nikon D50 lens advice please

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bridportchick

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brenda
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:banana:Ive just bought my 1st dslr a nikon D50 it comes with a 18-70 f/3.5-4.5 g ed dx lens I dont know anything about lenses, is this lens suitable for taking macro & portraits?
If not what is this type of lens generaly used to shoot?
what lens should I be looking to buy for macro/portraits?
Any advice is very much appreciated:thumbs:

& beachy from avforum if you see this THANK YOU again & I warned you I would be asking lots of questions on here :lol:
 
The 18-70mm lens is one of Nikon's best zooms for the price, it will be wide enough for landscape shots at 18mm and pretty good for portrait shots at 50mm onwards, as for macro you will really need to be looking at something else, like a tamron 90mm which is also very good for portrait shots for around £220ish used, if you want something a bit more special for portraits, look at the Nikon 85mm 1.8 this will give you really nice blurred out backgrounds (Bokeh) again you will be looking at £220ish used, if you want something really cheap for portraits you could look at the Nikon 50mm 1.8, not as good as the 85mm but the best for the price and gives decent bokeh, around £80ish used, hope that helps :)
 
:thumbs:cheers tel,will check out the books you recommended.
hmmmm shame about the lens not being any good for macro as I like dabbling in macro.
I didnt realy want the huge expense buying other lenses untill I master the use of the camera.
Is it possible to add those little macro screw on lenses that Ive seen on ebay to this lens as a starter,Ive used them before on my fuji & they were ok?

So this would primarily be used for landscapes then?
Brilliant,lots of landscape where I am so plenty of testing out.

I was advised to get an 'all rounder lens' the 18-55mm lens that generaly comes as part of the kit to start of with & put this lens away untill i had mastered the equipment.
What would you recommend?:)
 
bridportchick said:
I was advised to get an 'all rounder lens' the 18-55mm lens that generaly comes as part of the kit to start of with & put this lens away untill i had mastered the equipment.
What would you recommend?:)
Click to expand...

I would honestly say, that's the strangest piece of advice i have heard to put your 18-70mm away :thinking:, forget buying the 18-55mm lens as you have the next best up from that now, and the 18-70mm is a great all round walkabout lens for landscapes and portraits, and it will do fine to learn your D50 on, if i'm not mistaken i think "Diddydave" on here uses an 18-70mm in some of his studio work, but i'm sure he will either confirm that or say i'm talking crap :lol:

As regards cheap macro lenses, i think you may be referring to the Raynox type, but i've no personal experience of these, but take a trawl through the macro section on here, and you should find Lot's of info about those type of lenses :)
 
Hi Brenda
For macro you could try getting a 55mm micro lens.
However this is fully manual on the D50 (both focus and exposure), so may need some trial and error.
It is available as an f2.8 and f3.5 lens and the former do attract high(ish) prices, especially in good nick. The latter should be cheaper.
There may be other similar cheaper options if you can accept the manual aspect.
As an aside, the Nikkor 28-105 zoom has a reasonable (I believe) macro function on it, and this could be manual focus or AF, and will be auto exposure.
Ian
 
I can recommend a 105mm micro/macro nikon. Non vr will be around 300 ish second hand. That coupled with the cheapo extension tubes (thanks cowasaki) get really good results. It's an f2.8 ( low light and nice bokeh) and a 1:1 lens (magnification).

Yeah it's a bit of dosh but if you like macro and use it loads, then it worth it.

As you are saying you are a beginner, for the first few months stick with the default lens.

My preferred lenses are mentioned in my sig, ignore the 200 and the 18-200 :)

for pics including the 105 have a browse through the flickr link, sets under Vince are my photos. Most of the 105 are tagged.

Welcome to the wonderful (and expensive) world of dslrs :)
 
MACRO: The 18-55 VR has a magnification 1:3.2 :thumbs:but the 18-70 only 1:6.2 :thumbsdown: !!!! 18-55VR is a great small lens. PORTRAIT: of course the 18-55 works also at 55 for portraits. If you have to have a greater distance: Sigma 50-200 OS HSM is a good advice price*weight/performance http://joergvetter.oyla.de/cgi-bin/hpm_homepage.cgi BR Atomino[/QUOTE]
 
AtominoTalk said:
MACRO: The 18-55 VR has a magnification 1:3.2 :thumbs:but the 18-70 only 1:6.2 :thumbsdown: !!!!
Click to expand...

But the 18-55mm is no macro lens by a long shot, and the 18-70mm is considered a better all round lens for landscapes and portraits as it's a step above a normal kit lens, but like i said in my other post no good for macro, hence advising the op to look at other dedicated macro lenses ;)
 
The 18-70mm is a much better lens than the 18-55mm imho. It may not be as good for macro but for everything else it is much sharper and faster. Good advice is to master the camera and lens first then look at buying new lenses.

Andy
 
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