GingerMagician wrote: You're missing the point. The 18-55mm Nikon standard lens is just about his sharpest lens full stop. Just ignore the fact that he's reviewing the 30mm Sigma. It's like you say - the Nikon 50mm 1.8 is good value and a useful lens. The Nikon 50mm 1.4 at over twice the price is not. |
Nikon D60 • Page 3
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moggsy 3,859 posts
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Registered 18 years ago -
GingerMagician 3,011 posts
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Registered 18 years agomoggsy wrote:
I'm not missing the point - I was just commenting on the Sigma because I own it and am speaking from experience, for anyone interested.
You're missing the point. The 18-55mm Nikon standard lens is just about his sharpest lens full stop. Just ignore the fact that he's reviewing the 30mm Sigma.
It's like you say - the Nikon 50mm 1.8 is good value and a useful lens. The Nikon 50mm 1.4 at over twice the price is not.
Say, someone who owns a D60 on which the Nikkor 50mm won't AF (but this Sigma will) perhaps?
I'd agree with him about the 18-55 because I've owned that too, when I had a D40. Cracking lens for the price, but the convenience of the 18-200 as a walkabout lens (plus the VR) meant I replaced it pretty early.
When I bought the D200, the D40 and the kit lens went to my Dad - perfect for his needs. -
pistol 13,018 posts
Seen 8 years ago
Registered 19 years agomoggsy wrote:
GingerMagician wrote:
moggsy wrote:
The sums being bandied about in this thread aren't anywhere near "professional" though. £250 for a lens is pretty much directly comparable to the cost of a top-of-the-range graphics card.
GingerMagician wrote:
I take the point about people's skills as photographers but - come on - this is a gaming forum.
People on here spend inordinate amounts of money on their hobbies. How many have got piles of unplayed games on their shelves? Or have spent eye-watering sums on new graphics cards every year or so? Or buy gadgets of various degrees of uselessness?
Buying photography kit is just an extension of the gadget whore that hides within all of us - but it seems to provoke a very self-righteous tone from the "technique is what you should be working on" crowd. Who's to say people aren't doing that as well - I know I certainly am.
The sums involved in photography kit are far greater than the sums involved in gaming though. The main reason being that you can't buy professional gaming kit where as it's quite easy to stray into this category in photography.
As I said, I take the point about kit being less important than technique - it's just that people constantly chirp up with those kind of comments in these threads as if they're talking to complete beginners who don't know that already.
Personally, I find it pretty condescending. It's someone's hobby - if they want to spend money on kit and they can afford it, so what? Not having a pop at anyone, just my opinion.
Sorry if you find it condescending but it's ok, I'm a lone voice anyway (apart from Bill of course) and I don't speak up very often.
I think it's nice to have that counter argument every now and then though. You never know - just this very discussion here may make someone think twice about buying that nice new shiny lens that they don't really need.
Plus more expensive does not always mean better for the purpose. The standard 18-55mm Nikon is one of the sharpest lenses that Ken Rockwell owns. So you're paying £250 for an extra stop or two of light. Serious waste of hard earned that.
Ken Rockwell's great but a lot of what he says I take with a pinch of salt. For one, he leaves his camera on Auto ISO, which I'd never do. -
moggsy 3,859 posts
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Registered 18 years agopistol wrote:
Ken Rockwell's great but a lot of what he says I take with a pinch of salt. For one, he leaves his camera on Auto ISO, which I'd never do.
He does - but it's quite clever how it works these days:
On my Nikons, you go to MENU > Custom Setting Menu (pencil) > ISO Auto and turn it on. You tell it the lowest shutter speed at which you can get a sharp shot (default is 1/30).
In Auto ISO, the camera cranks up the ISO as it gets darker from the speed you set. In other words, if you're set to ISO 200 and it gets dark enough to need 1/15 of a second, the camera magically will set ISO 400 and 1/30 of a second. In the old days I had to tweak the ISO as the subject or light changed. After the ISO hits the top ISO as it gets darker, usually ISO 1,600, only then does the camera use slower speeds than what you selected in the Auto ISO menu.
From here. -
moggsy 3,859 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 18 years agoQuite like this comment too:
One of the biggest reasons I prefer my Nikon DSLRs to Canon is because Canon is still back in the 1970s: they have NO Auto ISO in their DSLRs, except in the dummy modes. This gives me lower image quality, because I either have to leave the camera on a higher ISO to cover all conditions, including daylight, or leave it set lower and get more blurring if I point the camera into a dark hole, unless I want to stop and be a crime target twiddling with a manual setting. Having no modern Auto ISO gets in the way of making pictures, just like having to pop a hood on a 1960s car and jerk around with a stuck choke just to start the car.
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pistol 13,018 posts
Seen 8 years ago
Registered 19 years agomoggsy wrote:
pistol wrote:
Ken Rockwell's great but a lot of what he says I take with a pinch of salt. For one, he leaves his camera on Auto ISO, which I'd never do.
He does - but it's quite clever how it works these days:
On my Nikons, you go to MENU > Custom Setting Menu (pencil) > ISO Auto and turn it on. You tell it the lowest shutter speed at which you can get a sharp shot (default is 1/30).
In Auto ISO, the camera cranks up the ISO as it gets darker from the speed you set. In other words, if you're set to ISO 200 and it gets dark enough to need 1/15 of a second, the camera magically will set ISO 400 and 1/30 of a second. In the old days I had to tweak the ISO as the subject or light changed. After the ISO hits the top ISO as it gets darker, usually ISO 1,600, only then does the camera use slower speeds than what you selected in the Auto ISO menu.
From here.
Yeah, I know about the above, but I just tend to prefer to keep it as low as possible. -
moggsy 3,859 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 18 years agopistol wrote:
Yeah, I know about the above, but I just tend to prefer to keep it as low as possible.
Which is basically what he's doing isn't it? The camera will only bump up the ISO if the shutter speed passes a threshold which you've set.
I actually didn't know you could do this - I'll be trying this on my D50 tonight cos I'm forever accidentally leaving it on a high ISO setting. -
moggsy wrote:
Well first of all the only photography thread I tend to bother with is the Photo Gallery one and I've not seen you in there much, and I don't really recall anything you've ever said on this subject but that's not to say you haven't - it's to say I haven't bothered reading it
MrED209 wrote:
Ah. But that's not equivalent is it!
Yeah £250 for a zoom that's 2.8 all the way is a great price, not sure what moggsy is talking about, although to be fair are Tamron known for their build quality? I'm always a bit reticent about buying a non-Nikon brand, which is why I don't have many lenses!
I'm talking about (as ever if you read any of my previous posts in the photography section) a resistance to spending money on photographic equipment for the sake of it.
I'm quite often fighting a one man battle in this forum though.
Secondly, you said this:
[code]£250 for a not very sexy lens! Fook me. Am I just poor or not as debt laden as the rest of you?[/code]
Doesn't say anything to me about buying lenses for the sake of it - it says to me you'd only pay money for a 'sexy' lens (whatever that is) and that you're not liquid enough to spend that sort of money on a lens at the moment anyway, which is a perfectly valid point.
Nowt about buying lenses for the sake of it though.
So, do you basically just stalk the forums waiting for someone to ask about lenses to buy or whatever, then storm in and piss all over their fire saying that people shouldn't bother buying lenses for the sake of it, regardless of the background to the question?
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moggsy 3,859 posts
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Registered 18 years agoPost deleted -
moggsy 3,859 posts
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Registered 18 years agoMrED209 wrote:
[code]£250 for a not very sexy lens! Fook me. Am I just poor or not as debt laden as the rest of you?[/code]
Doesn't say anything to me about buying lenses for the sake of it - it says to me you'd only pay money for a 'sexy' lens (whatever that is) and that you're not liquid enough to spend that sort of money on a lens at the moment anyway, which is a perfectly valid point.
Nowt about buying lenses for the sake of it though.
I did stick my neck on the line with that comment and you are calling me on it which is fair enough, but I stand by it.
Given the choice between these two lenses:
Nikon 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 G II AF-S DX Lens - £90
Tamron 17-50 f2.8 SP XR Di II LD Lens - £250
you'd have to sit down and have a serious think over whether you need to pay the extra for the Tamron, especially when the Nikon is a good sharp lens.
That's all I was trying to say really. Otherwise you are paying the extra 'for the sake of it'. -
pistol 13,018 posts
Seen 8 years ago
Registered 19 years agoFuck me...it's so funny how threads go off into so many diffrerent tangents. -
moggsy wrote:
I see your point but you're sticking to your narrow view of people that want to buy lenses.
Given the choice between these two lenses:
Nikon 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 G II AF-S DX Lens - £90
Tamron 17-50 f2.8 SP XR Di II LD Lens - £250
you'd have to sit down and have a serious think over whether you need to pay the extra for the Tamron, especially when the Nikon is a good sharp lens.
What you need to sit down and do is actually look at how you shoot, where you shoot, what conditions you shoot in. If you shoot in low light a lot, you need that f/2.8, because the Nikon is only going to be able to offer you f/5.6 at the long end, which is going to screw up your shutter speed or force you onto a high ISO if you want to keep things frozen as opposed to blurred.
Secondly, you need to look at just how sharp the two lenses really are side by side. For example, the Nikon 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 VR is a fab lens for convenience, taking on holiday etc, but it is soft as fuck in the corners and also around the edges at certain lengths. But the 70-200mm f/2.8 VR (half the range, f/2.8 all the way through, twice the price)is so sharp you could cut yourself on it (cheesy but true).
So on one level, yes, do you really need the Tamron? And on another level, yes, you really need the Tamron.
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moggsy 3,859 posts
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Registered 18 years agoMrED209 wrote:
But that's bollocks.
What you need to sit down and do is actually look at how you shoot, where you shoot, what conditions you shoot in. If you shoot in low light a lot, you need that f/2.8, because the Nikon is only going to be able to offer you f/5.6 at the long end, which is going to screw up your shutter speed or force you onto a high ISO if you want to keep things frozen as opposed to blurred.
Secondly, you need to look at just how sharp the two lenses really are side by side. For example, the Nikon 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 VR is a fab lens for convenience, taking on holiday etc, but it is soft as fuck in the corners and also around the edges at certain lengths. But the 70-200mm f/2.8 VR (half the range, f/2.8 all the way through, twice the price)is so sharp you could cut yourself on it (cheesy but true).
So on one level, yes, do you really need the Tamron? And on another level, yes, you really need the Tamron.
Is the Tamron much sharper than the Nikon though? I asked earlier and didn't get a reply.
All lenses are a compromise of cost over performance. I rarely think it's worth an amateur paying out hundreds of pounds for a lens.
It's just one man's opinion though - feel free to splurge the cash on whatever you want. -
I dunno about how sharp it is really.
To be fair unless you're being paid for a job and are going into the photo very close to see what's happening, you probably wouldn't notice any difference. There can be quite noticeable colour differences though - again, something you wouldn't notice unless you took two photos with different lenses and compared, but it would leap out at you, more than sharpness.
I agree with you though, most 'amateurs' don't need to spend the big bucks, but no reason why they shouldn't buy new lenses. I tend to only buy a lens now if it does something I don't already have covered - I'd maybe buy an extreme fisheye wideangle, or a macro, or maybe a massive zoom (400mm or so) if I thought I'd get use of it, but I already have the 10mm to 200mm range covered extremely well so I don't think I'll buy another lens ever again really. -
moggsy 3,859 posts
Seen 1 week ago
Registered 18 years agoMrED209 wrote:
I agree with you though, most 'amateurs' don't need to spend the big bucks, but no reason why they shouldn't buy new lenses.
Agreed.
As an aside, some of the latest cameras (the D300?) actually correct imperfections in the lens (chromatic aberration etc) and with ISO performance getting better and better there will come a day when even a pro can get away with a cheap lens! -
GingerMagician 3,011 posts
Seen 7 years ago
Registered 18 years agoMrED209 wrote:
This is the attitude I tend to take.
I tend to only buy a lens now if it does something I don't already have covered - I'd maybe buy an extreme fisheye wideangle, or a macro, or maybe a massive zoom (400mm or so) if I thought I'd get use of it, but I already have the 10mm to 200mm range covered extremely well so I don't think I'll buy another lens ever again really.
While the 18-200 VR might not give me the best image quality, there's no way I'd think of upgrading at the moment.
I'd have to go something like...
Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 G DX AF-S IF-ED
Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 G AF-S VR IF-ED
...to get noticeably improved image quality - the best part of £2000.
Whereas if I go for a wide angle zoom (Tokina 11-16) and a macro (Tamron 90mm) next, I effectively get three new lenses (wide, macro, 90mm portrait) for under £600 - and I'm covering ranges/photography styles that I don't currently cover. -
pistol 13,018 posts
Seen 8 years ago
Registered 19 years agoYeah, I doubt whether I'll get anymore, at least for a while. I think I've got pretty much all the stuff I shoot covered. I may end up getting a slightly longer 2.8 for tennis, but otherwise I'm pretty set.
Sigma 150mm 2.8 (with X2 convertor if needed) for tennis and general sport stuff if I'm not too close.
Tamron 90mm 2.8 for Macro and the occasional portrait.
Tamron 17-55mm - general carry around, particularly for indoor, low light.
Nikon 50mm 1.8 - low light (first lens I ever got. -
GingerMagician 3,011 posts
Seen 7 years ago
Registered 18 years agoWell, maybe I might add one of these... -
Oi, what's wrnog with Auto ISO? I love my Auto ISO!! -
GingerMagician 3,011 posts
Seen 7 years ago
Registered 18 years agoThere are some frankly astonishing test shots from this lens on the web somewhere - I'll try and locate them... -
GingerMagician wrote:
That's what I've got. Those two for pro work, and the 18-200mm VR (for convenience), the 50mm f/1.8 and the Sigma 10-20mm.
MrED209 wrote:
This is the attitude I tend to take.
I tend to only buy a lens now if it does something I don't already have covered - I'd maybe buy an extreme fisheye wideangle, or a macro, or maybe a massive zoom (400mm or so) if I thought I'd get use of it, but I already have the 10mm to 200mm range covered extremely well so I don't think I'll buy another lens ever again really.
While the 18-200 VR might not give me the best image quality, there's no way I'd think of upgrading at the moment.
I'd have to go something like...
Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 G DX AF-S IF-ED
Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 G AF-S VR IF-ED
...to get noticeably improved image quality - the best part of £2000.
Done..gif)
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pistol 13,018 posts
Seen 8 years ago
Registered 19 years agokalel wrote:
Oi, what's wrnog with Auto ISO? I love my Auto ISO!!
Nothing wrong with it, and I can set my D200 to not go over a certain number. I just prefer 100, 200 and 400. -
pistol wrote:
kalel wrote:
Oi, what's wrnog with Auto ISO? I love my Auto ISO!!
Nothing wrong with it, and I can set my D200 to not go over a certain number. I just prefer 100, 200 and 400.
Yeah, I have mine set to adjust according to a minimum shutter speed of 1/80, and never to go above 1600 ISO. Perfect. -
ayrtonsenna 1,566 posts
Seen 13 years ago
Registered 14 years agoI think I just leaked a little bit:
o_O -
ayrtonsenna wrote:
I think I just leaked a little bit:
o_O
? -
interesting thread!
I'm looking into getting a canon 450d after using a mate's 400d and being mightily impressed! can't seem to find one cheaper than 469 though (amazon) but there's a 50 quid rebate available.
Barring the obvious specification comparisons, do nikon compare well to canons? -
Machiavel 5,964 posts
Seen 3 hours ago
Registered 19 years agoGl3n wrote:
Barring the obvious specification comparisons, do nikon compare well to canons?
Yes they do, both are great. Summary of HUGE eternal conflict: Nikons have slightly better interface; Canons have slightly better lenses. Advice: try them in a shop and see which you prefer 'in hand'. -
Typically Canons have slightly better noise handling at higher ISOs. Personally I think the handling of Canons is quite poor and the design feels inconsistent across the various models, whereas everyone I know that's handled a Nikon (that owns a Canon) has commented on how much better the Nikon feels in their hand, and that the menus and controls feel friendlier.
Depends on what models they have experience of, though.
Also, I heard the other day that the current 5D can't auto-bracket anything more than 3 frames, which seems weird. -
Well quashed, Machiavel!
Caveat: I have a Nikon d80 and only two lenses, so I'm no expert.
I've read the newer Canons have better noise handling in low light altho' - apparently - as you move up the price bracket, this evens out until you hit the ridiculously nice Nikon d3 which I think most people view as a class leader.
On the other hand, Nikon are offering some nice discounts on the lower end (d40 and d60) at the moment.
Machiavel is quite right tho' - the best thing to do is see which fits your hand the best. Unless you're magnifying all your images to spot microscopic flaws, they're both great brands.
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