In the dark with lens choices!

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Teague

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Hello! Long time lurker signing in...

I'm the recent owner of a Nikon D5200, and have been looking into getting some lenses for it. However I'm getting real confused as to what will work and what won't in regards to auto focusing. I've been looking to get a 50mm 1.8, and I think I've worked out that I'll need to purchase a G series rather than a D series, am I correct?
Additionally, I was about to buy a Nikon 70-300mm f/4-5.6G, but after reading up I'm not sure if that will AF either? Which is where I got lost as that is G as well. So really what I want to know is what are my options with these lenses, and any lenses really... what do I need to look out for to ensure that a lens will be compatible with the camera?

Thank you!
 
All AF-S lenses will AF on your camera. AF-D lenses will not.

The AF-S 50mm f1.8 will AF, the AF-D 50mm f1.8 will not. The 70-300 G lens will not AF on your camera. The 70-300 AF-S VR lens will.

You need to look for lenses that have an AF motor in them as your body does not. Other bodies have an AF motor in them and can use a screw drive to AF the lens.
 
The 70-300 will not auto focus with the D5200. Both the lens and the camera do not have a focus motor.
The 50 1.8G does have a motor so will auto focus.

i'm too slow again.
^what he said :)
 
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The 70-300 is an FX ( full frame)lens, 55-300 is DX (crop sensor)
 
Now I'm too slow ^ :D

Impossible to say whether it would save you money as you always need more lenses:p- but you would have more choice;)

Personally I wish Nikon would get rid of the D3xxx and D5xxx range as there's not enough SLR like control and there's no AF motor but people buy them.

In terms of your question, as Ken says- the 55-300 is a DX lens which means it is tuned to a smaller image circle on the sensor compared to the 70-300 which is designed to work on FX as well. That means the DX is cheaper to make.

Worth remembering that lenses with wider zoom ranges are also compromised as well due to the laws of physics so their image quality wont be as good.
 
Dr_O said:
You need to look for lenses that have an AF motor in them as your body does not. Other bodies have an AF motor in them and can use a screw drive to AF the lens.
Click to expand...
Just to amplify, thus means you're looking for Nikon lenses with AF-S in the name, or Sigma lenses with HSM in the name. Tamron and Tokina lenses don't have such handy clues in their names so you have to read the specs.
 
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