Nikon 55mm F3.5 lens

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gavinb

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gavin
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Hi all,

Completely noob questions but here goes anyway.

I have brought myself a second hand Nikon D40 kit inc. a 18-55mm F3.5 - 5.6G lens.

I am hoping to do a little Macro photography and someone has offered me a cheap(ish) Nikkor 55mm F3.5 lenses stating it would suffice for now as a decent enough lens for macro photography. My question is, that if the standard lens goes to 55mm and has F3.5 whats the difference with the lens thats been offered :-)

Thanks for reading
 
Welcome to TP :thumbs:

Your kit lens will be ƒ/5.6 at 55mm.

You would have to meter manually with the macro lens and your camera's viewfinder could be better for the manual focusing. The minimum focus distance is 0.241m (9-l/2 inches) and the lens extends so there's not much working distance at maximum magnification. The kit lens has a minimum focus distance of 0.28m but the macro lens would be expected to be sharper in the corners and suffer less from distortions.

Unless the macro was very cheap I wouldn't get it, and put the money towards something longer.
 
photon said:
Welcome to TP :thumbs:

Your kit lens will be ƒ/5.6 at 55mm.

You would have to meter manually with the macro lens and your camera's viewfinder could be better for the manual focusing. The minimum focus distance is 0.241m (9-l/2 inches) and the lens extends so there's not much working distance at maximum magnification. The kit lens has a minimum focus distance of 0.28m but the macro lens would be expected to be sharper in the corners and suffer less from distortions.

Unless the macro was very cheap I wouldn't get it, and put the money towards something longer.
Click to expand...

The lens is going to be £80?

Is there anything you would recommend thats not miles for expensive than that that'd be good for Macro photography? Although doesn't have to be something exclusively for macro?
 
The 18-55 is not capable of macro photography, the two lenses are completely different, only the focal length is the same.
If you want to shoot macro, buy a macro lens, you can use it for other things but its primary function is macro.
A good percentage of the time, the lack of AF on a macro lens is not a big loss at all.
The cost of macro lenses usually goes up with working distance, therefore the cheapest will be around the 50's AF or MF.
 
£80 isn't a good price for the 50mm f/3.5, I reckon you'd be looking around £35-£40.

£80 might buy you the f/2.8 version which is superior due to its floating element design (means is also great at non macro distances)

Don't pay £80 for the 55mm f/3.5
 
There are the bog-standard 90mm macro lenses, of which the Tamron SP ƒ/2.5 is easiest to find, for £60 - £160 depending on whether it has the Adaptall-2 mount and extension tube for 1:1 work. You'd need an AI or AIS Adaptall-2 mount, eBay price £15 - £30+. The Tamron Adaptall-2 lenses are manual focus and usable with a variety of mounts to suit a wide variety of mainly film-era cameras. The autofocus Tamron 90mm is usually £200+, second-hand.
 
If you pop into the classifieds you may get something better :naughty:
 
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