50mm

Essentially, the "G" lenses do not allow you to manually control the Aperture.
The older non-G lenses allow you to control the Aperture manually if you so desire.

The lens on the left is the 50mm AF-D lens (identified as ... 50mm 1:1.8 D )
note: the older AF (non "D") lens also looks exactly the same just without the D identifier.
the lens on the right is the 50mm G lens

Notice the lower portion of the D lens with the numbers of 22,16,11,8,5.6, etc. This area can rotate and allow you to change the aperture manually.
Those numbers do not exist on the G lens.
The D lens has a lock (the little orange knob above the 2.8) so that the camera can control the aperture just like the G lens (which doesn't even have an option)

Nikon-50mm-f1.8D-vs-Nikon-50mm-f1.8G.jpg


The newer G lens also allows you to override focus just by grabbing the focus ring. The D lens requires you to flip a switch on the body to change focus manually.

The other main difference you cannot see is that the G lens has a peizo-electric or ultrasonic or some patented doohickie focusing motor built into the lens body itself.
The older AF/D lens bodies do not have this and require the camera body itself to have a focus motor - which are in current Nikon d7x00, d6x00, d750, d8x0, d4, d3 bodies.
New Nikon bodies such as the d3x00 and d5x00 do not have a focus motor and thus require the G lens.
 
.......The D lens has a lock (the little orange knob above the 2.8) so that the camera can control the aperture .........


Locking the lens has nothing to do with allowing the camera to control the aperture. If the lens is set to it's smallest aperture, the camera has that ability whether the lens is locked or not.

The lock is purely mechanical in nature and the camera doesn't know (or care) if it's engaged or not. The only reason to lock the lens at minimum aperture is to prevent the aperture ring from being accidently rotated away from minimum aperture and thus causing the camera to not fire as the lens is no longer at minimum aperture.
 
The easiest way to determine if a particular lens will auto focus on a D3xxx or D5xxx camera is to read the entire lens name. Every Nikon lens name will begin with "AF" or "AF-S" (note the names on the two 50mm lenses posted above)

AF is the older type auto focus which requires the camera body to have the auto focus motor in it.

AF-S stands for "Auto Focus Silent Wave Motor" which means the lens has the auto focus motor built in to it and will therefore auto focus on every Nikon digital camera.
 
I have the D, but yes, you'd need a camera with an AF motor to auto-focus.
You would need the G. But the 1.8G would be awesome as well.
 
Mr.Photo said:
The easiest way to determine if a particular lens will auto focus on a D3xxx or D5xxx camera is to read the entire lens name.

YES, looking for AF-S on Nikon, or HSM on SIgma brand lenses means an in-lens motor.

Another easy way is to see if the lens has an aperture control ring at the back of the lens...if the lens LACKS an aperture ring, then it will in almost all cases, focus on the "baby Nikons", which are the D40 series, the D60, and the D3000-series and the D5000-series models.

One exception is the very early G model, the 70-300 f/4~5.6 G series Nikkor; it was introduced very early in the digital era, and BEFORE Nikon removed the focus motors from any of its cameras, and that inexpensive 70-300, despite being a G-series lens with no aperture ring, is actually a screw-driven lens that requires an in-body focus motor camera to achieve AF. There are a few other G-series lenses that lack an in-lens focusing motor. I think my old 28-200mm G was also a screw-drive focusing lens.
 
These Nikon genealogical lectures really need to be collected and poured into stickies. All this gets tiresomely rehearsed several times a week here.
 
There are other oddities such as the AF-S 28-70/2.8 which has the aperture ring and a built-in focus motor.
 
Going back to astrophotography, the 50 would not be useful on a crop-sensor camera, in my own humble opinion. It's not wide enough to cover much sky, and it's not long enough to get the moon. On the wide end, I'm not happy with 18mm on my D7000 when trying to get Milky Way shots, but I own nothing wider except a fisheye.

I've shot with my Sigma 30mm f:1.4, mostly just to try to shorten my shutter speed with that 1.4 aperture, but just not enough field of view!
 
I recently did some astrophotography work up north (very brief as rain clouds quickly moved in)

I initially used my 18mm on a Full Frame camera - you would need 10mm on DX to be equivalent. This is an uncropped / unedited shot.
20150811_NightSky-03 by Steve Sklar, on Flickr


I also used my 50mm/1.4 lens (35mm equivalent on DX) and I had to take 3 landscape shots (versus vertical) and stitch them together to equal that one shot above. This was my first time stitching photos together. I had to trim the sides as the shots weren't exactly equal.
20150823_MilkyWay-01_stitch1 by Steve Sklar, on Flickr


So as mentioned above by wfooshee, the wider you can get the better and easier it is.
 
Stitching sky shots is always less than satisfying. Not only is it a lot of work, but there's always something in the picture as an artifact, like the dark bands across at the blend lines. :)
 

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