davidtoc
TPF Noob!
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- Dec 16, 2007
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Sw1tchFX is right; 24mm is not wide angle on a DX camera. You're going to have go ultrawide just to get a "normal" wide-angle.
The 12-24 f4 is not your only wide angle zoom option. You also have the 14-24 f2.8. However, they're both outside your $500 price limit. the 12-24 is $900 and the 14-24 is $1800. The 14mm f2.8 prime is $1400. So you don't have a lot of wide angle nikkor options. Maybe the 10.5mm fisheye for $600, depending on how you want to use it. All 4 are unbeatable lenses in their respective classes; they're just more expensive than the off-brand lenses. My personal philosophy (and I have very little pocket change floating around as a result, I must add) is that one of the main reasons I bought a nikon camera is so that I could use nikon lenses. It'd be better to get a cheaper body (which you're going to have to replace in a few years anyway) and put more $$ toward better lenses. That being said, you already have your D300 (and i'm a little jealous, btw), so you might just want to hold off for a while on a wide-angle and focus (no pun intended) on the lenses that are most important to you. Better to have a few great lenses than a lot of mediocre ones.
But coninuing on the wide-angle thread, outside of nikon, your best choice by a fair margin, for price and quality is going to be the Tokina 12-24 f4 dx, which can be had for under $500. Check the reviews, and compare it to it's competitors (the sigma 10-20 and the Tamron 11-18), but if u don't want to shell out for the nikkor, i'd get the tokina.
If you want to focus on macro and portraits, though, buy those first and get the best ones you can before you get a wide-angle. Wide-angle is one of those nice-to-have lenses for me, but i still consider it too much of a special-application lens for the kind of photography i do. I love my nikkor 200mm macro, and i'd be kicking myself if I spent over $1000 bucks on a wide-angle only to find out i had to compromise on a portrait or macro lens as a result.
dave
The 12-24 f4 is not your only wide angle zoom option. You also have the 14-24 f2.8. However, they're both outside your $500 price limit. the 12-24 is $900 and the 14-24 is $1800. The 14mm f2.8 prime is $1400. So you don't have a lot of wide angle nikkor options. Maybe the 10.5mm fisheye for $600, depending on how you want to use it. All 4 are unbeatable lenses in their respective classes; they're just more expensive than the off-brand lenses. My personal philosophy (and I have very little pocket change floating around as a result, I must add) is that one of the main reasons I bought a nikon camera is so that I could use nikon lenses. It'd be better to get a cheaper body (which you're going to have to replace in a few years anyway) and put more $$ toward better lenses. That being said, you already have your D300 (and i'm a little jealous, btw), so you might just want to hold off for a while on a wide-angle and focus (no pun intended) on the lenses that are most important to you. Better to have a few great lenses than a lot of mediocre ones.
But coninuing on the wide-angle thread, outside of nikon, your best choice by a fair margin, for price and quality is going to be the Tokina 12-24 f4 dx, which can be had for under $500. Check the reviews, and compare it to it's competitors (the sigma 10-20 and the Tamron 11-18), but if u don't want to shell out for the nikkor, i'd get the tokina.
If you want to focus on macro and portraits, though, buy those first and get the best ones you can before you get a wide-angle. Wide-angle is one of those nice-to-have lenses for me, but i still consider it too much of a special-application lens for the kind of photography i do. I love my nikkor 200mm macro, and i'd be kicking myself if I spent over $1000 bucks on a wide-angle only to find out i had to compromise on a portrait or macro lens as a result.
dave