Lenses for a budget

[dryfter]

After chatting to Ant the other day, I was thinking more about writing a list of good camera lenses that don't cost ludicrous amounts of money. So, this is that list.
In no particular order..

Lens	Description
18-70mm f3.5-4.5 Nikon AF-S ED DX	If you only have the 18-55 f3.5-5.6 lens that came with your D50, and you're on a *really* tight budget, then you might want to consider getting a second-hand 18-70mm to replace it. They're dirt cheap, because they came with almost every D70, but they're an upgrade from the 18-55 in more ways than just focal length. They're slightly faster (aperture-wise), much faster to focus, a bit sharper, less distorted, have less CAs, and better contrast. All this, for under a hundred quid. Bargain.
Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 XR DI II	The other affordable contender for a general purpose is the recently released Tamron 17-50mm f2.8. This has a constant f2.8 aperture, which makes it a stop-and-a-bit faster than the Nikon 18-70, and two stops faster than the Nikon 18-55mm at the long end. The build quality slightly better than the 18-55, but marginally worse than the 18-70. ie. It feels kinda plasticy. However, according to tests and user reviews, this lens performs well. It has some vignetting when wide-open at the close end of the zoom, though. CA is about on par with the 18-55, and worse than the 18-70mm though. I'd call it a distinct upgrade from the 18-55 though - it has a much wider max aperture, better contrast, etc which will allow for more creative possibilities and nicer pictures. Also better for low-light situations. Lowest price I've seen this at (from non-dodgy shops) is £279 with a free UV filter thrown in. Not a bad deal for the price, and it's a better offering than the equivelents from Sigma or Tokina.. and it's a third of the price of Nikon's..
Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro	If you want to get into macro photography, then ideally you'd like to get Nikon's 105mm f2.8 VR lens.. but at 500 quid, it's not cheap. You can pick up new or second-hand versions of Tamron's 90mm macro for quite affordable prices, and it's almost as good! (Just doesn't have the VR, but ah well, you wouldn't use that anyway in macro stuff..) As with the 17-50, Tamron's offering is a bit better than the alternative 3rd party lenses.
Nikon 50mm f1.8 AF-D	Nikon's trusty 50mm f1.8 lens has been around for decades in various manual and automatic focussing modes. You can pick one up new for less than £80, and it performs excellently. The focal length was great on film bodies, but is unfortunately a bit long on DSLRs.. you might have to take a few more steps backwards to fit your scene in. However beyond that, it's great. Much faster, sharper, and better all around than the zooms I've mentioned before. I know of quite a number of people who do very nice portraiture work with this lens, as thanks to its extremely wide aperture you'll have a lot of control of depth of field. It's also good for available-light work after the sun has gone down. For the price, you can't go wrong - just get one.
Nikon 60mm f2.8 macro	As an alternative to getting the 50mm f1.8 and Tamron 90mm macro, you might want to consider the micro-Nikkor 60mm f2.8, which is also a macro lens. I have one of these, and it spends a lot of time on my camera. While it is a macro lens, the focal length is just about short enough to use it for other stuff as well (it's only 10mm longer than the 50mm after all), and it is extremely sharp and delivers excellent pictures. It has a fairly wide aperture of f2.8, so can be used for portraiture if you like. (The Tamron is getting a bit too long to be used for non-macro or non-telephoto applications.) It's a pricey lens because it's Nikon, albeit considerably cheaper than their other macro gear. If you're on a budget, you're probably better off getting the combo of the Tamron 90mm and the Nikon 50mm and still having some money left over to buy some flowers to shoot or something.
Tokina 12-24mm f4	For wide-angle photography, your everyday 17/18mm focal length just isn't enough on our APS-C sized DSLRS. (If you don't know what that means, then you have one.. It's currently just the 5D and 1Ds that have full-size sensors). Nikon's 12-24mm zoom is nice, but again, rather expensive. I gather Tokina's 12-24mm zoom is well-built, very sharp, and in general a nice piece of kit. I'd buy it over the Nikon, and save myself a few hundred pounds, for sure.
Telephoto lenses	I'm not sure what to recommend if you want serious telephoto lenses. The good ones are all pretty expensive.. Sigma's 50-150 f2.8, recently announced, is probably well worth a look though. Also, Nikon have announced a new version of the 70-300 f4-f5.6 lens, that will feature VR, and looks to be fairly cheap for Nikon - hopefully it won't be as woeful as the non-VR version.. But for the price, probably will. Unfortunately neither of those have yet to fall into peoples' hands for review yet. Sigma's 70-200 f2.8 is good, and Nikon's 70-200 f2.8 - but they're also expensive. Really expensive in Nikon's case. A good alternative is to look at older prime telephoto lenses - You can pick up a manual focus Nikon prime 200mm or 300mm f4 for silly, silly prices these days. They are from the good old days when things were made of metal, to the highest standard, and they're rock solid and nice and sharp and contrasty. Sure, you can't zoom, and you don't have any autofocus, but you can't complain for the price. Using these on a D50 or D70 will require you to set the exposure manually as well, I'm afraid, but that's not too hard. You'll get the hang of it. (Those with D100/D200 or up are lucky enough to retain automatic exposure with these lenses.)

(Apologies for the ugly table, but I couldn't get LJ to let me include <style> blocks to use CSS with it!)

Comments

[synthclarion.livejournal.com]

Curse you and your predilection for Nikon. Write one for Canon EF/EF-S fit lenses!

[wintrmute.livejournal.com]

Well, the third-party lenses (Tamron, Tokina, Sigma, etc) will fit your Canon too.

[drreagan.livejournal.com]

Most of those third-party lenses (Tamron, Sigma, Tokina, etc) will do the same model with a Canon EF fit lens mount.

[drreagan.livejournal.com]

I've got the f2.8 28-75mm version of the XR DI2 Tamron - I use it as my main general-purpose lens. I thoroughly recommend it.

I've also got a 75-200m f2.8 Sigma for my telephoto. The results are good, but when you've got that much glass, its bloody heavy.

Need to get myself a decent ultra-wide. Currently using a cheap-arse Cosina 19-28mm, and the results leave much to be desired (both in quality, and the not overly wide limitation of only 19mm when using a 1.6x ccd on a dSLR)

[wintrmute.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of holding out to see if Tokina release something like a 16-45 f2.8 or anything approximately in that range.

Although really I'd like Nikon's 12-14 + 17-55 f2.8 - but don't have any justification to spend the £1k5+ that it'd require.

[dogrando.livejournal.com]

(Just got back from holiday, catching up on LJ before I can face work...)

Is there a reason why you prefer the 50mm f1.8 to the f1.4? I have the latter, got it dirt cheap second hand, and I love it enormously. I probably use it more than all my other lenses put together (I'm talking 35mm here, obv.). Of course, I don't need that extra 2/3 of a stop all that often, but it's nice occasionally. My second favourite is my ancient MF 105mm, also dirt cheap second hand and a gorgeous portrait lens, and I do occasionally use my (obviously dirt cheap second hand) 24mm (tho' I think that wide angle lenses are overused in landscape photography — there's a helluva lot of really boring stuff done like this, and I'll only do it when I really like the effect). My two zoom lenses (28–80mm and 70–300mm, nasty plasticky things that came bundled with my first SLR) came on holiday with me and didn't get used at all... I think I prefer the rigour of prime, and there's no doubt that their quality beats the crap out of any comparatively priced zoom.

The one thing I am lacking is a decent telephoto. As you seem to suggest, I occasionally look through the Nikon price lists, second hand sites, reviews and so on and just get depressed by how expensive they all are...

[wintrmute.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I think the only reason I went for the f1.8 over the f1.4 was the diminishing returns on the price.. the latter being about four times the price of the other, new. If they're similarly-priced when secondhand, then it'd be worth getting the faster lens though, I agree.