wide aperture lens

[hayley.price]

hey guys, need a bit of help.

I'm looking to start doing more equine shoots in indoor arenas, as its not always possible for them to use an outdoor arena, and an indoor arena tends to be quite dark and dusty, so im looking for a lens that has a wide enough aperture that i don't have to bump the iso up really high and ruin the quality of the picture, most in door arenas im having to have the iso up at at least 1500 with the aperture on my current, lens as wide as possible and with the dust playing its part the noise in the picture makes it impossible to do the slightest crop, without the quality of the picture going out the window, so im looking for a lens that would allow me to have the iso at 500 max and i no that's a bit jump, but if i can find one that would allow that i would be in heaven lol.

so does anyone know what lens would be best??

i have a Nikon d5100

my current lens are the Nikon 18-55mm vr kit lens, and a tamron 70-300mm.

now i would like another Nikon lens but if you know of another make that would work just as well, im willing to have a look, so any suggestions are taken into account.

i have a price range of around £500 so im willing to buy second hand as i no the lenses im guessing i will need are going to be alot of money, but im willing to guy higher if its even better then what i want.

thanks for reading and sorry about the essay

hayley

 

[nikoneal]

Haley,

I had the same issue sometime back and with the same budget. I opted for the Sigma 70-200 f2.8 (no os). Have not looked back. If i need a little more length i stick on a 1.4 Sigma convertor which only knocks a stop off to f4.

For me i was so impressed with it i changed all my lenses to Sigma.

 

[TCR4x4]

Haley,

I had the same issue sometime back and with the same budget. I opted for the Sigma 70-200 f2.8 (no os). Have not looked back. If i need a little more length i stick on a 1.4 Sigma convertor which only knocks a stop off to f4.

For me i was so impressed with it i changed all my lenses to Sigma.

Pretty much the right answer there.

I believe tamron or tokina do a 70-200 as well, but the sigma is proven and a great lens. I'm after one myself when I have the money.

 

[Nawty]

Hi Haley, it might be a bit more helpful to consider this in the context of stops (the universal camera terminology of exposure).

The standard ISO stops are 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 etc
The standard aperture stops are f/1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8 etc

Therefore rather than thinking you want to go from 1500 to 500 you would be better off thinking 1600 to 400 which is a 2 stop difference and you therefore want a lens that is (at least) 2 stops faster.

So, if your current lens is f/5.6 then you want a lens that is f/2.8

edit: also, the D5100 should be pretty happy shooting at ISO1600 as long as you expose correctly (assuming the subject is filling most of the frame).

 

[hayley.price]

edit: also, the D5100 should be pretty happy shooting at ISO1600 as long as you expose correctly (assuming the subject is filling most of the frame).

its not the exposure thats the problem its the noise, the dust in there makes the noise so much more noticeable

and thanks will look into the sigma

 

[modchild]

I've been doing some similar shoots for friends and their horses. I had a 70-200 f4 L non IS and on my 5D2 it was great but my 7D needed the ISO upping. I've since gone to a f2.8 IS L and the results are outstanding. Low ISO on both and still getting good shutter speeds and good photos.