affordable lens for D3100 to use for wedding

JanB56 · Sep 6, 2015

I need some suggestions for which lens would work best for an indoor wedding in December, my camera is the Nikon D3100, I love it, & I've purchased the Nikkor 35mm 1.8 AF-S & I love the way it takes sharp pictures, but don't think it will work for this wedding, i'm shooting these pictures for a family member, so it's a free shoot, I'm working on building my lens inventory, but don't want to break the bank. Any suggestions.

tirediron · Sep 6, 2015

Why don't you this lens will work? I would think that on a crop-body, a fast "normal" lens would be a good choice if you were only going in with a single lens. Do you want longer or wider?

Braineack · Sep 6, 2015

The 35mm will make a great wide lens to use. If you need more reach, then you may wish you had something else to compliment it.

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robbins.photo · Sep 6, 2015

Well everybody has a different definition of "affordable", but a few thoughts real quick

50 mm 1.8 AFS G - Small, fast, inexpensive and will give you a bit more reach when you need it.

There are other options that would give you more flexibility, Tamron makes an outstanding 17-50 mm 2.8 lens, just make sure you look at the newer versions that have the built in focus motors as the older versions without them won't autofocus on your D3300

If you already have a kit lens in addition to your 35mm, you might want to consider getting a good external flash as opposed to a faster lens.

gryffinwings · Sep 6, 2015

Sounds like you might need a telephoto lens and for weddings might want something that focuses faster, so I would recommend the Nikkor 70-300mm VR lens, you can get this lens for a pretty good price used. The 35mm should be ok for everything else. Please post what you need, since you didn't say what your current lens is not doing for you.

Derrel · Sep 6, 2015

For an indoor wedding, I would look at say the Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 zoom, and a decent flash. It is at $469 from B&W Photo right now. It has optical stabilization, which can help in getting steady shots at slow shutter speeds.It has a hypersonic focus motor (HSM) in the lens, so it WILL autofocus on a D3100. Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 EX DC OS HSM Zoom Lens for Nikon 583306 B&H

JanB56 · Sep 6, 2015

robbins.photo said:
Well everybody has a different definition of "affordable", but a few thoughts real quick

50 mm 1.8 AFS G - Small, fast, inexpensive and will give you a bit more reach when you need it.

There are other options that would give you more flexibility, Tamron makes an outstanding 17-50 mm 2.8 lens, just make sure you look at the newer versions that have the built in focus motors as the older versions without them won't autofocus on your D3300

If you already have a kit lens in addition to your 35mm, you might want to consider getting a good external flash as opposed to a faster lens.

Thank you for the recommendation. I will start searching for the 50mm, I have looked @ so many lens now, i'm starting to get confused. I have a Tamron 75-300 for my Sony camera & it takes beautiful clear pictures. So I have no prob looking for a diff name lens as long as it will work w/ my Nikon D 3100.

robbins.photo · Sep 6, 2015

JanB56 said:
robbins.photo said:

Well everybody has a different definition of "affordable", but a few thoughts real quick

50 mm 1.8 AFS G - Small, fast, inexpensive and will give you a bit more reach when you need it.

There are other options that would give you more flexibility, Tamron makes an outstanding 17-50 mm 2.8 lens, just make sure you look at the newer versions that have the built in focus motors as the older versions without them won't autofocus on your D3300

If you already have a kit lens in addition to your 35mm, you might want to consider getting a good external flash as opposed to a faster lens.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the recommendation. I will start searching for the 50mm, I have looked @ so many lens now, i'm starting to get confused. I have a Tamron 75-300 for my Sony camera & it takes beautiful clear pictures. So I have no prob looking for a diff name lens as long as it will work w/ my Nikon D 3100.

Well sigma and tamron both make a 17 50 2.8 with built in focus motors, so that's always an option as well.

I have a 50 mm afs g, it's a great lens. The 85 is also spectacular but it's a bit more expensive.

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JanB56 · Sep 6, 2015

gryffinwings said:
Sounds like you might need a telephoto lens and for weddings might want something that focuses faster, so I would recommend the Nikkor 70-300mm VR lens, you can get this lens for a pretty good price used. The 35mm should be ok for everything else. Please post what you need, since you didn't say what your current lens is not doing for you.

I have 2 camera bodies, Nikon D3100 & a Sony a230, I prefer using the Nikon, but I've taken some great pictures with my Sony too. I recently purchased a Nikon DX AFS nikkor 35mm 1.8, i'm just not sure that will work for the indoor wedding pictures I want to capture, even though they are family & i'm doing this for them @ no cost, I still want to give them a great job. These pictures are very important to them & to me as well. I have actually spent a lot of time googling the 70-300 for days , weeks now. I'm just unsure about which one to get & watch my cost too. Thank you so much for taking your time to answer this & give me a hand.

Derrel · Sep 6, 2015

Indoors, a 70-300mm lens will be a regal PITA. It is far too long a lens for anything except tight portraits when being used inside a normal-sized room; 70x 1.5 is the short end...that's a tight 105mm equivalent medium telephoto angle of view...with a slow f/4.5 aperture....again, close to useless indoors except when lighting the shots with flash.

The 35mm f/1.8 will function as a "normal lens", with no wide-angle feeling and no telephoto-like feeling to the images, and that will work for many shots, but you will have no way to shoot wide angles of view indoors. The lens is a fast-aperture lens, f/1.8, and so it will collect plenty of light, which will help the autofocusing system work well.

A 50mm f/1.8 AF-S G would be the most-economical Nikon-made 50mm lens, which would act as a short telephoto lens.

My suggestion would be, again, the 17mm to 50mm Sigma zoom lens, so you have a wide-angle option, a normal option, and a short telephoto lens option--all within ONE, single lens that has in-lens stabilization, and a constant f/2.8 maximum aperture, and in an affordable (but not cheap by any means) lens.

Personal opinion: you want a zoom lens; primes are way over-rated, unless they are on a full-frame camera, or on a system which they were actually designed for (Fuji X, m4/3).

Check this on-line web calculator out, as far as camera type, lens length, and how far away you need to be to shoot five types of photos, from close-up of the face to full-length shots. Depth of Field, Angle and Field of View, and Equivalent Lens Calculator - Points in Focus Photography

JanB56 · Sep 6, 2015

tirediron said:
Why don't you this lens will work? I would think that on a crop-body, a fast "normal" lens would be a good choice if you were only going in with a single lens. Do you want longer or wider?

Please forgive me for having to ask when you say " do you want longer or wider " ? I'm new in the photography world, & don't know as much as most of you guys , but I would appreciate your expertise input anway. thanks again

JanB56 · Sep 6, 2015

Derrel said:
Indoors, a 70-300mm lens will be a regal PITA. It is far too long a lens for anything except tight portraits when being used inside a normal-sized room; 70x 1.5 is the short end...that's a tight 105mm equivalent medium telephoto angle of view...with a slow f/4.5 aperture....again, close to useless indoors except when lighting the shots with flash.

The 35mm f/1.8 will function as a "normal lens", with no wide-angle feeling and no telephoto-like feeling to the images, and that will work for many shots, but you will have no way to shoot wide angles of view indoors. The lens is a fast-aperture lens, f/1.8, and so it will collect plenty of light, which will help the autofocusing system work well.

A 50mm f/1.8 AF-S G would be the most-economical Nikon-made 50mm lens, which would act as a short telephoto lens.

My suggestion would be, again, the 17mm to 50mm Sigma zoom lens, so you have a wide-angle option, a normal option, and a short telephoto lens option--all within ONE, single lens that has in-lens stabilization, and a constant f/2.8 maximum aperture, and in an affordable (but not cheap by any means) lens.

Personal opinion: you want a zoom lens; primes are way over-rated, unless they are on a full-frame camera, or on a system which they were actually designed for (Fuji X, m4/3).

Check this on-line web calculator out, as far as camera type, lens length, and how far away you need to be to shoot five types of photos, from close-up of the face to full-length shots. Depth of Field, Angle and Field of View, and Equivalent Lens Calculator - Points in Focus Photography

Extremely helpful information !! now this makes more sense to me. I completely agree with you about the 70-300, only because I have a Tamron 70-300 for my Sony, & it's pretty useless inside. I was planning on bringing in both of my cameras with 2 diff lens to work with, I have a Speedlite YN560II also, for additional lighting needs. I will definitely check out the DEPTH OF FIELD site. I'm sure this will help me out a lot. I purchased the Nikon afs 35m 1.8 for portrait taking, I read tons of reviews & all seemed to praise it.

Derrel · Sep 6, 2015

Here is an example of why you might want a lens that is "wider" than a 35mm lens for an indoor wedding shoot. Wider is synonymous also for shorter. Longer means a longer lens, which has anarrower angle of view.

Here is a screen capture I made. I entered the 35mm lens length in the box. I clicked on the Full Length type shot. Look at the field of view's actual size: basically 7 feet 1 inch tall, and just over 4 feet 8 inches across the narrow width of the frame--from a shooting distance of about 10.5 feet.

The Depth of Field with the lens set to f/2.0 (the band of sharpest acceptable focus) is from 9 feet 6 inches back to 11 feet 9 inches, or a total depth of field band of 2 feet 3 inches.

This means that at 10.5 feet, the 35mm lens will "see" a rather narrow 7 foot tall by 4.75 foot across picture area...

gryffinwings · Sep 6, 2015

Sorry didn't see the part where this was inside. Anyways I'm going to agree with Darrel on this, getting a zoom with a 2.8 constant aperture, it will be easier to use and you won't have to change out lens like with the primes.