help me decide..

[dannylightning]

so i am thinking about getting rid of my 18-200mm lens.. its a great lens but i know there are better lenses out there. so some time in the near future i would like to sell that and pick up something else.

i have the sigma 18-35mm 1.8 art lens. which is a awesome lens..
i have the sigma 150-600mm sport lens for my wild life
and i would like to get one more lens.. to fill in the gaps. something that would be good land scapes or just general shooting..

there is the nikon 70-300mm VR 4.5-5.6 lens. its the least expensive and i know its great optically.. but not going to be great in low light..

there is the one of the 70-200mm 2.8 lenses sigma or tamron...

and there is the new sigma 50-100mm 1.8 art lens coming out.. if its any thing like my 18-35mm art lens its probably amazing. that would fit right in to the gap i have between the 35mm and the 150mm range.. some of the sample photos i have seen were excellent.. i am quite happy with my DX format body and i like the extra reach you get, move to full frame and shoot that in DX mode and you loose mega pixels. so i really dont have much interest in full frame since i mainly shoot wild life and i want the reach with out loosing mega pixels...

due to the fact that i already have a 150-600 a 70-200 or 70-300 kind of seems like i would be better off with the 50-100mm lens.. not sure i really need something with that much zoom. and it would probably be nice to have something in the 50mm range instead of something starting at the 70mm range..

so what do you all think..

 

[robbins.photo]

I'd look at a used sigma 70-200 2.8 without os myself. You should be able to find one between $400-500 or so, should give you a ton of versatility. I had the os version for a while but found I almost never used the os feature

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[dannylightning]

I'd look at a used sigma 70-200 2.8 without os myself. You should be able to find one between $400-500 or so, should give you a ton of versatility. I had the os version for a while but found I almost never used the os feature

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i forgot to mention i do hand hold my lenses so OS is a good thing to have.

and i did forget to mention the sigma 50-100 does not have OS which is the one thing i am not sure about with that lens.. but i think in thta range i could probably get away with hand holding. but i am not so sure once you get out to a around 200mm or so if that will be a issue or not..

did you hand hold yours much ??

 

[robbins.photo]

All the time, I rarely if ever shoot with a tripod. I think I used my tripod a grand total of once last year... Lol. Os is nice for handheld at lower shutter speeds, but if your shooting at a shutter speed at or higher than your focal length you really don't need it.

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[dannylightning]

see i just remember having a 200mm lens when i first got into photography, and without IS turned on my photos were always bury.. turned on IS and have always used it ever since on lenses with more zoom.. i guess i always though you actually needed it for longer lenses if you are not using a tripod..

i use a pretty fast shutter speed on my big lens, maybe i should try to shoot without OS on that and see what happens..

 

[robbins.photo]

see i just remember having a 200mm lens when i first got into photography, and without IS turned on my photos were always bury.. turned on IS and have always used it ever since on lenses with more zoom.. i guess i always though you actually needed it for longer lenses if you are not using a tripod..

i use a pretty fast shutter speed on my big lens, maybe i should try to shoot without OS on that and see what happens..

I'm guessing you were probably using automode at that point, most automodes will try to keep the shutter speed low because they assume your shooting people who aren't moving around much, and they really want to keep that ISO as low as possible.

Me I am rarely if ever shooting much slower than a shutter speed of 1/200, most of what I shoot at I don't want to get much lower in shutter speed or I'm looking at a good chance of motion blur. I have gone lower on occasion when I'm actually trying to induce some motion blur, like a prop driven aircraft. I never did like the shots of them in mid air with the prop frozen, just looks weird to me.. lol...

But for the most part I'm shooting a lot at 1/200, 1/320 or faster. I've found if possible when I get my shutter speed to 2x my focal length I get my best results as far as final image sharpness. Sometimes the shooting situation doesn't allow for it, but when I can I like shooting at 2x focal length.

 

[jcdeboever]

The 50-100mm focal length is very useful. Maybe the 17-70mm f2.8 Sigma or a 28-70mm 2.8 lens?

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[astroNikon]

how often do you use your 18-200 in the 18-70 range?
If you do, then it would be helpful for you to maintain something in that range.

my 4 main lenses are: 18-35, 24-85, 80-200, 150-600 but you can clearly see the ranges without much overlap. This excludes primes.

 

[dannylightning]

when i do use the 18-200 i find my self using all of the range but it depends on what i am shooting.. for trying to shoot wildlife i was using it at 200mm.. for general shooting i would say i am probably in the 18-135mm range. for landscapes there have been a few times i found my self at 200mm and still wished i had a little more zoom..

these days for general shooting i really like my 18-35mm but when 35mm is just not enough zoom for something i want to shoot it would be nice to have one more lens and it would be very nice to have something that worked well in low light.. the 18-200 does not.. the nikon 70-300 would not be ideal for low light..

looking threw my non wildlife photos i see allot of stuff between 18mm and 50mm a few around 100mm and the rest around 200mm
maybe a 70-200 would be a good way to go.. i dont know.. lol

 

[gckless]

What about a 24-70 f/2.8 VR? Nikon has theirs, and sure it's pricey but you're looking at a 70-200 soooooooo...lol. Or Sigma has a non-OS version for much less money. It's a good range, and sure you have a little overlap with your Sigma but not a whole lot. Then you have the 18-35mm range if you decide to go FX down the line. Or you can wait and pray: A Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 Art Lens is Likely on the Way

On the other hand, I don't think there is anyone, in any type of photography, that doesn't like and/or use their 70-200 f/2.8.

 

[dannylightning]

i was just out playing with my 18-200mm just walking around and seeing what zoom range i would need for objects there were close or not too far away.. mostly i was in the 50-70mm area, some times a little more.

maybe i need that 50-100 and a 70-200 lol... but i really only want to have one more lens and i do want to to be good in low light. so i guess its gonna be between one of those two. lenses..
i really dont want to spend more than 1k on a lens maybe 1200 tops.. heck i dont know..

 

[dannylightning]

well after everything i have been reading, viewing photos. looking at prices. i do want VR because it could come in handy at times., most of the 2.8 lenses are heavy..

that sigma 24-105mm f/4 art lens looks pretty amazing.. a constant F/f should be descent in low light.. i was reading a article where a professional live music photographer switched to F/4 lenses and one of his favorites was that sigma so i started checking that out.. some of the photos he got with that lens in low light were great, he was shooting at ISO 6400 and iso 8000, and 1/200 and the photos looked nice.. all the stuff i see on flick taken with that lens is great.

i was just playing with f/4 in not very much light at those iso numbers and it seems doable.. i can afford that lens a bit easier. the image quality seems top notch.. seems like it would be a ideal second general shooting lens that is descent in low light as long as its not really low light.

i was using my sigma 18-35mm 1.8 lens and between f/2.8 and f/4 shooting a pair of shoes in a pretty dark closet. at iso 6400 and 1/200 and adjusting the f/4 photos exposure up by half a stop in light room there is not a huge difference, even when i crop them by about 50% its not all that bad as far as noise. i wold probably be shooting in better lighting that this most of the time. with good image stabilization i could drop the shutter speed down. so i am thinking a F/4 lens might not be so bad, it cost less and its not as heavy..

 

[jaomul]

Just keep it. When you find you are missing something at some length but that to compliment what you already have.

 

[dannylightning]

Just keep it. When you find you are missing something at some length but that to compliment what you already have.

keep the 18-200?? i think that is what you are saying.. i probably will the more i think about it., its not a bad lens and it could come in handy to have around i guess. i think its really nice for taking portraits.. seems descent for landscapes. there may be a time where i really just need one light weight lens that can do it all when carrying a few lenses may not be ideal so i think i will keep it. and ill probably pick up that sigma 24-105 f/4 hopefully sometime soon..

as of right now that sounds like the plan.. part of me still thinks a 70-200 would be nice. its definitely between that sigma lens and a 70-200mm f/4 i need to save up some money first anyways so i guess that gives me some time to think about it.. who knows..

so here is a really low light photo, one at F/4 and one at F/2.8 one has been bumped up half a stop of exposure in light room. there is not a huge difference here.

 

[gckless]

You talking the Nikon 70-200 f/4? Same price as a Tamron 70-200 f/2.8, just sayin. Reports are the Tamron is sharper, but the AF is better in the Nikons. I'm pretty sure I'm about to pick up the Tamron. The guy I was supposed to buy a Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 from got cold feet, so that's the next best thing for the price I guess.