Nikon D80 lenses

Chumpy · Jul 6, 2008

Hi,
I own a Nikon D80, bought with the stock 28-135 Nikon lens.
Its my first real DSLR, and my first real experiment with SLR as a whole.
I want to take nice close shots of 2 extreme things.
1/. Close ups of Marine corals, or fishes (Like a fish face being the full frame)
2/. I want some decent level of zoom for non-closeup work.
I realise that this may be 2 different lenses, but...
1/. Can anyone recommend decent lenses to purchase for each purpose?
2/. Is there a lens I could use, to maybe cheat and get both purposes, say a 70-300 with macro?
3/. Should I stick with Nikon/Nikkor, and go for a VR lens, or get a non-VR, or possibly Sigma / Tamron? I'm not sure if I will need the VR, and I figure I may buy a cheapie one to try, and if I like it sell it, and buy the VR version.
Any help appreciated.
Cheers

kundalini · Jul 6, 2008

I bought almost $7K worth of Nikkor lenses for my D80. What's your budget?

TamiyaGuy · Jul 6, 2008

Sigma and Tamron are both great manufacturers, but you may want to try the lenses out before you buy them, just to compare.

First off, if you want to take underwater photographs, then an underwater casing is essential. As in, if you don't get one, your camera will be a mini water feature when you take it out of the lake!

As for macro, the Nikon 60mm f/2.8 AF-S is really good. It has a very good image quality, and it's very well built. However, it isn't all that long, so you might want to look into the Nikon 105mm. The 105mm also has VR, but it's virtually useless at 1:1. Actually, depending on the size of the fish, your 18-135 (you did mean 18, right?) might do the job.

As for a longer telephoto, a Nikon or Sigma 55-200 lens would do great. The more expensive Nikon also has a VR variation. A 70-300 is good, but yet again, you may want to test each lens out. Also be aware that the Sigma 70-300 Macro ISN'T a true macro lens, and it won't be as good as the lenses mentioned previously.

Still, have fun, and best of luck!