Buying new Nikon D800, need to pick the right lenses.

Halnex · May 24, 2014

I'm getting a new Nikon D800 and I need to pick a couple of lenses but I'm confused which ones to choose.

I'm by no means a professional photographer and I don't do this for money. Photography is a passion of mine, a very expensive hobby one might say. You can check my older photos taken with my old Nikon D80 HERE .

I'm more into Landscapes/Nature and People so I need my lenses to work exactly for that. I need a wide angle lens to be able to take HDR panoramic shots for landscapes/cityscapes and what have you, I used the 18-105mm on my old Nikon D80 and it worked like magic. I also need one for portraits, I had 50mm 1.4f on my old camera and I loved it, no words to describe its quality and depth of field.

50mm 1.4f is a no brainer to me. I will definitely get that one. I'm not sure if the 35mm 1.8f is any better.

My real problem is picking one out of these 2 lenses for wide angle use. Would the 24-70mm look as good as the 18-105mm did on D80? Or do you think for best landscape uses better go with 14-24mm?

24-70 f2.8
14-24mm

The guy I'm buying these from told me to forget all other lenses and get the 24-70mm f2.8 because it would do everything I want from landscapes to portraits but I am not convinced. I've never used it before, specially not on a full-frame camera so I don't know how wide 24mm would actually be or if it would give a similar effect to the 50mm f1.4 when taking portraits.

The_Traveler · May 24, 2014

14-24 on a FF camera is very, very, wide wide.

When I was shooting Nikon I used 24-70 for 95%of my shots.
I looked at your shots and they would all have been shot with the 24-70 except maybe 'volcano.'
And most not in the lower end.

24-70 is a magnificent lens because it is immensely versatile and I was never sorry I had it.
14-24 is a great lens but it forces you to shoot in very specific ways and it is really more a specialty lens.

If I were ever to go back to FF, I would get the 24-70 and 70-200 and then maybe think of the 14-24.
I migrated to m4/3 and have the 24-70 and 70-200 equivalents there.

Derrel · May 24, 2014

I would rather have the 16-35mm f/4 VR Nikkor than the 14-24...just a BETTER RANGE of focal lengths for landscapes. Under 24mm gives soooo much of that far-away and booooooooring look. Thom Hogan mentioned the same thing last week in looking at what lenses he would KEEP and USE if he were to retire...he points out that he reaches for the 16-35 VR more often than the monster-sized, no-filter, 14-24 G. I'm NOT a fan of the wide, boring, teeeeny-tiny-unimportant-background "look" that focal lengths under 24mm yield on soooooo many landscapes....just so tedious looking at wide-angle, boring shots where there's NOTHING that can even be recognized beyond 10 feet from the lens. The 14-24 specializes in yielding those boring, too-wide shots.

85mm f/1.8 AF-S G is a MUST-have prime for the money and for the resolution/performance. 24-70mm....it's big, it's versatile. But it has no "top end", which is why for me, I am not interested. I would rather have (and do own) a 24-85mm zoom. If you've not used a 24mm on full-frame, you are in for a pleasant surprise; it might be the perfect wide-angle lens for the real world, for MANY situations. Not ultra-widem, but nevertheless, WIDE. ANd, easy to deploy and not make ultra-dull, boring images.

28mm is also very useful. Same with 35mm. There is a reason that Nikon used to make a pro-grade 17-35mm f/2.8, and a pro-grade 20mm-35mm f/2.8 before that, and now makes a 16-35mm f/4 AF-S VR lens of pro-grade quality. And why Canon has multiple lenses in the 16-35 and 17-40mm range; those are the MOST-useful,and most-desired lens lengths on wide-angle zoom lenses to be used on FF bodies.

Halnex · May 24, 2014

Thank you for your reply.

So if I'm understanding this correctly. I could take similar shots to THIS (it's a panoramic shot with 9 photos total) using 24-70mm on D800. Btw the photo "volcano" is a panoramic hdr shot, I think I can achieve that with the 24-70mm no?

So basically 24-70mm would act like the 18-105mm I had on D80 and there's really no need for 14-24mm.

The_Traveler · May 24, 2014

Well, it would be shorter at the long end obviously but it would do all of that certainly, and with superb image quality.
There is nothing like the looking at your first image taken with a good FF lens on a good FF body.

Halnex · May 24, 2014

Alright than.
I could always buy 14-24mm or 16-35mm later on.

Now about the portraits. Would you recommend 50mm 1.4f or 35mm 1.8f?

D-B-J · May 24, 2014

Halnex said:
Alright than.
I could always buy 14-24mm or 16-35mm later on.

Now about the portraits. Would you recommend 50mm 1.4f or 35mm 1.8f?

The 85mm 1.8G, especially on a full-frame camera.

Designer · May 24, 2014

Halnex said:
Alright than.
I could always buy 14-24mm or 16-35mm later on.

Now about the portraits. Would you recommend 50mm 1.4f or 35mm 1.8f?

As D-B-J wrote; the 85 would be a good length, and even longer wouldn't hurt. When I owned a 35mm camera, I preferred 105mm up to 135mm for head-and-shoulders shots.

Derrel · May 24, 2014

I like the 35mm f/2 AF-D on FF Nikon for environmental, full-body portraits, like say, at the beach.A 50mm lens is fine for half-body shots from 10,15 feet away, where you ALSO want to show the environment. The 50mm f/1.8 G focuses fast...most say faster than the f/1.4 version, so I went with a 50/1.8-G. I like small primes lenses, so the 24/2.8, 35/2, and 50.18 in the "old" AF OR AF-D style means I have three small primes, all with 52mm front lens caps/filter size. The 50/1.8 AF-S G is a 58mm filter/cap and is the odd man out, so I often leave it at home even though it is the better 50mm lens.

If you have a 24-70, then you don;t need to worry about 24,35,50mm primes so much. I'd second the 85/1.8 G as a portrait tele suggestion. It's sharp and LIGHT, and pretty compact. It is actually **remarkably** sharp and crisp--one of the finer lenses Nikon makes for the D800.

Every lens length has its uses...but not every photographer has a use for every lens length.

hamlet · May 24, 2014

Just a friendly heads up about the d800:

Rumors: Nikon D800/D800E replacement coming in June.

The_Traveler · May 24, 2014

This is with the 85 1.4.
Wonderful background, color, etc.
Favorable FOV
Casual shot in my kitchen

Halnex · May 24, 2014

Thank you for all your replies, I really appreciate it.
But you guys keep on confusing me even more.

I finally settled it, thanks to you, I will no longer be getting 16-35mm right away. Instead I will get 24-70mm 2.8f for landscapes and everyday use.
I will use it for portraits and people too, just not the way I use 50mm 1.4f for portraits.

These are some photos I took using my old Nikon D80 and 50mm 1.4f (Here, here and here)
I have some other photos with some impressive bokeh, just couldn't find them at the moment.
I love the 50mm 1.4f, I love it's effect and yes sometimes it gets old and boring but I'm really used to it and I've never used anything else.

So what's the difference between it and the 85mm 1.8f?
Will I be able to take similar photos to the ones I showed above? More like fashion and glamour stuff.

The_Traveler · May 24, 2014

Halnex said:
I love the 50mm 1.4f, I love it's effect and yes sometimes it gets old and boring but I'm really used to it and I've never used anything else.

So what's the difference between it and the 85mm 1.8f?
Will I be able to take similar photos to the ones I showed above? More like fashion and glamour stuff.

The field of view (FOV) of an 85 on a FF body is very close to the FOV of a 50 on the crop frame D80.
Do a search on 'crop frame bodies' for more info there. There's no sense my rewriting what is already exhaustively covered.