Looking for advice on next lens

[Ryan18]

Hello all. First a bit about me. I am just getting more into photography now. I am learning a bit more about using setting other than auto and trying to take as many pictures as I can good or bad to get a feel for the camera. The camera is a D3200. It came with 2 kit lenses. I have since picked up a 40mm nikkor micro f/2.8 and a 35mm nikkor f/1.8.

I am looking to add a few more to my bag and right now I am looking at a tokina 100mm f/2.8 and or an nikkor 85mm f/1.8.

I am into landscape, nature, some portrait and eventually sports ( when child is older). Does anybody have any other recommendations or preference between this 2?

Thanks

 

[PersistentNomad]

As a nature photographer, I will say this: one quickly gets frustrated with how little reach one has with those focal lengths. If you are looking for sports down the line, have a longer focal length for that too would be good. But, perhaps that's with one of the kit lenses you got.

 

[TheLibrarian]

Maybe idk much but unless you have some need to be mildly farther away from your subject I dont know what you would do with either of those lenses except take pictures of stuff at medium range. I've only played with something over 200mm once and was less than enthused about its clarity at any significant range. Not like those nat geo video camera lenses that shoot like a mile or something.

 

[Ryan18]

One of kit lenses I have is 55-200. I would in the future like to get something in the 300mm range. But for now with winter coming I was looking for more of a closer in lens. Something for portraits of my son and dogs as well as some outdoors stuff.

 

[PaulWog]

The Nikon 85mm 1.8G will be the better portraiture lens. The Tokina 100mm f2.8 is good for portraiture and doubles as a macro lens. I own the Nikon 85mm 1.8G, but the Tokina 100mm f2.8 looks amazing. The Tokina appears to be a hair sharper than the Nikon, but both are so close that's a wash.

If you plan to do any macro photography as well as portraiture, get the Tokina. If you plan purely to do portraiture and the like, go with the Nikon.

 

[fairwayphotos]

I shot with the Nikon d90 and d300 for quite a while before I went full frame. I did a lot of golf course photography for websites and general shots of the course itself and used the Tokina 12-28 F4 DX wide angle. It is tack sharp. The Nikon 85mm f1.8 will act like a 128 mm and the Tokina 100mm f2.8 will act more like 150mm which is a great portrait length. I currently use the Tokina 100mm for both macro and some of my portrait work

 

[Ryan18]

Thank you all for the replies. I think I'm going with the 100mm tokina. It seems more versatile for what I going to use it for. And thank you fairwayphotos for the advice on the 12-28. I do like the look of that lens and the pictures it takes.

 

[dannylightning]

100mm is not exactly what you want when it comes to things like sports, wildlife, air shows, ECT.. For that kind of shooting you want at least a 300mm lens IMO and that may even leave you wishing for more zoom. something like the sigma 150-600mm, nikon 200-500mm or a 300, 400, 500 or 600mm prime lens would probably be more for what you are looking for unless are you going to be able to get pretty close to what ever it is you are shooting.

I often wish i had more zoom when I am out shooting and I use a 600mm lens but I am shooting Wilflife which is often small and can be pretty far away. at 600mm when shooting people i can get some really nice closeups of people from a pretty good distance.

If you look at the photographers on the field at a NFL game you will see they have huge lenses. they often use 400mm up to 600mm f/2.8 or f/4 prime lenses and they are right on the field. I use to work security at the Cleveland browns games and I wold talk to the photographers on the field. A 400mm f/2.8 lens seemed to be what most of them used and they would often have a second camera hanging around their neck with a 70-300 or a 70-200mm lens for when the players got closer to them. some of them even used a teleconverter on their big prime lens to get even more zoom.

for landscape, nature (as long as its not small animals) and portrait work that 100mm lens will probably come in handy but I hardly think it will do the trick for sport unless your right down on the field and the players are close to you.

 

[Solarflare]

I strongly recomment against the Tokina 100mm f2.8 macro.

Dont get me wrong, its a great lens.

But it needs an autofocus motor in the camera and the D3x00 line doesnt have one (neither does the D5x00 line). And they arent so great with manual focus either. Though Ming Thein reported that he could focus his Zeiss lenses with the D5500 quite well because the builtin "rangefinder" (basically the AF system shows if something is in focus) was very precise, better than with the D810(!).

 

[Ryan18]

Eventually I will be getting a new body. Still a DX but upgrading from my 3200. I do a lot on manual focus so unless I am miss understanding I will still be able to focus that tokina lens by hand? All shooting I do macro now is all manual.