I have a Question

[Unicorn]

Hello!

I'm new in photography, it's been only 5 months I shoot photos.

last summer, I bought Nikon D60 with 18-55mm lens. but when it comes to low light photography I'm not very satisfied.
some time ago, a friend of mine told me to buy 50mm F/1.4G autofocus lens for my camera, and it would help..

Now I'm wondering, If I buy that lens for 450$, would the quality improve (I mean the noise and dirt) or it will just make a good depth of field (bokeh) and that's all?

I'm sure I sound very dummy right now, but please explain whether the quality depends on Lens or the Camera itself? and what advantages will I have with 50mm Lens?

 

[Derrel]

Well, maybe you ought to think about the 35mm f/1.8 AF-S G lens for your D60...that is around $199,and might be a handy single focal length lens for you to get your feet wet with. See, the 18-55 f/3.5~5.6 or "kit zoom lens" is a low-priced, lightweight, compromise lens designed to give you the wide-angle and the normal-ish focal lengths in one lightweight,low-cost lens. The lens is the modern day starter lens, the general duty lens for low cost and so on; the 18-55 is not a super high quality lens. It's not a horrible lens, but by the same token, it doesn't allow much light to enter into the camera, especially at the longer focal lengths.

Nikon's 50mm f/1.4 AF-S G lens is Nikon's professional-grade, modern 50mm 1.4 lens, and on a D60, it will autofocus, and it will work peerfectly. WIth that lens, you can shoot under lower light conditions without flash, and get less in focus behind close-range subjects than with the 18-55 kit zoom. If you were to photograph a person from say 3 feet to 10 feet, with the 50mm f/1.4 lens set to f/2.2 or f/2.5 or f/2.8, your backgrounds would be well out of focus if they were behind the subject 20 feet or more; that is impossible to do with the 18-55, since at 50mm, it only opens up to f/5.6.

A prime lens like the 50mm 1.4 AF-S G is a "lifetime" type of lens for an amateur photographer. You can buy a pro Nikkor like that and keep it for 10,15,20,30,40 years.
When (if) the AF motor in the lens burns out, you can still twist the ring to focus it, 40 years later. The quality of the images comes from both the lens, and the camera. The D60 does not have a high-resolution sensor in it, so its image quality comes from about equal measures the lens and the sensor.

 

[KmH]

When I had a D60, I often used a $130 AF 50 mm f/1.8D lens on it.

That lens doesn't have a focus motor in it though, so on the D60 you have to manually focus the lens thoguh it still sends distance info the the D60's CPU and will turn on the in-focus indicator in the viewfinder for you.

The AF-S 35mm f/1.8 and the AF-S f1.4 are sure good lenses too, just cost more. AF means auto focus, but no focus motor in the lens, while the S in AF-S stands for Silent Wave Motor used for focusing which is what Nikon puts in most of their lenses these days.

Nikon cameras from the D90 and up have a focus motor in the body that can drive the auto focus mechanism in the AF lenses. To keep the D60 compact, Nikon didn't include a focus motor in it (or the D40/D40x/D3000/D5000).