Nikon Lenses

[teresaclements]

I am an amature photographer & I'm wanting to get more serious with my photography. I have a Nikon D3000 & I'm wondering what the best lense is for portraits.

 

[480sparky38 37]

There is no single 'best' lens for portraiture. Typically, you'll need something in the 50-120mm range for singles and couples, but any lens from 10mm to 500mm could be used to produce astounding results if used properly. 'Fast' lenses are generally preferred in order to create a blurred background.

 

[cnutco]

Welcome to the forum, btw!

 

[kundalini]

I have a Nikon D3000 & I'm wondering what the best lense is for portraits.

Providing your budget will get you a more reasonable offering.

 

[KmH]

I think the best lens for making portraits is AF-S VR NIKKOR 200mm f/2.0 G AF-S IF-ED Lens .

It's a bit on the expensive side though.

As mentioned there is no one 'best' lens for portraits but there are some distinct technical, image quality advantages to using focal lengths from 50 mm and up.

 

[Derrel]

I think the best lens for making portraits is AF-S VR NIKKOR 200mm f/2.0 G AF-S IF-ED Lens .

It's a bit on the expensive side though.

As mentioned there is no one 'best' lens for portraits but there are some distinct technical, image quality advantages to using focal lengths from 50 mm and up.

Yes,, the 200mm f/2 is a superlative lens for portraiture, and yes, it is an expensive lens. It is however, probably the single most-beautiful imaging lens ever created by any lensmaker, at least in the "sharp" lens category, excluding lenses that have swirly background bokeh, or dreamy soft-focus looks like the old Imagon or the Fujinon soft-focus lenses that use discs drilled with dozens and dozens and dozens of teeny-tiny little holes to create amazing soft focus effects. But yeah, the BEST Nikon lens for making exquisite portraits *is* the 200 VR-Nikkor...it has astoundingly smooth, creamy bokeh, and on APS-C bodies at wide f/stops, creates perfectly rounded, evenly-illuminated round discs out of point light sources, and it sublimates out of focus elements with smooth, creamy defocus--there is no "jarring" or "nervous" or "hashy" nature to the edges of out of focus objects with the 200 VR, very much UN-like say the Canon 85mm f/1.2-L, which is hashy, AND which has horrible green and magenta longitudinal chromatic aberration, clearly visible on the edges of bright objects or light sources shown within the out of focus areas of the pictures. Unlike the Canon 85/L, the 200 VR Nikkor is almost totally,totally free of any chromatic aberration of any kind, axial or longitudinal. It is an **incredible** imager. The pictures it creates have a look about them that is exceptionally different from more-pedestrian lenses. I think it is, in fact, the "best" portrait lens ever made, for sharp-type images. I own one. It's a total bear to hand-hold, and the balance of it is not that good. The 300/2.8 is far, far easier to handle. If you have four thousand dollars, I'd say get one.

OTOH, for mere mortal uses and budgets, I think the best portrait lens is the AF Nikkor 105mm f/2 AF-D D.C. lens, which is a little bit more than a thousand dollars. It's got good bokeh, AND IT SHOOTS RIGHT TOWARD THE SUN without flaring or ghosting, far better than most other lenses. In fact it is one of the best lenses for shooting right toward bright backlighting. it focuses easily, either in AF, but your little D3000 doesn't have an AF motor, so you'd have to use it in the almost equally good manual focusing mode. Which is how the lens is used when the defocus control is activated anyhow, so no big loss. Right behind the 105 Defocus Control come the 85mm f/1.4 AF-D lens, and the 135 f/2 AF-D Defocus Control, then the 85mm f/1.8 AF or AF-D models.