Indoor low light lens

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villain1973uk

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Lee
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Hi,

I'm looking at getting a lens that is good at indoor low light situations, I recently bought nikon d3100 with the kit lens and a 70-300 lens, it will be mainly used for pics of my daughter on holiday in the clubs at night and party's etc, we recently went to a haven site and I only had a bridge camera and my daughter was on stage and the photo wasn't that good, it wasn't bad either just could of been better, I've seen a nikon nikkor AF 50mm f1.8d lens ( think that's a nifty fifty?) on eBay for about £90 but not sure if that's good for what I want, I will use the lens for other things if I can find what else it's good at!.

Cheers.
 
Remember that the Nikon 50mm AF f/1.8D does not autofocus on your D3100. For Nikon lenses to autofocus on your D3100 they have to have AF/S in the name.

There is a new 50mm AF/S g1.8G just come out but it is not in the shops yet AFAIK. It will also be more expensive than the D.

I have a 50mm f/1.8D that I use on my D90 and it is a lovely sharp lens, but a bit long for indoors. I would rather go for the 35mm for indoor use, unless you are shooting in large halls.
 
35 1.8 is a really good lens, nice and sharp and beautiful to use. I don't own a 50 1.8 so can't comment on that but focal length wise indoors the 35 is brilliant. Doesn't end there, it works really nice as a walk around lens for me.
 
50mm 1.8 or even better a 1.4

I use canon so can't really say about quality of Nikon lenses but if Nikon have 1.2 L style lenses, and you have the cash... Buy one of those.

Any lenses that are slower than 2.8 aren't really much use in low light unless slow shutters and tripod are used.

Depends on what you are shooting and limitations involved.

No flash allowed: fast lens required
Flash allowed: any lens will do
 
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Go for the 35mm, 50mm on a crop body can be a bit much zoom for indoor shots. You'll get the benefit of autofocus too. Or even look at a sigma 30mm F1.4
 
I have the 35mm f1.8 as well, it's a great lens. Although recently found that it's not really wide enough for indoor group shots, if that's what you need it for I would go for the Tamron 17-50 2.8 non VC instead, which everyone seems to rave about.
 
i find the 50 good for taking shots on stage! thats just me, i dont like being too close up to people performing, weirds me out a bit. i have a 50mm 1.8 on my canon and its great for low light.
 
I have both a 50mm and 35mm. It really depends on what you want to shoot. For close ups of just the upper body indoors then go with the 50mm (or full body shots if you have more space in which to work). Otherwise go for the 35mm for indoors for more versatility as you can always crop the shot afterwards.

As it was suggested earlier, shoot for a while at both settings (using your kit lens) in a similar environment and see what you prefer.

Personally I like to try and use my 50mm more.
 
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