What Nikon lens to buy?

[ama1997]

The VR works great, but depends on what your shooting. If your shooting something like sports. Where you need high shutter speeds to freeze motion. The VR can slow down the lens. Also if your worried about hand shake. Learn the proper way to hold you camera, and never shoot lower than the length of your lens. If you using a 70-200mm f 2.8 and your zoomed out to 200. If you have your shutter speed above 1/200th you shouldnt have to much blur from hand movement. If you shooting at 35mm then 1/35th of a sec is as low as you should go.

If your going to be doing marco stuff. Better off getting a somewhat good marco. I use either the 50mm 1.4 Nikon or the 35mm 1.8. None of those are macro. But I can get as close as about a foot with either of them. The 35mm 1.8 is under 200.00 and a great lens for the dx sensor. If your doing marco then your going to need a tripod, when using a tripod you have to turn off the vr or you can get some blurry images. So the VR in a macro In my mind is a waste, unless your going to be using the macro for other stuff too. Dont waste your money on the d90 its on its way out pretty much. Some are saying the d7000 is to replace the d90 and the d300. The high ISO images in the d7000 are right up there with some of the more expensive Nikons.

When looking for lenses. It better to buy good glass instead of bad/cheap. You will just have to replace the cheap stuff down the road once you get more into photography. bodies come and go. You can get a decent cheaper nikon body. Then get good lenses for it. What ever body and lens you decide on. Make sure if the camera doesn't have a built in motor. You get lenses with built in motors. Lenses without built in motors will not auto focus on most lower end nikon camera. lenses with built in motors will auto focus on cameras that have built in motors. Also lower f number means wider aperture, Wider aperture means the lens lets more light in. More light means you can use higher shutter speeds. Same with ISO Think of ISO as film speed 100,200,400,800,1600 and so on. The higher the number the more sensitive the film/sensor is. More sensitive = more light so you can use faster shutter speeds in low light. I have seen very usable images on the d7000 at 3200 ISO. The d5000 and lower 800 ISO in low light is about the highest you can go and get usable images.

If you want a good lens that you can use on other things,not just reptile. That wont empty your bank account. Id check into the 50mm f/1.4 or the 35mm f/1.8 or even the 50mm f/1.8 Also you need to decide if you want video. I think most of the newer nikon d-slr's do video all but the d3000.

If you can try and stay away from the floating aperture lenses. like this one. 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor thats not a bad lens, but not that great for low light shooting. f.3.4-5.6 means at 18mm the max aperture is 3.5 thats not bad. When zoomed out to 55mm the aperture is 5.6. Again that lens is an ok lens its one of the kit lenses. Dont waste you money on the 55-200mm version of that lens. Almost unusable in low light.

So if you can try and get an f/2.8,f/1.8 or an f/1.4 lens. I have noticed on the 50mm 1.4 i does get a little soft when wide open to 1.4 One more thing dont buy from best buy or amazon or even nikon. I get all my stuff from http://www.bhphotovideo.com/ most of the time they have some great deals on used stuff too.

Save some money up, buy good glass, Good glass if taken care of can last a lifetime. Better to buy one great lens, and use if for ten years (or longer) Than to buy five cheap and have to replace them ever year or so. In the long run you will have better lenses, better photos. Longer lasting good quality lenses.