Gear Help ....

tohellandback · Sep 29, 2015

Hi All,

This is Sumit Gupta from North Carolina, First off all a very warm greetings to everyone on this forum.

Existing Gear –

Nikon D90
Nikon – 35 MM 1.8G
Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF Auto Focus-S VR DX
Tamron AF 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6

Types of Photo – Family Indoor, Stage Events, Friends & Kids Birthday Parties, Nature and Travel

I am struggling to get some good photos indoor and in low light, as I am limited by the camera and the gear.
While the photos in day light are ok, I struggle with good photos in the low light. I cannot bump up the ISO on my D90, as it is not very great past 800-1000.
I was looking for a decent glass and I was wondering if Sigma 17-50 (2.8) would be a good value addition to what I already have
I am not making money out of photos yet and this is just a passion and hobby so I can’t invest too much on the glass and the budget is around 500-600 USD

The question I have for me is –

Is that choice right for my need (low light indoor/outdoor)
Will the 17-50 2.8 will help me do something, which I cannot do with my existing, set up
Will it help me in low light or should I look for something else like a prime lens or something
Finally – Instead of Glass should I look to upgrade the Camera..if yes which one ??

Thanks for help and apologies if I have disrespected any rule of the forum

In Anticipation – Sumit

Derrel · Sep 29, 2015

In low light using flash can bring in brighter, better light, but some people are opposed to flash.

I think the lens would be moderately helpful, but you already have sheer aperture speed with the 35mm f/1.8 lens, so....you'd have a SLOWER, f/2.8 lens, albeit a zoom, and one which is faster than the 18-200mm zoom, but not as fast as the 35mm single-length lens.

$500-$600 is not enough money to buy the Nikon D7200, which would be the best body you could get to improve the low-light and High-ISO capabilities of your lenses.

I think that honestly, a state of the art DX body would be your best investment, but that's $1099 or so, so I'd say look for a D5200 or D7100 body, used.

tohellandback · Sep 29, 2015

Derrel said:
In low light using flash can bring in brighter, better light, but some people are opposed to flash.

I think the lens would be moderately helpful, but you already have sheer aperture speed with the 35mm f/1.8 lens, so....you'd have a SLOWER, f/2.8 lens, albeit a zoom, and one which is faster than the 18-200mm zoom, but not as fast as the 35mm single-length lens.

$500-$600 is not enough money to buy the Nikon D7200, which would be the best body you could get to improve the low-light and High-ISO capabilities of your lenses.

I think that honestly, a state of the art DX body would be your best investment, but that's $1099 or so, so I'd say look for a D5200 or D7100 body, used.

I checked Online and D7100 is around $800 only body - If i trade in my D90 i might be able to get it...Is it true that that the DX has no future and FX will stay ..also any idea about Mirror Less Cams ...

tohellandback · Sep 29, 2015

Question - Will my current lens ( DX) work on FX body it i plan to go down that road ...

Derrel · Sep 29, 2015

DX lenses will fit on and will take pictures on Nikon FX bodies; "some lenses" fill almost the entire FX frame (24 x 36mm), while others have severe vignetting (blackened corners or edges), and some are in-between. The 35mm f/1.8 DX lens for example, fills the frame very well on the 5:4 aspect ratio of Nikon FX cameras, so it makes it very usable when the images are cropped to about an 8x10 aspect ratio. There are "some" new wide-angle DX zooms, like one made by Tokina, that work perfectly well on FX, except at the very short end of the zoom.

Is there a future for DX? I think the answer is a big, solid YES. I am not sure about your specific lenses when used on FX. But keep in mind--one does NOT have to use the entire FX frame...if a wide-angle lens or zoom can cover a wider area than just the little DX frame, then that lens can be used in FX mode, and the dark corners cropped away, and the picture area is larger than DX, but less than FX.

Mr.Photo · Sep 29, 2015

If you're not apposed to going used you can get the D90's replacement the D7000 which is a significant jump in features and performance over the D90. Used D7000's can be had for as little as $400-450 now. I own a D7000 and absolutely love it. In 2010 when the D7000 released Nikon had made significant gains with their DX camera's with regards to low light (high ISO) performance.

Here's a shot I did at a pageant at ISO 3200 using my D7000. During editing I did apply an extremely small amount of noise reduction, but it's very close to what came out of the camera.

The lighting was completely dark except for the stage, and flash was prohibited.

tohellandback · Sep 30, 2015

Thanks Mr Photo... the pictures look amazing and I need to start clicking some photos like this..

By the way on a side note I went to a local camera shop today and traded it in my d90 for d7100.... They had some offer till today and the reduced price on d7100 was 799$...so I got the one with trade in for about 700$ with tax.. Not a bad deal I suppose....

Coming back to the image... What lens did you use for this.... and what was the post process software used....

I am looking at getting a adobe light room and what to get a perspective...

Any other cheaper options available for post processing softwares...

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

Mr.Photo · Sep 30, 2015

Congrats on the D7100 I think you will be very pleased with the step up in performance over the D90.

For that shot I was using my trusty old Nikon 80-200 2.8 (push pull zoom) lens.

I use Adobe Photoshop CS6, and Lightroom. Lightroom has similar noise reduction capabilities. Adobe has now gone subscription with Photoshop so you can use it for like $10 a month or something along those lines.

One other benefit of the D7100 like my D7000 is the ability to use basically every lens Nikon has ever made from the late 70's till today. You can use Ai and Ai-s series manual focus lenses with full metering capability despite the fact that the lenses have no electronics in them. Some of my best photo's have been taken with these wonderfully crafted lenses. Not to mention they can be had cheap.