http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Tamron18200mm/index.shtml
 
I thought that would be the case. Forget the macro part then i ll get that later think i want a second hand tamron 90mm f2.8 macro lens for that.

So for now i want a longer lens than my kit on that i can use as a walk about lens. I know at the prices there not going to be super doper. I just want something that will autofocus and produce nice images i can look at on the computer, none are going to be printed bigger than a4 .
 
Since you have a D40 you'll be using a macro lens in manual anyway so you could also consider the Tamron 90mm f2.5 amongst others.
 
Think your looking at the right focal length of 70-300mm which should cover 90% at least of any pictures you want to take. I would also consider a UV filter as well if going there.

Realspeed
 
Cheers Yardbent,

I ll have a think and get back to you after work, do you have any pics taken with it.
 
Buy a lens for the right purpose!
Do you need huge shutter? Will you shoot from tripod or handheld? Shooting landscape, bird/animal, sport, action in fast move?

If you need a lens for all purpose then you have to buy a real good expensive lens. Else I would go for Tamron AF 28-300mm XR Di VC.
 
casfan said:
I ll have a think and get back to you after work, do you have any pics taken with it.
Click to expand...

haven't used much - January in garden
Nikon D40 hand-held at 200mm 1/400 f5.6 ISO 500..."VR" on
WB = Auto, NR = Off, Matrix metering

image is 3008x2000 resized [and sharpened 2% ] for posting here to 800x532 at 191kB - which doesn't help..:shake:
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showphoto.php
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The Tamron 70-300mm can do half decent macros at 0.5 size and close to 1x if you use some tubes. That is if you cannot afford a real macro lens, if you can then go ahead and get one!!!
 
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