What Nikon D3200 lens for landscape and portrait with a low aperture
- Thread starter Bernie
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I've seen comments on other forums that the 35 will be just wide enough for landscapes on the D3200 and better for indoor portraits as the 50 can be a little tight. I've only got the 35 and don't generally take landscape shots but the best advice really is Stumeechs about looking at your most common focal length.
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Bernie
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I want a lens that I can take anywhere, to use for portrait photos that'll give me a nice blurred background.
To use for everyday snap shots and surrounding areas.
And a lens with a much faster shutter speed that'll give me a sharper picture.
I have a special needs little boy who I really adore and love taking pictures of him being happy whether in the home or out and about. So this is the reason for this lens.
To use for everyday snap shots and surrounding areas.
And a lens with a much faster shutter speed that'll give me a sharper picture.
I have a special needs little boy who I really adore and love taking pictures of him being happy whether in the home or out and about. So this is the reason for this lens.
Bobsyeruncle
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I had the 50mm 1:8 which I used for night shots.
I changed it for a 35mm 1:8 as I wanted a wider field of view.
I'm now thinking of getting another 50mm as I preferred it for portraits.
Maybe the 17-50 zoom is not a bad suggestion
I changed it for a 35mm 1:8 as I wanted a wider field of view.
I'm now thinking of getting another 50mm as I preferred it for portraits.
Maybe the 17-50 zoom is not a bad suggestion
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Fatheadedlizard
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I had the 50 1.8 for my old D3100 and it was / is a great lens ( I still use it on my D700) for the money its a fantastic lens, you are fairly close to your subject tho however I kind of like that.
Also found using a Tripod / Monopod helps to get them super sharp more often than not
Also found using a Tripod / Monopod helps to get them super sharp more often than not
Mark twiglet
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Sigma 18-35 1.8! That's my go-to lens of choice on my d7100 and I've got a 50 1.8 but don't use it often
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Bernie
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Thanks Mark
At nearly £600 it's quite a bit above my budget.
Nawty
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Getting all that from one lens will be expensive and heavy - such as the 18-35 mentioned and even that isn't really long enough for portraits.
Fast shutter speeds are all well and good but if only part of the image is in focus is that really what you want for landscapes (for example)?
Probably the best option is the 17-50 that has been mentioned.
new2me
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I think this is what I want
Mark twiglet
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I use mine for indoor portraits
Mark twiglet
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Id like one lens that does the job of three lenses! Christ it would sell well! That's why I've got 5 lenses! If I could buy a multi use lens id buy it if it was 10 grand !
Teflon-Mike
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For what t costs, and what it does, the 18-55 kit lens is probably THE most versatile best vfm bit of glass for these cameras.. BUT, the 3200's higher sensor res is starting to show up it's shortcomings... if I had the money..... BUT... I don't... my missus & daughter spent it, so all rather accademic, really.
My daughter's doing her GCSE photography this year and enrolled to carry on to A's; a year in to her 2 year course, she was 'just' starting to do stuff that was begining to challenge the kit 18-55 on my camera.. and scare me chucking baloon's full of water and 'stuff' about near my 3200's electrickery.. so I bought her a D3100 & the f1.8 35mm.
The 35mm is a cracking lens, and the 'normal' field of view for a crop-sensor camera, slap half way up the 18-55 zoom range.. AS a compromise, given I could only stretch to one lens for her, and the 'classic' academic photography she's dong for her course, a lot of which tracks what I did umpety decades ago before she was born with a 35mm film camera and fixed 50mm prime, it's ideal.
For you, it would be a compromise.. it's not quite wide enough for land-scape stuff, nor tight enough for portraits.... my 'classic' M42 screw, film 'kit' comprises of a Sigma MK1 35m SLR body, 29 Pentacon wide angle prime, Ziess, 50m prime, and a Hanimex 135 short telephoto.
Echoing that sort of setup on a crop-sensor DSLR, that would be aprox 20mm, 35mm and 90mm...18-55 gives a little extra down the wide end, and if it falls a little short up the top, well I always found the 135 a bit too long on the film camera for portraits, and would have liked to have got my hands on a nice 90mm.. which would be the equivalent of a 60mm on Digi-Crop... so that kit lens is pretty close.. to what's 'most likely' wanted for general purpose all-round photo-making.
OK, bigger apertures.. wide open, that f1.8 /35 does offer some pretty speculiar shallow focus and nice bokah, the 18-55 don't, BUT.. you have to be wide open and up close to get it... this s NOT crop sensor cameras forte in the slightest...
Depth of focus decreases with aperture and 'effectively' decreases with increased focal length; and on a full-frame 35mm film camera, 35mm was considered a mild-wide, that offered a lot of DoF for landscapes and general candid photography, and a lot of 'zone focus' compacts, with a max aperture of perhaps 2.8, relied on the very large depth of focus offered by a 35mm 'wide' to increase the tolerance around the zone focusing.. you did did not get shallow focus effects and bokah with a lens that short... and you still DON'T... Remember, a 35mm lens is still a 35mm lens, it don't care how big the sensor is behind it is...
Only time you got shallow DoF on a mild wide was if your camera to subject distance was incredibly short, and the subject to back-ground distance large, so that the ratio's exaggerated the, actually quite large DoF around the subject, provided by that short a lens.
This s STILL true, and while the f1.8 / 35 has a VERY fast max apaerture, that can shrink the DoF quite notably compared to what you can do with the kit 18-55.. it does't defy the first principles, and you STILL need short camera to subject and large subject to back-ground to get 'dissociative focus'....
Make sense?
OK.. back up... move subject forwards towards camera, and away from back ground, or move camera to get closer to subject, and get a angle that puts the back-ground further away from the subject..... a-n-d now YOU are getting the dissociative focus and bokah you want, and you can do it with the lens at wider zoom settings, allowing wider aperture.. A-N-D you don't need a 'longer' lens for portraits, or a wider one for landscapes or faster apertures for either.. and even if you DID.. you would STILL not get the full effect you want unless you know how the DoF works, and how to set up the shot to get what you want....
Chucking money at the problem, buying a lens that 'sort' of gives yo a bit more of what you want might get you a bit of it, but, not the full quota, and as like to 'prove' no more than you haven't spent enough money.. so you go chasing even faster lenses, with even more zoom rage, and and and conclude... well, its NOT Crop-Sensor camera's forte.. so you HAVE to sped EVEN more money and upgrade to Full-Frame, and and and... you are into the law of diminishing returns spending ever more to get ever less extra, expecting the hardware to just 'give' you what you want over the counter, no skill required...
Skills can be acquired VERY cheaply, bit of reading, you don't even need buy a book; public library is free; if you get lost sifting the wheat from the chaff on the web; and the a LOT of practce... and how much does it cost to charge a DSLR battery and go 'play'?
THAT will do more to get you what you want than any new hardware.. and it cant get broke, wear out, get stolen or become 'obsolete' by whatever the marketing me want you to buy this year, and it just gets BETTER and BETTER the more you use it!
And if you MUST have a bot of new hardware... well, it'll make THAT even better too...
Of suggestions above? have to say most are but small shifts in compromise. The Tammy 17-50 is no major 'leap' from the 18-55 kit in anything but the constant 2.8 aperture, and price. A price that would get you both, the Nik-DX 35 & 50 f1.8's.. that are reportedly sharper as well as faster. Nikkor 18-105, is about the same money; for extra zoom range, with the same apertures and probably not a lot more IQ if any than the 18-55, and the siggy 18-35 takes you into a whole new price bracket.... you don't want to go to...
Maxing the compromise then? Curious phenomenon, doesn't seem to matter how much zoom range they give on a zoom lens, folk seem to use either end more than the middle, THEN grumbling that the range ent big enough! This is where, there is a very good argument to be made in favour of 'primes'; f you are going to mostly use the two ends and maybe something a bit in the middle.... why NOT go old-skool and JUST have three prime lenses, like my old 29/50/135 set-up?.. well, fact they don't make a 'hobby' DX 20 and the FX20's are back in the silly-money price range, kills the suggestion ; but if they did make one and at similar price to the f1.8 35 & 50 DX lenses, could be good; £450ish for set is not out of the ball-park for a good zoom, and you get more aperture ad better IQ for the loss of a load of intermediate focal lengths you'd hardly use and never really miss, and the effort of swapping the jam-jar between shots.... So for £300ish for the 35 & 50, that are available.. Well, compromise shifts.. you loose the wide end... BUT you still have the 18-55 kit, and for 'wide' landscapes, are you REALLY going to want f1.8 very often? Remember above, DoF is a function of camera to subject to background distances.. and you probably want deep DoF for this sort of subject, not a shallow one, anyway. IF you want to go that wide, kit lens is probably not at any great disadvantage. Elsewhere? Well, 35mm prime is a very useful little lens, and 'equivalent' of the fast-fifty 'kit' lens film cameras used to come with as standard, that COULD be a semi-permanent fixture (as with my daughter's camera), for 'general purpose' picture taking. That fast aperture does make the view-finder brighter, and give you some ore low-light opportunities, as well as let you 'taste' shallow DoF effects relatively easily; the 50, probably be more 'dedicated' to portrait shots; I actually use my 29 & 50 film camera lenses on a adaptor.. infrequently, and rarely when 'out and about'.. 50 is just a tad 'tight' for grab-shots rod house and garden.. great if you can set up your shot though... which brings us back to earlier suggestion.. for a set-up... you need to know how DoF works to set it up! And in the confines of my house and garden... well, angle of view on a 50 o a crop sensor, is such that I am NOT close up when filling the frame with head and shoulders, and that means subject is further from me and the camera and closer to the back-ground... and an awful lot of that fast aperture is wasted NOT dissociating the back-drop... even my back-garden with 60 feet of lawn to the garde fence and another 60 to the house behind, I am not REALLY getting 'bokah' as the shape of the scenary s still too big and not easily blurred to indistinct balls.. it's just blury blocks of brown or white or green ad red... you STILL have to know how to set the shot up! Take it down the park! Where the trees give indistinct detail and break up the back-ground shapes ad there IS space to get camera-subject-background distances to make the shot work...
So, my considered conclusion, to what you SAY you want is.... DON'T buy a new lens... learn to get the effects you want from the one you got!
You will struggle to get all you want out of one lens, IF you could get it from ANY lens without the learning; but, the lens you have makes a dam good stab at it for the price you have already paid for it! So save your money; get the learning, and get the best from ANY lens, you may use, starting with the one you have already paid for.
Beyond that? Well, the f1.8/35.. practically for portraits & blurry bokah back-grounds... wont hand t to you a plate, BUT, wider angle of view WILL let you get head and shoulders filling the frame at a close enough camera to subject distance to be able to still get reasonably advantageous subject to back-ground ratio, that the wide aperture can exaggerate a little to start tasting dissociated back-grounds and maybe a little bokah, more often, more easily, in more commonly available space. While its still wide enough to use for landscapes, and 'general purpose' photo, and is neat enough to carry as an 'occasional' lens when the kits on the camera.
My daughter's doing her GCSE photography this year and enrolled to carry on to A's; a year in to her 2 year course, she was 'just' starting to do stuff that was begining to challenge the kit 18-55 on my camera.. and scare me chucking baloon's full of water and 'stuff' about near my 3200's electrickery.. so I bought her a D3100 & the f1.8 35mm.
The 35mm is a cracking lens, and the 'normal' field of view for a crop-sensor camera, slap half way up the 18-55 zoom range.. AS a compromise, given I could only stretch to one lens for her, and the 'classic' academic photography she's dong for her course, a lot of which tracks what I did umpety decades ago before she was born with a 35mm film camera and fixed 50mm prime, it's ideal.
For you, it would be a compromise.. it's not quite wide enough for land-scape stuff, nor tight enough for portraits.... my 'classic' M42 screw, film 'kit' comprises of a Sigma MK1 35m SLR body, 29 Pentacon wide angle prime, Ziess, 50m prime, and a Hanimex 135 short telephoto.
Echoing that sort of setup on a crop-sensor DSLR, that would be aprox 20mm, 35mm and 90mm...18-55 gives a little extra down the wide end, and if it falls a little short up the top, well I always found the 135 a bit too long on the film camera for portraits, and would have liked to have got my hands on a nice 90mm.. which would be the equivalent of a 60mm on Digi-Crop... so that kit lens is pretty close.. to what's 'most likely' wanted for general purpose all-round photo-making.
OK, bigger apertures.. wide open, that f1.8 /35 does offer some pretty speculiar shallow focus and nice bokah, the 18-55 don't, BUT.. you have to be wide open and up close to get it... this s NOT crop sensor cameras forte in the slightest...
Depth of focus decreases with aperture and 'effectively' decreases with increased focal length; and on a full-frame 35mm film camera, 35mm was considered a mild-wide, that offered a lot of DoF for landscapes and general candid photography, and a lot of 'zone focus' compacts, with a max aperture of perhaps 2.8, relied on the very large depth of focus offered by a 35mm 'wide' to increase the tolerance around the zone focusing.. you did did not get shallow focus effects and bokah with a lens that short... and you still DON'T... Remember, a 35mm lens is still a 35mm lens, it don't care how big the sensor is behind it is...
Only time you got shallow DoF on a mild wide was if your camera to subject distance was incredibly short, and the subject to back-ground distance large, so that the ratio's exaggerated the, actually quite large DoF around the subject, provided by that short a lens.
This s STILL true, and while the f1.8 / 35 has a VERY fast max apaerture, that can shrink the DoF quite notably compared to what you can do with the kit 18-55.. it does't defy the first principles, and you STILL need short camera to subject and large subject to back-ground to get 'dissociative focus'....
Make sense?
OK.. back up... move subject forwards towards camera, and away from back ground, or move camera to get closer to subject, and get a angle that puts the back-ground further away from the subject..... a-n-d now YOU are getting the dissociative focus and bokah you want, and you can do it with the lens at wider zoom settings, allowing wider aperture.. A-N-D you don't need a 'longer' lens for portraits, or a wider one for landscapes or faster apertures for either.. and even if you DID.. you would STILL not get the full effect you want unless you know how the DoF works, and how to set up the shot to get what you want....
Chucking money at the problem, buying a lens that 'sort' of gives yo a bit more of what you want might get you a bit of it, but, not the full quota, and as like to 'prove' no more than you haven't spent enough money.. so you go chasing even faster lenses, with even more zoom rage, and and and conclude... well, its NOT Crop-Sensor camera's forte.. so you HAVE to sped EVEN more money and upgrade to Full-Frame, and and and... you are into the law of diminishing returns spending ever more to get ever less extra, expecting the hardware to just 'give' you what you want over the counter, no skill required...
Skills can be acquired VERY cheaply, bit of reading, you don't even need buy a book; public library is free; if you get lost sifting the wheat from the chaff on the web; and the a LOT of practce... and how much does it cost to charge a DSLR battery and go 'play'?
THAT will do more to get you what you want than any new hardware.. and it cant get broke, wear out, get stolen or become 'obsolete' by whatever the marketing me want you to buy this year, and it just gets BETTER and BETTER the more you use it!
And if you MUST have a bot of new hardware... well, it'll make THAT even better too...
Of suggestions above? have to say most are but small shifts in compromise. The Tammy 17-50 is no major 'leap' from the 18-55 kit in anything but the constant 2.8 aperture, and price. A price that would get you both, the Nik-DX 35 & 50 f1.8's.. that are reportedly sharper as well as faster. Nikkor 18-105, is about the same money; for extra zoom range, with the same apertures and probably not a lot more IQ if any than the 18-55, and the siggy 18-35 takes you into a whole new price bracket.... you don't want to go to...
Maxing the compromise then? Curious phenomenon, doesn't seem to matter how much zoom range they give on a zoom lens, folk seem to use either end more than the middle, THEN grumbling that the range ent big enough! This is where, there is a very good argument to be made in favour of 'primes'; f you are going to mostly use the two ends and maybe something a bit in the middle.... why NOT go old-skool and JUST have three prime lenses, like my old 29/50/135 set-up?.. well, fact they don't make a 'hobby' DX 20 and the FX20's are back in the silly-money price range, kills the suggestion ; but if they did make one and at similar price to the f1.8 35 & 50 DX lenses, could be good; £450ish for set is not out of the ball-park for a good zoom, and you get more aperture ad better IQ for the loss of a load of intermediate focal lengths you'd hardly use and never really miss, and the effort of swapping the jam-jar between shots.... So for £300ish for the 35 & 50, that are available.. Well, compromise shifts.. you loose the wide end... BUT you still have the 18-55 kit, and for 'wide' landscapes, are you REALLY going to want f1.8 very often? Remember above, DoF is a function of camera to subject to background distances.. and you probably want deep DoF for this sort of subject, not a shallow one, anyway. IF you want to go that wide, kit lens is probably not at any great disadvantage. Elsewhere? Well, 35mm prime is a very useful little lens, and 'equivalent' of the fast-fifty 'kit' lens film cameras used to come with as standard, that COULD be a semi-permanent fixture (as with my daughter's camera), for 'general purpose' picture taking. That fast aperture does make the view-finder brighter, and give you some ore low-light opportunities, as well as let you 'taste' shallow DoF effects relatively easily; the 50, probably be more 'dedicated' to portrait shots; I actually use my 29 & 50 film camera lenses on a adaptor.. infrequently, and rarely when 'out and about'.. 50 is just a tad 'tight' for grab-shots rod house and garden.. great if you can set up your shot though... which brings us back to earlier suggestion.. for a set-up... you need to know how DoF works to set it up! And in the confines of my house and garden... well, angle of view on a 50 o a crop sensor, is such that I am NOT close up when filling the frame with head and shoulders, and that means subject is further from me and the camera and closer to the back-ground... and an awful lot of that fast aperture is wasted NOT dissociating the back-drop... even my back-garden with 60 feet of lawn to the garde fence and another 60 to the house behind, I am not REALLY getting 'bokah' as the shape of the scenary s still too big and not easily blurred to indistinct balls.. it's just blury blocks of brown or white or green ad red... you STILL have to know how to set the shot up! Take it down the park! Where the trees give indistinct detail and break up the back-ground shapes ad there IS space to get camera-subject-background distances to make the shot work...
So, my considered conclusion, to what you SAY you want is.... DON'T buy a new lens... learn to get the effects you want from the one you got!
You will struggle to get all you want out of one lens, IF you could get it from ANY lens without the learning; but, the lens you have makes a dam good stab at it for the price you have already paid for it! So save your money; get the learning, and get the best from ANY lens, you may use, starting with the one you have already paid for.
Beyond that? Well, the f1.8/35.. practically for portraits & blurry bokah back-grounds... wont hand t to you a plate, BUT, wider angle of view WILL let you get head and shoulders filling the frame at a close enough camera to subject distance to be able to still get reasonably advantageous subject to back-ground ratio, that the wide aperture can exaggerate a little to start tasting dissociated back-grounds and maybe a little bokah, more often, more easily, in more commonly available space. While its still wide enough to use for landscapes, and 'general purpose' photo, and is neat enough to carry as an 'occasional' lens when the kits on the camera.