Cheap Nikon Lens

Mark.

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Ive seen some Nikon fitment lenses on ebay for cheap, at the moment i only have the 18-55mm kit lens that came with my d3200. Im well aware these lenses wont produce images as high in quality as some people might like however i think they might work well as a learning curve for my photography with them being so cheap.

So far i have looked at,

Sigma 75-300 F/4.5 £30 posted
Nikon Ai 60-200 F/4.0 £14.95 posted
Nikon Ai 135mm F/2.8 £25 posted

They are all F mount which i think will fit my D3200 and the Sigma lens is AF although im not sure if it would actually autofocus on my camera..

Any input or even other suggestions are welcome, i dont have money to spend on a good lens at the moment and thought these might be a cheap way to get the hang of different focal lengths and even manual focusing.

Thanks in advance

edit: just noticed the Sigma wont autofocus with my camrea..
 
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The Nikon 135mm f/2.8 lens in the Ai version was solidly-made, and was a good performing 135mm f/2.8 lens, and the price seems fair to me. At one time, in the late 1970's and through the mid 1980's, the 135mm f/2.8 lens was "the" common telephoto lens, made by camera makers and by third-party lens makers. The best thing is that almost any 135mm f/2.8 lens of that era was a decent to good performing lens. It's an easy lens type/legngth to build, and does not require anything exotic in terms of design, glass type, or assembly. Lenses from third-party brands in this specification retail for $10 US to $25 US these days

Sigma 75-300 f/4.5...probably "okay", at least up to the 200-235mm ranges, I would figure. Again...the price is LOW!

I have no idea what a 60-200mm would be...there were a few odd-ish zooms made, but I doubt that is a Nikon brand. Still--LOW cost.

The thing is, the D3xxx and D5xxx series Nikons will NOT give light metering or automatic exposure settings with these older lenses, and the flash must also be set to a Manual flash power settings in order to get the flash to fire. ALL SHOTS must be made with the user setting the camera to manual M mode, and setting the right lens f/stop and shutter speed, and controlling the flash in a Manual mode. Buuuuuuuut....those lenses WILL mount and WILL shoot photos, and the prices are low.

It's not rocket science to figure out an exposure when you have a D-SLR camera. The 135mm will function probably the easiest, all-around...nice bright viewfinder image from f/2.8, and probably a very good manual focusing action, and the lens is long enough that the image you see through the viewfinder will make focusing a relatively easy task. A 135mm on a 1.5x body makes a nice, virtual 200mm equivalent length telephoto! A 135/2.8 no matter the manufacturer, is also a fairly compact lens, smaller in length and diameter than most tele-zooms of this era by quite a bit. The fact that a 135/2.8 becomes in effect, a 202.5mm telephoto AND has that f/2.8 max aperture makes it in many ways, a highly-desirable lens to own when one shoots an APS-C d-slr!

Focusing tip: focus from infinity, and crank the ring smartly toward the close distance, when it looks good then STOP! Perhaps a minute tweak of the ring backward a half-millimeter, and you ought to be very close. But again, focus from Infinity and then rack CLOSER. This is the absolute best method for manual focusing. If you have the actual, NIKKOR 135mm f/2.8 Ai lens, the focusing ring has a looooooooooong rotation (the Ai-S model has the much shorter throw), and focusing from Infinity to close on the Ai-era lenses is much easier to hit the right focus because coming inward, there is "more difference" between OUT-of focus and IN-focus, and the human eye/brain can spot difference much better than it can differentiate between things that are fairly similar. On those old, long-throw Ai-era Nikkors, focusing from CLOSE to far is much less repeatable, much more prone to misses.
 
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Ive just read the 60-200mm lens advert again and it actually says 24-70mm focal length in the item description, although it is advertised as 60-200mm.. Is the seller maybe advertising the focal length going by APS-C sensors as i know that has a factor in it too?

Thank you for your reply Derrel, I really enjoy your in depth replies as im sure alot of other people do, very helpful for a beginner like me :icon_thumbsup:
 
Not sure how they'd get 60mm-200mm values from a 24mm to 70mm zoom lens. The multipliers just don't make any sense...one is 2.5 and the other is like 2.8 times...

My experience with manual focusing on APS-C camera through the viewfinder is that wide-angle lenses in the 24-28-35mm range are often tricky to get the right focus when the light level is not really good. This is especially true at intermediate distances, like 3 meters or so out to say, apprx. 30 meters...in that range, many manual focusing lenses have very hair-trigger focusing action, where even a one- or two-millimeter movement of the focusing ring can move the focus point 5 to 6 meters.

At CLOSE distances, wide-angle lenses are easier to focus and not have a 1,2,3,4,5,6,10 meter focusing error. The problem is that modern d-slr viewfinders have very smooth, finely-ground viewfinder screens inside the body, and one must rely on the "green dot" focusing confirmation aid inside the camera. The issue is that a wide-angle lens has a wide viewing angle, and the focusing bracket can easily span a five-foot-wide area at say 40 feet...even if you're using the "green dot" to confirm focus, it's easy to have the AF area "miss the target", and actually hit the background, and you wind up with terribly back-focused images a fair percentage of the time. Bottom line: short focal length lenses (like a 24-70 zoom over most of its lower range) can be tricky to nail focus with on a consistent basis; Sometimes it will be fairly easy, but in trickier situations, you might want to use Live View focusing, and focus for each and every shot, because depending on one, single focus acquisition might lead to say, a series of shots that are all out of focus.

With a telephoto lens, the viewing angle is narrower, and so the AF bracket used to aim is smaller, covers a narrow angle of the real world, and the image seen by the eye is more magnified and flat-out easier to evaluate.
 
To sum up what Derrel said, get the 135mm f/2.8 and go play with it. I always found those easier to manual focus than a zoom lens.
 
I have a 135 f2.8 Ai and D3100. There a great pair. he wasn't kidding about the long focus throw but you get used to it. Takes great sharp photos. I have gotten good at exposure w/o the meter but still use a hand held most of the time. The lack of close focus can be a bugger. Think I paid $50 US shipped. It does have a substantial ding in the front element but it doesn't effect images. Here's a 100% crop on the D3100.



DSC_1450 copy_229tag5.JPG



I have a thing for Nikon manual focus lenses. They're affordable and often outstanding values. Don't often need AF and been using MF for a long time so it's natural for me. I say go for it. If you're not pleased you can recover your money easily.​
 
So i missed out on the 135mm and it turns out that the 60-200mm is a Sigma lens. Ive decided to buy it as it only cost £14.95 posted so ive got nothing to lose really.

Its proving hard to find information or even sample shots of it though so im looking forward to it arriving.

If it turns out to be terrible itl make a nice ornament at least
 
The D3xxx and D5xxx and D40 and D40x and D60 Nikons all lack the Ai-coupler at the 1 o'clock position and they also lack the minimum aperture sensing pin, located at the 7 o'clock position; the LACK of those two small control/interface points means that even the "fat-barreled" Nikkor lenses of the late pre-Ai era can mount on those cameras, and not shear off the plastic minimum aperture sensing pin.

In a word, the baby Nikons as I have been calling for years now, are fantastic platforms that can accept almost any lens or accessory that has been made with an F-mount. The only exceptions are the exceptionally rare invasive fisheyes and the collector's 21mm f/4 from the Kennedy era.

If you have a baby Nikon, it will mount and shoot danged near ANYTHING with the F-mount lugs on it, no matter how large the diameter of the aperture control ring.
 
Ive actually found information on this lens from a pentax forum, this is a copy/pasted peice of text that a forum user received from a sigma rep in japan

The product name is: Zoom Beta II 60-200mm F4-5.6.
We started producing it in 1986, and it was discontinued in 1987.
There were both MF version and AF version, and AF one was only designed for Minolta mount.

Followings are the specifications of the lens;

Lens Construction: 12 elements in 9 groups
Angle of View: 40-12 degrees
Minimum Aperture: 22-32
Minimum Focusing Distance: 150cm
Maximum Magnification: 1:6.5
Filter Size: 52mm
Dimensions: Diameter 72mm x Length 84.5mm (AF version), 65mm x 83.5mm (MF version)
Weight: 490g (AF version), 415 (MF version)


Im hoping it works out well, i actually didnt think of the pins on the lens when buying this. Im not too bothered if it need to sell it on anyways, was just a gamble i thought i would take as it was so cheap : )
 
My D3100 has become my digital go-to camera. Wish it had a few features found on the higher end stuff but it does anything I ask of it very well. And all my Nikon glass mounts up.
 

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