D700 new lenses

simonfw

simonfw

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So I got the D700 and so far so good but I need some lenses...

Got the 50mm 1.8 and a Tamron 90mm macro. Do I add the 28-75mm Tamron? My big fear is that it hunts badly in low light - anybody had experience of this. The Nikon 24-70mm is out of my price range at present.

Looking to add 85mm or 105mm lens for portrait work. Again any comments welcome.

For sport looking to add Nikon 80-200mm(2nd hand), Nikon 70-300mm or Sigma 70-200mm (but which Sigma there are loads of versions !). I shoot mainly horse racing but also some indoor sport.

Any comments or other recommendations greatly appreciated...
 
Why not consider the 70-200 Nikon VR. It'll cover just about all your needs, maybe add a 1.4 TC. Find a good used one for £850-950. Tales of vignetting as far as I'm concerned are seriously extravagant. Use mine for almost everthing. Super fast to focus even in low light. Tack sharp and the D700 loves it.
 
I have quite a few lenses for my D700 now, but the Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 is a solid favourite and is my walkabout lens of choice. Mine is the motorised version and yet I don't really see any issues with slow focusing or 'hunting' :thinking:.

The sharpness, colour rendition and bokeh are all virtually up to Nikkor 'pro' levels, I would say and the distortion is no worse than you'd expect from a zoom in this range. I recently had the money to 'upgrade' to the Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8, but didn't do it, as I couldn't really see any great advantage to it :shrug:. The Tamrons cost about 300GBP new and I can risk damaging such a lens, so I just get on and use it. If I had 1,200GBP worth of (heavy metal) Nikkor hanging off the front, I'd probably think twice about where I take it and how I use it :(. So, for that focal range, I'd give it the thumbs up :thumbs:.

As far as the 70-300mm (f/4.5-5.6) is concerned - this lens does hunt for focus in low light IME (like the indoor sport you mentioned, possibly). I found it to be pretty soft much over 220mm as well :|.

The 70-200mm f/2.8 (either of them) is a really lovely lens to use on a D700 (gripped or otherwise) - a marriage made in heaven! The stability which the VR on the latest model offers is streets ahead of the VR on the 70-300mm (for example) and really does let you get away with shutter speeds under 1/10th sec, if you have a steady enough grip :naughty:.

In short, I'd save money on the mid-range zoom and get a quality, fast long zoom. Just my $0.02.
 
Naboo32 said:
I have quite a few lenses for my D700 now, but the Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 is a solid favourite and is my walkabout lens of choice. Mine is the motorised version and yet I don't really see any issues with slow focusing or 'hunting' :thinking:.

The sharpness, colour rendition and bokeh are all virtually up to Nikkor 'pro' levels, I would say and the distortion is no worse than you'd expect from a zoom in this range. I recently had the money to 'upgrade' to the Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8, but didn't do it, as I couldn't really see any great advantage to it :shrug:. The Tamrons cost about 300GBP new and I can risk damaging such a lens, so I just get on and use it. If I had 1,200GBP worth of (heavy metal) Nikkor hanging off the front, I'd probably think twice about where I take it and how I use it :(. So, for that focal range, I'd give it the thumbs up :thumbs:.

As far as the 70-300mm (f/4.5-5.6) is concerned - this lens does hunt for focus in low light IME (like the indoor sport you mentioned, possibly). I found it to be pretty soft much over 220mm as well :|.

The 70-200mm f/2.8 (either of them) is a really lovely lens to use on a D700 (gripped or otherwise) - a marriage made in heaven! The stability which the VR on the latest model offers is streets ahead of the VR on the 70-300mm (for example) and really does let you get away with shutter speeds under 1/10th sec, if you have a steady enough grip :naughty:.

In short, I'd save money on the mid-range zoom and get a quality, fast long zoom. Just my $0.02.
Click to expand...

At first I thought the 70 - 300 was soft at the long end too, but it seems fine above f 8.
 
arclight said:
At first I thought the 70 - 300 was soft at the long end too, but it seems fine above f 8.
Click to expand...

Quite probably! I never used mine above f/5.6, as I was desperate to get the highest shutter speeds possible for my wildlife photography. In the end, I had to concede that this wasn't really the ideal lens for the job (in the low light, forest environment where I do all of my bird photography) and so I got rid of it and went for the 70-200mm f/2,8 and (as of this week) the 300mm f/4.

There's no doubt that the 70-300mm VR can produce some fantastic images in decent light and at smaller apertures, as I've seen stacks on them on Internet forums :). It's just that the OP mentioned indoor sports and I would say that shutter speeds are a high priority there, that's all ;).
 
Depends on your budget.

Mine (well, my conscience!) would only stretch to the Sigma versions of the 24-70 f/2.8 and 70-200 f/2.8 but if money were no object, I would upgrade to the Nikon versions. Again, if money was no object, I would upgrade the Sigma 12-24 to the Nikon 14-24 and would possibly splash out on the Nikon 200-400 f/4 VR.

For now though, I'll stick with the Sigmas and the 70-300 VR Nikon (which is speedy to AF in reasonable light but may struggle a little in the dark).
 
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