New to DSLR and Nikon - trying to find lens reveiws... any suggestions?

hope9811 · May 19, 2014

Hi. I have only owned my first DSLR a Pentax K-X for about a year now and still have much to learn. However, I recently just purchased a Nikon D3200 for the crop factor and that I can select my own focus point instead of "guessing" where the camera is going to try to focus. With that being said, I have a 18-250 lens for my Pentax which I love and would love to get a 18-300 or 28-300 lens for my new Nikon for traveling purposes and ease of use. This lens will stay on my camera 90 percent of the time. Being new to Nikon, I have no idea what all the DX, or DI etc. means with a lens. I looked at a 50 1.8 and there were G, D, etc. Where can I find info on what all of those mean and also find ratings for lenses I may wish to purchase. Are there any off brand lenses that do well as to be easier on the budget? However I would much sooner buy a more expensive lens in the long run and have better pictures but just wanted to know ratings to help a newbie know what to purchase. I know that I need VR lenses for Nikon (which is different than Pentax because with a pentax the vibration reduction is built into the camera making any lens a VR lens which I will miss this feature as older lenses are less expensive and still usable without the VR but.... tradeoffs in everything I suppose....) Anyay, can anyone point me in the right direction? Also if you own a 18-300 or 28-300, which lens do you have and how is it's photo quality?

Thanks!

astroNikon · May 19, 2014

the short of it is
with that camera you want to buy only "G" identified lenses and "DX" identified lenses (for low cost which are crop specific lenses).
This will allow you autofocus capabilities (AF-"D" & AF lenses would be manual focus on that camera)

here's the long of it
Nikon Lens Code Descriptions

table1349 · May 19, 2014

Well according to page 117 in the Pentax user manual for the K-x you can choose your own focus point out of the 11 available.

robbins.photo · May 19, 2014

hope9811 said:
Hi. I have only owned my first DSLR a Pentax K-X for about a year now and still have much to learn. However, I recently just purchased a Nikon D3200 for the crop factor and that I can select my own focus point instead of "guessing" where the camera is going to try to focus. With that being said, I have a 18-250 lens for my Pentax which I love and would love to get a 18-300 or 28-300 lens for my new Nikon for traveling purposes and ease of use. This lens will stay on my camera 90 percent of the time. Being new to Nikon, I have no idea what all the DX, or DI etc. means with a lens. I looked at a 50 1.8 and there were G, D, etc. Where can I find info on what all of those mean and also find ratings for lenses I may wish to purchase. Are there any off brand lenses that do well as to be easier on the budget? However I would much sooner buy a more expensive lens in the long run and have better pictures but just wanted to know ratings to help a newbie know what to purchase. I know that I need VR lenses for Nikon (which is different than Pentax because with a pentax the vibration reduction is built into the camera making any lens a VR lens which I will miss this feature as older lenses are less expensive and still usable without the VR but.... tradeoffs in everything I suppose....) Anyay, can anyone point me in the right direction? Also if you own a 18-300 or 28-300, which lens do you have and how is it's photo quality?

Thanks!

DX - means that the lens is designed to work on "crop" sensor cameras but is not designed to work on their full frame cameras. Your D3200 is a crop sensor camera and those lenses will work with it just fine.
FX - means that the lens is designed to work with full frame cameras, and it will also work just fine with your crop sensor camera body so you can use an FX lens for either and it will work just fine.

When your looking at Nikkor lenses, AF-S G is their designation for a lens that has a motor built into the lens to allow the lens to autofocus. Most likely this is the type of lens you'll want, since the D3200 doesn't have an autofocus motor built into the body and so any lenses without an autofocus motor built in would have to be manually focused. Tamron uses the designation BIM, Sigma calls it HSM to designate which lenses they make that have the motor built into the lens.

Tamron refers to VR as VC (Vibration compensation), Sigma calls it OS (Optical stablization). Nikon, Sigma and Tamron all make a variety of lenses in the "super-zoom" category. As to image quality, keep in mind that with most lenses that are designed to cover a wide range of focal lengths their are trade offs that have to be made in their design, so as a result they generally will not give you image quality that will be as good as lenses that do not have to make such design compromises.

Derrel · May 19, 2014

I would read the Ken Rockwell reviews on his web site for the Nikon zoom lenses you are interested in. It will help in understanding some of the differences in the lenses offered, as well a the model history of several of the popular utility zooms.

Designer · May 19, 2014

Camera lens reviews and guides | Cameralabs

Nikon Nikkor Lenses

KmH · May 19, 2014

A trusted site for camera and lens reviews - Digital Photography Review: Digital Photography Review

Review the guidelines for making paragraphs. Many people won't read solid blocks of online text.

bigal1000 · May 21, 2014

hope9811 said:
Hi. I have only owned my first DSLR a Pentax K-X for about a year now and still have much to learn. However, I recently just purchased a Nikon D3200 for the crop factor and that I can select my own focus point instead of "guessing" where the camera is going to try to focus. With that being said, I have a 18-250 lens for my Pentax which I love and would love to get a 18-300 or 28-300 lens for my new Nikon for traveling purposes and ease of use. This lens will stay on my camera 90 percent of the time. Being new to Nikon, I have no idea what all the DX, or DI etc. means with a lens. I looked at a 50 1.8 and there were G, D, etc. Where can I find info on what all of those mean and also find ratings for lenses I may wish to purchase. Are there any off brand lenses that do well as to be easier on the budget? However I would much sooner buy a more expensive lens in the long run and have better pictures but just wanted to know ratings to help a newbie know what to purchase. I know that I need VR lenses for Nikon (which is different than Pentax because with a pentax the vibration reduction is built into the camera making any lens a VR lens which I will miss this feature as older lenses are less expensive and still usable without the VR but.... tradeoffs in everything I suppose....) Anyay, can anyone point me in the right direction? Also if you own a 18-300 or 28-300, which lens do you have and how is it's photo quality?

Thanks!

Theres plenty of info of what you seek on the internet do some searching and reading.........

hope9811 · May 21, 2014

gryphonslair99 said:
Well according to page 117 in the Pentax user manual for the K-x you can choose your own focus point out of the 11 available.

This is true, but it does NOT show in the eyepiece at all so in bright light you can't "see" on the screen where your focus point actually is... I tend to not use the screen for taking most of my pictures so this causes a problem for me. Do all of you use your viewfinder to take all of your pictures? I took a DSLR class and they recommended that we don't use it for stability reasons and clearer pictures.... any thoughts from all of your pros?

Designer · May 21, 2014

I almost always use the viewfinder. Using the screen in live view slows the camera a lot. I'm not a pro, but using the screen is not always the best. I don't understand how using the viewfinder would cause instability. As for "clearer pictures" more needs to be explained.