Portrait/Architecture Lens for Nikon D60

sA x sKy

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Helloooooooooooo TPF! I need some help and would greatly appreciate some help. I'm looking to buy a new lens preferably in the $500-$900 price range for the Nikon D60. I'm going to eventually upgrade the body but definitely not until late next year so I'm looking for some better glass in the mean time. Anyways, I'm looking for a lens that has a zoom that's good for portraits or a lens that is really really, breathtaking for architecture-like pictures that can auto-focus on my camera. I'm taking AP Studio Art 2D Design this year (for all you folks that aren't familiar with AP or Advanced Placement, it's a college level course for high school students) and my tool is photography and I'm currently deciding whether my concentration is to be portraiture or architecture.

Anyways, here's a few examples of what I'm trying to achieve:

1x.com - Onexposure

1x.com - Onexposure

By the way, as a heads up, I currently have the 50mm f/1.4 lens.

Thanks a lot!
 
just a reminder.. you can spend all the money you want on glass and gear.. if you dont know how to use it, your not going to get photos like those..
 
Also you would basically want two different lenses for the two types of things you want to shoot.

Wider angle for architecture, and longer for portraits, around 70-120mm is what a lot of experienced guys recommend.
 
Architecture is usually shot with a very wide angle lens that has low distortion,and the remaining lens distortion is usually eliminated in post-processing software. With a crop-body camera, you need pretty short focal length lenses to get anything that's a very wide angle of view,especially for interiors, so, given your budget, you're going to be looking at *used* lenses. Something in the 10-24 or 12-24 range would be useful for many exteriors as well as interiors.

Portraiture normally is done with lenses of longer-than-normal focal lengths, and given your budget, I guess your main choice would be an 85/1.8 AF Nikkor lens,which you will need to focus manually if you have a D60. The green focus confirmation dot will help when focusing manually. The old 70-210 AF Nikkor, the fixed aperture one, or the manual focus 75-150 f/3.5 Series E Nikon would be two good choices for portraiture;even though both were first made back before you were even born, both are pretty good portrait lenses,and are available for reasonably money on the used market.

$500-$600 doesn't buy much these days, lens-wise, sad to say.
 
you can acheive those results with any lens it is up to your skills to make the image.
 
you can acheive those results with any lens it is up to your skills to make the image.

I can't see the photos, but the only limiting factor would be focal length. With all the editing programs now distortion can be corrected.

But don't let general rules and conventions hold you back. I read something on a recent blog (could have been Chase Jarvis, Zack Arias, or Joe McNally) about how they went to meet some one from a magazine about their portfolio and the guy at the magazine was unimpressed. The photographer then told him he toned down his work for his portfolio and the print guy said that he'd be better off to show the wildest stuff and not tone anything down until the editor was receiving complaints.

That doesn't have to mean contect, but style as well. Wide Angle portraiture? Architectual photos with a ton of distortion? Why not? If you can make it work, then you'll stand out from all the other people that are too busy following the rules.
 
Architecture is usually shot with a very wide angle lens that has low distortion,and the remaining lens distortion is usually eliminated in post-processing software. With a crop-body camera, you need pretty short focal length lenses to get anything that's a very wide angle of view,especially for interiors, so, given your budget, you're going to be looking at *used* lenses. Something in the 10-24 or 12-24 range would be useful for many exteriors as well as interiors.

Portraiture normally is done with lenses of longer-than-normal focal lengths, and given your budget, I guess your main choice would be an 85/1.8 AF Nikkor lens,which you will need to focus manually if you have a D60. The green focus confirmation dot will help when focusing manually. The old 70-210 AF Nikkor, the fixed aperture one, or the manual focus 75-150 f/3.5 Series E Nikon would be two good choices for portraiture;even though both were first made back before you were even born, both are pretty good portrait lenses,and are available for reasonably money on the used market.

$500-$600 doesn't buy much these days, lens-wise, sad to say.

What about the Canon 17-40mm f/4L or 10-22 f/3.5-4.5 on a 1.6x crop body like the Canon 50D? Still too low? Now I don't have a Canon, but just some food for thought.
 
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What about the Canon 17-40mm f/4L or 10-22 f/3.5-4.5 on a 1.6x crop body like the Canon 50D? Still too low? Now I don't have a Canon, but just some food for thought.

The 17-40 isn't really a good choice for a body with an APS-C sensor. It's decent as a kit replacement, but it's really meant to be a wide angle on a full frame camera.

I really like the Sigma 10-20. It's cheaper than the canon 10-22 and wider than the Nikon 14-24. I've had access to one that I used for a lot of wide angle portraiture. I really like the wide angle stuff. Everyone says shoot long for people, but as I posted above, rules should not be applied to creativity.

Sigma 10-20:
 
Headshots and architecture are very different things.

You already have a usable lens for headshots like the one you linked to. A 50/1.4 is a short, fast telephoto on a DX body like a D60.

For the type of architectural shots you're looking to do, a Sigma 10-20 is probably ideal.
 

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