Help me upgrade my lens... Nikon D40

[ERU]

Hey folks,

I'm pretty new to the forum but thus far i'm very impressed with the warm and friendly welcome i've received. Great work to all the organisers/mods. I've had my Nikon D40 for almost a year now but only recently started to devour the text books. Understanding Exposure was an awesome read that I recommend to all those starting out with a SLR :rules: No idea what to read next ...

I bought my DSLR after living in Uganda, East Africa and seeing the photos produced by friends out there shooting on mainly auto settings! It made my waterproof Pentax W30, which I thought was the best camera ever, seem woefully inadequate! I now live in Wales and have vowed to ensure I have the kit/knowledge to record such an experience next time. I am aiming to record 'correct exposures' most of the time.

I was mainly in Uganda kayaking the mighty White Nile whilst also working. A dream that started after I learnt they were going to dam the best section at Bujagali, Jinja, in the next two years. Now i'm back in the UK I seem to have retreated to enjoying climbing and have become involved in helping take photos for a voluntary climbing guidebook. The problem is ... I need to get better at shooting!

So there's the story and introduction (which I hope put the following into light) - now onto the questions. I'm after a bit of advice as to what to buy next and an upgrade path to follow. Feel free to rip my kit apart and suggest alternatives :bonk:

My kit to date is:
-Nikon D40 body <<< as internet research demonstrated this to be better than a D40x and D60 for pure images.
-Nikon DX 18-55 AF-S <<< kit lens
-Tamron AF 70-300 1:4-5.6 (A17) <<< basically to zoom onto far away climbers/kayakers but i've started to use that macro button a bit
-Peli 1200 <<< To carry all the above in my boat kayaking.
-7dayshop.com Tripod WT3570 << £12.99! I know it's not great but i'm working to a budget. It's more solid than the Hama Star 75 I had before.
-Kenko and Jackar filters off eBay <<< interested to know peoples opinions on these.
-Hama cleaning cloth. <<< Should I be using this?
--I'm after a rucksack type camera bag if anyone has any recommendations? Again has to be cheap cheap and just do the job.

Apart from the above questions i've thrown in, my main issue is looking at an logical upgrade path. I think i'm after a new lens and my budget is about £100 ish for something 2nd hand - possibly eBay. I'd like the lens to be used to take photographs of crags like this:

So far i've been taking overlapping exposures from left to right and then using the Hugin - Panorama photo stitcher to automatically stitch them together for me. Results have been varied but i've done some that i've really liked. I think i'm looking towards a lens that will enable me to take these photos in one exposure and possibly be used for portraits too as my kit lens struggles here. Taking pictures of people is all part of having a camera. I've taken an interest in landscape photography too. I've looked at fisheye lens but i've decided these are too specialised for my purpose. I've also wrote off all those 'converters' that are flooding eBay as rubbish. I'd like to have multi purpose lens that can do a few things at once. I've been slowly becoming interested in a 50mm Prime Lens but having no experience of these I have no idea if this is what i'm after. Maybe I need something to cover the sub 18mm area? Or just upgrade my kit/walkabout lens to something else?

What should I be steering towards? I know i'm eventually aiming to get the lowest f-stops I can afford but as stated above i'm not rich and have to work to some sort of budget. I think I only really want 2>3 lens to carry about and don't want to get carried away with purchasing 'the right lens for every job' as this isn't realistic for me. Maybe I should sell everything i've already got and get one walkabout lens? Or maybe I should look into getting a Panasonic GF1 for my needs?

Finally is there anything else I should be 'looking' to upgrade to in say the next 1-2 years?

Cheers for reading and possibly helping out

 

[jimbo_wa]

Hi - If you have money burning a hole in your pocket a 50mm f/1.8 will be great (cheap and super sharp, but manual focus on the D40) - however, it will not help you get shots of craggs. The angle of view is less than your exisiting 18mm wide on the zoom, so you would have to stitch more images together than you are now :thumbsdown:

Selling everything is a fast way to lose money/break even and as lovely as a GF-1 is, it's going to cost you more than £100 to upgrade.

I've been through loads of lenses (not half as many as some on here it seems!) and have eventually gone back to a prime lens line-up (20, 50 f1.4 & 105macro) as it covers 99.9% of what I want to shoot.

I have thought of the GF-1 route, but love the low light capability of my D700 and would rather lug around my (relatively lightweight full set-up) than a featherweight GF-1 and not get the high ISO range/full frame capabilities.

Best advice - stick with what you've got (you researched it well) and use it until it breaks/you can take stunning shots with your eyes closed/you really find a limitation that annoys you. It would also help to win the lottery

 

[Willo]

To take shots like the one above in one shot your going to need a wide angle lens, the Sigma 10-20mm is a good one, you should be able to pick up a second hand one but make sure its the HSM model so you can auto focus on your D40.

I would recommend replacing the kit lens for something like the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 which is a very good lens.

Personally stick with the D40, it's a great camera and I don't think the GF1 is that much smaller, you might get a few extra features but you would be sacrificing your viewfinder.

As for upgrades, depends if you are thinking of going full frame or not. If you are then I would advise you to buy lens appropriately.

I have thought of the GF-1 route, but love the low light capability of my D700 and would rather lug around my (relatively lightweight full set-up) than a featherweight GF-1 and not get the high ISO range/full frame capabilities.

Agree with this, I was going to buy a GF1/EP-1 but because I'm so used to the high ISO I would rather carry the D700 around, ended up buying some more primes instead.

 

[Dman]

For £100 you're not going to get anything better than what you already own I'm afraid. For wide angle the 10-20 is going to be your best bet, but second hand you're looking at around £250-£280. £100 will get you a cheap 70-300 that you already have.

My advice would be to get a 50mm, you can play with the dof and take some amazing portrait shots with it, whether that's your thing or not though is another matter.

For another 'everyday' lens, the Tamron 28-75 2.8 is a good option, but again you're looking at £200 second hand.

 

[StewartR]

For panoramas I don't think you need a different lens. You'd be better off using a different stitching program. I use PT Assembler, which give me a reasonable degree of control over the end product; in particular it allows me to tell it that this point on this image is the same as that point on that image, so there's no danger of it getting confused like some fully-automatic stitchers can.