Choosing Lenses for my D5100

[northstar14]

Hello all,

I have got my camera just recently (Nikon D5100), and very new to the world of photography.
I did purchase a few books on photography and read them.

My question is about expanding my lenses (the lens i have is the 18-55 mm vr), and wanted help from the more experienced members here.

My main interest is freezing motion, starting from drops of liquids to birds flying high in sky to house-flies flying around the dinner table.

I understand that i need very fast lenses, and also the range of zooming is high ( from micro to telephoto ), and i was considering the following lenses as a start:

nikon 50mm 1.8D or nikon 50mm 1.8G

Tamron A20 28-300mm.

Please help in choosing between the 1.8d and 1.8g, and if any other suggestions and also if the tamron a20 is a sharp lens and if there are any other options.

Regards.

[TPF Sponsor]

[Kerbouchard]

The 50mm 1.8D won't autofocus on your camera. I don't know anything about the Tamron lens, but generally, a lens that tries to do everything doesn't do any of it well.

As far as freezing motion, especially indoors, a flash will be more useful than a fast lens.

Just my .02

[tirediron]

a flash will be more useful than a fast lens.

^^ That!

[analog.universe]

Flash is certainly the best way to freeze motion (except for shooting birds, but then you'll have bright sun so a fast lens is also less important). For the applications you mentioned I would look at a long macro lens. Sigma 150mm or 180mm maybe?

50 1.8 is a good lens to have, but it's not particularly good at macro, and it's obviously not a telephoto. It's strengths are it's low light ability, and ability to render out of focus backgrounds, while providing a natural perspective. Closeups of water drops, flies, or birds in the sky are not natural perspectives usually, and I'd recommend a much longer lens for all of them. (although I shot the drop in my avatar with a 50 2.0 (and 2 flashes!))

[BJF]

With D5100, you need G lens for auto-focus.

Nikon 50mm f1.8D + market price

Nikon 50mm f1.8G + market price

[KmH]

BJF is giving you questionable information (actually just wrong). You need AF-S or AF-I lenses for auto focus, because the S and the I mean the lens has an internal auto focus motor.

G means the lens doesn't have an aperture ring.

D means the lens electronics transmits Distance information to the camera CPU.

[northstar14]

I thank you all for your usefull replies specially analog

Regarding the flash i have a problem, and its that the shutter speed with flash doesnt go higher than 200, while i need much higher speed than that.

So for the 50mm lens i will go with the 1.8G.

about the telephoto am looking for this options tamron 18-270
tamron 28-300
sigma 28-300
sigma 70-300
tamron 70-300

all help and advice will be highly apreciated.

regards.

[Kerbouchard]

Regarding the flash i have a problem, and its that the shutter speed with flash doesnt go higher than 200, while i need much higher speed than that.

When using flash, freezing motion has almost nothing to do with shutter speed.

[analog.universe]

As Kerbouchard mentioned, if you're using your flash to freeze motion, the shutter speed is usually not relevant. The flash burst has a much shorter duration than even the fastest shutter (1/20,000 sec or something, although it does vary by model and selected power level. (lower power = shorter burst duration)). So, while your shutter is open for 1/200, your subject is illuminated for far less.

I'd avoid a "superzoom" type lens. 28-300 is a lot to engineer into one package, and a lot of compromises are made in image quality to make it happen. To compare the performance of the various 70-300's available, check out a site like lenstip.com or photozone.de. They do technical tests of a bunch of lenses, so you can figure out which is the best option at your price point.

[northstar14]

Thank you guys for your replies,

But am still confused, so i hope youi will tolerate me.

What i have understood (plz correct me if am wrong) is that we have light (Aperture and if not enough then use flash) and shutter speed (lets put ISO aside for a while), so if i want freeze some action at shutter speed 1/200 s, then i use the highest aperture i can and if not enough then i use flash with it.
What about if lets say (for the sake of discussion ) i need to freeze a bullet , and i will need shutter speed of 1/20000 s , so what am gona do? i need the high aperture and i need the flash light and i need the very high shutter speed ( where the camera doesnt support if am using flash ), [the highest shutter speed with flash is 1/200].

So is there a way to increase the shutter speed while using flash (since no matter how much light i have, the object i want to picture and freeze is TOO fast for 1/200 shutter speed), or should i give up my new hobbie :P ( am sure thats something none of you will advice me to do ).


I hope i was able to express the problem.

Regards.

[MTVision]

Shutter speed on the d5100 only goes up to 1/4000

[MTVision]

Other cameras have high sync speed with flash (still not super high) but the d5100 does not have that.

[MTVision]

I may be wrong but this is how I understand off camera flash (speedlights)

Aperture controls flashed area
Shutter speed controls background that isn't lot by flash

Shutter has no relationship with the flashes portion of your image. Basically aperture controls light intensity so when you take a picture the cameras aperture will open up and the area that is flashed is exposed. The background will start to expose based on amount of time you told the shutter to stay open. Are exposed by aperture won't expose more because of the open shutter

Since flash freezes motion you can go fairly low in shutter speed and not get blur

Fast shutter speed will give a darker background and slow shutter speed will expose background properly (?)

I may be wrong - probably am. I have the same camera and am just getting into off camera flash. The above is what I have read and been told.

Someone else please chime in to correct me!!

[analog.universe]

Yes that's correct.

I'll just restate the theory a bit for clarification. The aperture determines how much light is allowed to pass through the lens... you can measure this in photons per unit time. The shutter speed determines the amount of time the sensor will spend collecting those photons. So, lets say you have a shot with no flash, just ambient light. That light will be pouring through the lens at a more or less constant rate, the wider you open up the aperture, the faster it comes in, the longer you leave the shutter open, the more of it "piles up" on the sensor. Now look at a shot where you are using a flash... Instead of the light coming in at a constant rate, the flash dumps all of its photons almost instantaneously, and they all rush through the lens in a big group. The aperture determines how many get in, but in this case the shutter doesn't matter. You could leave the shutter open for a whole second, and no more photons from the flash are ever going to make it to the sensor. The flash is illuminating the subject for a very short amount of time, thus freezing the motion, and all that illumination is captured right away. Provided your flash is bright enough compared to your ambient light, you won't be able to see the ambient that was collected for the full 1/200 of a second, only the 1/20,000 from the flash.

[northstar14]

Thank you MTVision and analog.

I thank you for your high quality replies.

In theory i have understood the theory (hopefuly), now i have to get myself a flash (though it wont be a fancy one, most likely a SB400) and try out the theory in practical.

MTVision thank you for ur note about the shutter speed on my D5100, i just discovered that last night, . anyways if the theory works as its supose to, then who needs a 1/20000s speed :p (May be me when i have saved a few thousand dollars ).

Thank you all for your time

Regards.