help with lenses please

bb40

bb40

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will
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apologises if this is in the wrong forum but its a confusing subject for me but probably pretty basic for most of you guys on here.

can someone explain what dictates to being a good quality lens apart from the price going thru the roof. ive got a d80 that came with a 18-70mm f3.5-4.5g ed lens. i also bought a cheap 70-300mm f4-5.6 d. for my d300. what should i be looking for to get better quality lenses tho the 18-70mm pictures are not to bad. also can all nikon lenses fit my 2 cameras.

obviously there will be better lenses but apart from looking at price tags i wouldn't know how to tell.


sorry if i've not explained this very clearly but as i said its confusing to me. :help:

thanks
 
bb40 said:
obviously there will be better lenses but apart from looking at price tags i wouldn't know how to tell.
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Hi Will,

Lenses can be a bewildering subject :)

Generally speaking - but not exclusively - price is a pretty good guide to quality but you have to be comparing similar lenses. I suspect that most of us rely on word of mouth recommendations and on-line reviews for views on specific lenses. There are a number of internet resources, such as www.dpreview.com and other forums. Put "lens review" into Google and www.kenrockwell.com will pop up near the top. KR makes some good points but you need to treat everything uncle Ken says with caution as he is often deliberately contentious - it brings people to his site and earns him money.

Of course, this is also a great place to get views from folks that actually have lenses your interested in.

Hope that helps :)
 
I think a good way is to learn what DX and DC lenses are...I think :) lenses that only work on cropped sensors should work on your D300
I'm not into Nikon though personally.
I would also go on to flickr and search for the lens in question. there are groups for each lens for people to share their experiences
also search on this forum, someone is bound to have mentioned it somewhere
but yes...price goes up...so does quality and weight often enough
the exception is where a lens will get more expensive as the widest aperture lowers.
so f2.8 lens might not be as sharp as an f4 lens, but it will be not as expensive.
welcome btw...
 
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