I've been taking pictures as a pro since college days (been hired to take sport photography). I've been denying digital SLR thinking film still rules the earth, until of course D300 is coming out in November, and I've placed my order already. Thought 12.1 Mpx is film quality. What lense I should go for: 28-200 Nikkor as a first lense? What else would you suggest in the Nikkor product line. Which other body of camera I should be thinking of except the very expensive D3? Appreciate your guys comments esp. lenses. I mean I have loads of other Nikkon lenses for film already. Oh. I'm no taking pro pictures any more. I work in a bank, doing underwriting and loans mostly. Taking pix now for fun. I have Nikon FM2n, FE and a small Nikon automatic. All film. Welcome to the world of digital.
I made the move a few years ago, because the people I was shooting for needed digital images for their website. It was costing me way too much to digitize my 35mm images!
The lens you buy next should be based on what you already have and what types of photos you want to take. Since you have ordered a D300 (boy, am I envious), every Nikon lens you currently have will work wonderfully.
If I may make a couple of suggestions - you owe it to yourself to discover current Nikon advances and the amazing abilities of their VR line. The inexpensive 55-200mm VR, the great 18-200mm VR, or the 70-300mm VR, they are DX lenses and would be great optics for your new system.
First find out what your existing lenses can do, then find newer optic to expand your horizons. Here's a list of suggested lens for you.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/nikkor....
I hope this is helpful for you. (and an early congrats on your new D300) Well if you're getting a D300, good for you. It seems to be a very good camera.
if you have the budget, the 18-200 VR is the hottest Nikkor at the moment. It's pretty versatile and most of all it takes great picture. What sorts of pictures are you taking now? Is it possible for you to use some of your older lenses from your film camera? Unless you get a lower camera like the D40X, I would be pretty confident in saying you can use them.
It's hard to recommend lenses if you don't have a budget or shooting preference listed, but starting out you could consider getting the 18-70, which I've heard is a good starter lens, and then a lens like the 70-300 VR, which I think is a great bang-for-the-buck kind of lens.
If you can afford something more premium, you could get some higher-end lenses like the 17-35 f/2.8, the 28-70 or new 24-70 f/2.8 lenses mated with something like the 70-200 f/2.8 VR, but these are premiere lenses, and cost >$1,000 each.
My only warning would be that those "all around" lenses can often be a compromise. Some, like the 18-200 VR, may be well suited if you need like a vacation lens or something similar, but if you're taking lots of telephoto pictures at the 200mm end, you might be let down. A lot of times superzooms will compromise image quality at one point or another, so if you're looked for a specialized application, I would look in a set of multiple lenses for your purposes, but it's hard for me to recommend something when I don't know what you're using the D300 for.
If you're looking to save some money, you could look seriously into the D200 or maybe even the D80. The D80 does sacrifice 5fps for 3fps, but again, depending on your application, this may or may not be that important to you. So, if you wanted to save some money in that manner, you may be able to afford some of those more expensive lenses. I'm not knocking the camera you've ordered, but why would you think that 12.1 mp is film quality? I've seen 6 mp look as good as film. It's all in the sensor and lens as far as image quality goes (of course a good photographer helps as well).
Once you get into digital, you won't go back. You can change the white balance, ISO, etc. with the touch of a button and not worry about having to buy or change the film. Also, you can see the pic as soon as you take to see if you need to do a redo. RAW can be a great feature as well as it stores the "digital negative" and you develop it on the computer yourself so that the only thing you have to worry about while shooting is lighting, aperature and shutterspeed. White balance and ISO can be worked out later.
I also agree with the above poster, the "do it all lenses" aren't all that, but if you're used to shooting with film, you probably won't be able to tell the difference in pic quality. I use a Nikkor 28-200mm on a film camera, when it is a good compromise covering wide angle to moderate telephoto. The D300 has a DX format sensor, so this lens will be about 42-300mm equivalent. You won't get the wide angle effects. You will probably want something starting around 18mm (27mm equivalent) if you want good coverage.
On the matter of whether 12MP is film equivalent, there is a variety of opinion! However, even fast film such as Fuji's ISO400 X-tra can resolve in excess of 110 line pairs per mm, which gives it a theoretical equivalent of over 40MP. The limiting factor is more likely to be your lens optics or camera handling issues such as focus and movement. For the equivalent of 12MP, the lens would only need to be able to resolve 60 lpmm on film, but on the DX sensor it will need to resolve 90lpmm. If it could achieve that higher figure, then it would still be within the maximum resolution of the film resolution, and be able to achieve the equivalent of about 28MP if if were used on a film camera.
This will only be an issue if you start doing bigger enlargements. For anything up to A4 size and a bit beyond, you will not really notice the difference between film and digital at these resolutions. |
