Wide angle lens for D7000, shooting children indoors

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Persephone

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Amber
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I don't post here often but would be grateful for advice.

I'm looking to buy a wide angle lens to photograph my tiny humans in our small London flat. At the moment I've been using the 50mm f1.4 but would like to be able to get more of the environment in the image. Any recommendations? I've been looking at the Sigma 30mm f1.4 and the (much cheaper) Nikon 35mm f1.8 but I'd appreciate other opinions as to what would be best suited to my needs.

Thank you!
 
Depends how wide and how fast you need I guess. Some options though, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8, the tammy Shaheed mentions is good too or a sigma 18-35mm f1.8 if you need something that goes wide and is as fast (almost) as your 50
 
Sir SR said:
A tamron 17-50 f2.8?
Click to expand...
That's what I have........ my 35mm 1.8 isn't wide enough indoors, so the Tamron is on 99% of the time.
 
The Sigma 18-35 1.8 is a fascinating lens for this sort of stuff. I've not used one but would love to have a play.

Suspect for the OP though that the 35mm 1.8 might be the right tool.
 
Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 was probably my fave wide angle on my D2x/D7000, closely followed by the 12-24mm f/4 Tokina. Great value glass.

The extreme wide FoV is nice because DoF is less critical because everything looks sharp unless it's super-close up stuff.
 
The Nikon 10-24 f 3.5-4.5 is excellent on the D7000, although I've no experience of using it the way you describe, i use it for landscapes. I found the Nikon 35 f1.8 perfect for taking the kids.
 
Good advice so far, whats your budget? For kids indoors i find prime lenses too restrickting one second there in frame next there too close etc at least with a zoom you can zoom in and out at will to follow them around the room.
Look at tamron,sigma and nikon all do great fast zooms just depends how much you can afford, the sigma 18-35 1.8 gets my vote.
 
Thank you so much for weighing in! I'm thinking that I should probably rent a few different lenses and see what suits best. I find that I tend to shoot indoors at f2 or narrower because of lack of light, so I'm wary at going for a lens that doesn't allow for that.

Budget not really a consideration - happy to splash out for a lens that I'll get a lot of use out of, don't want to buy a 'cheap' lens and then not use it because it didn't suit our needs so cleanly...
 
I would look at getting a bounce flash as well then if your struggling with low light, you can still shoot at low f stops for the bokeh but the extra light lets you shoot at low iso's too, best thing I ever did was buying a bounce flash for indoor photography.

View attachment 28838
Taken with 35mm 1.8 and bounce flash.
 
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Lighting is a whole different ball game. You'll then get obsessed with lighting techniques and different modifiers. Totally awesome part of photography. I must admit that the Sigma 18-35mm f1.8 look intriguing.
 
Nikon 35mm 1.8 and a stofened SB400.

I have 6 lenses and 4 flash guns which all sit in the bag for when I get jobs.

I remove the grip from one of my D7000's and use the above combination to get photos of my 2 year old, can't recommend it enough. The camera sits on the dining room table so I can grab shots when I wish.

There's an SB400 in the classifieds now and I'm about to sell a 35 on behalf of my brother next week if you're interested.
 
It's all about the light as they say. Natural/wide apertures/reflectors or artificial.

I started off down the CLS route. So I had one nikon flash and a cheaper Nissin cls compatible flash. Cheap softbox/lightstand from amazon.

I did have a 35 f1.8 on my d90 and it was excellent. BUT for me there was much more flexibility using the Tamron 17-50 f2.8.

A great set up for not a lot of money (used) would be a Nissin d6122 mk2, softbox/lightstand from amazon. Tamron 17-50 f2.8 (non vr) and a cheap reflector.

The flash is ttl and cls compatible. Thee tamron is a very good lens too. Should cover most things in terms of getting kids shots in the house.

S
 
Just to add. The sigma 18-35 f1.8 wasn't around when I had my d90.

It sounds an interesting lens!
 
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