Nikon Lens Help.

[jcimagery]

Alrighty, I've been shooting images with a canon rebel xsi for awhile, and recently bought the nikon d5100 (as i liked the nikon image quality more) and only have the stock lens from the lens kit. I'm wanting a bigger lens (maybe no more than 400-500mm) & possibly a 200-300mm for those in between shoots. What lenses do you 'pros' recommend? If you know any third-party options, i'm fair game. I'm a college student & work a minimum wage job, so keep those ideas in line. Your help is much appreciated to a new comer to here and to Nikons.

 

[SCraig]

Um, the cheapest prime lens in the 400mm to 500mm range that B&H Photo sells is $5,000. It's a 500mm f/4.5 Sigma lens. They have a Tamron 200-500 zoom for $900 but it's an f/5-6.3. Also it does have a built-in focusing motor but no image stabilization. They all go up in price from there. Any time you start talking long lenses you start talking expensive. If you add "Fast" to the equation you are really talking big money.

As an in-between lens I recommend the Nikon 70-300 zoom. It is a very good all-around lens and I use mine a lot.

 

[KmH]

With only a minimum wage job, you need cheap, not quality.

So look at the cheapest 200-300 mm lenses, and seriously consider buying used rather than new.

Nikon 55-200mm f4-5.6G ED AF-S DX Nikkor Zoom Lens

Nikon 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR AF-S DX Nikkor Zoom Lens for Nikon Digital SLR

Vivitar Series 1 - Telephoto lens 500 mm - f/8.0

 

[jcimagery]

Kmh, I've never seen the vivitar 500mm lens. that thing is tiny! I'm sure i sound really stupid, but how good is that?
Also, I'm wanting to do photography as a side job eventually. Right now, I do photo's for hunters when my boyfriend does guided hunts. I have been leaning really heavy on the 300mm, as I know it will zoom & actually has a vr in it. I'm not too sure on what settings to use for certain scenarios either. I like doing images that are deal with very low lighting as well, any suggestions to help with that as well?

 

[djacobox372]

A new nikon 500mm f4 lens cost $8000, so I'm guessing that's out of the question.

You might consider the Sigma 50-500mm f4-6.3 EX DG HSM, it's still a $1000 lens but it has the range you want.

 

[jcimagery]

Ive read up on that lens too, I've seen good reviews and awful reviews. I think i'm going to get the 300mm & save up for a big lens... That may take many-a-years. I'm going to go down to the local camera shop & test drive some lenses.. We will see where that gets me from all your inputs, thanks

 

[g4rry]

we have a store called Jessops in the uk i dont know if they are world wide or ship to the states might be worth having a look