is this lens any better
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Nod
Tootles
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To answer the thread title, yes! It's faster (so collects more of the available light allowing faster shutter speeds/narrower apertures) than the 18-70. However, to answer the question in the thread, it depends! If you need the extra shutter speed or wide apertures, it's worth having the prime but the 18-70 is a great performer for the price, so if you did get the prime, IMO the 18-70 is worth keeping for its versatility.
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From the width of the lens, I'm guessing you're after star trails, so a faster lens isn't as important as (say) low light street shooting so I wouldn't bother getting the prime (unless you really want one and are using the stars as an excuse!)
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To be honest, they aren't the best prime ever made. They're okay, in fact pretty good stopped down to f/8 or so but performance at wide apertures seems pretty soft to me. Quite cheap used but not much cheaper than a 35mm 1.8g which is a far better lens on DX in my opinion.
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Is that a Nikon and I will be using it for static stars not trails thanks
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Just one thing to add.
If I still used a Dx body, I would still use an 18-70 as a walkabout and general zoom. The only reason I sold mine was that the buyer of my D200 needed a lens to get him going and I had upgraded to Fx and a 24-70 f/2.8 so had no further use for the 18-70.
If I still used a Dx body, I would still use an 18-70 as a walkabout and general zoom. The only reason I sold mine was that the buyer of my D200 needed a lens to get him going and I had upgraded to Fx and a 24-70 f/2.8 so had no further use for the 18-70.
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...And another thing to add (due to new information!). The extra speed of the prime may help catch more stars if you're trying to avoid any trailing in the stars. I forget how long you can get away with before trailing becomes evident. The prime isn't much faster than the zoom though so I would still stay with the zoom.
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Yep, one of these fellas. You'll find an awful lot of love for this lens on here, it's almost a 'must have' for Nikon DX shooters.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001S2PP...de=asn&creative=22242&creativeASIN=B001S2PPT0
Fast glass will help a lot with static stars, in fact it's near essential. Even with star trails, it is a huge advantage using fast glass as it will help keep noise down by either being able to use lower iso or faster shutter speeds (assuming that you're stacking images). And sometimes it's so dark you need everything you can get!
It's not massively wide, the 35mm but to go much wider and retain the same sort of aperture starts to get very pricey.
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Definitely worth having both but I don't want to be the guy that tells you to stock up on all the lenses under the sun and you end up with an empty bank account. Generally speaking there are many ways to skin a cat and just because a lens is the 'optimal' solution doesn't mean it's the only solution. For example you mention that you have an 18-70, a lot of people have taken amazing star shots with lenses far worse than that!
To more directly answer your question, erm it depends. If you want some foreground, I'd have though that 105mm is going to make life difficult in terms of framing and getting a decent amount of star action going on.