Should I change my lens?

britonk · Nov 22, 2009

Hi, long time since I posted on here. Hope someone can offer some advice.

I have two lenses for my Nikon D80. A Sigma 17-70mm (f2.8-4.5) and a Tamron 70-300mm f4 - 5.6.

For a while now I have noticed that photos taken with the Sigma don't seem to have as much colour as those with the Tamron.

Do you think this is in my head or a artifact of the lens, or perhaps something wrong with it?

I've been thinking of replacing the Sigma with a Nikon 18-105mm AF-S DX Nikkor f3.5-5.6 G ED VR. Do you think this would be a sensible move?

Any comments appreciated.

Cojaro · Nov 22, 2009

Check Nikon 18-105mm VR out. He's saying it can be pretty soft, which is to be expected of a lens with such a large zoom range (105/18 = 5.83x).

Is price an issue here at all?

Is the lack of color an issue that post-processing can't fix?

britonk · Nov 22, 2009

Hi, Price is a bit of an issue. I want to be hitting around the £200 mark. The reason I picked that lens is it seems to be one of the most reasonably priced Nikon zoom lenses and it has VR.

Having read the review I see it's a plastic mount. Would like to avoid those actually as I broke one before, Is there a lens you would suggest to replace the sigma?

Cojaro · Nov 22, 2009

I'm no expert when it comes to these sorts of things, but from the reviews that I've read, you can't go wrong with Nikon's 18-55mm VR. Yeah, you'd lose 15mm of your useable zoom range, but with the D80's 10.2MP sensor, it's nothing to fret over. There's also Nikon's 16-85mm VR lens, but it's a bit expensive (US$609 @ B&H)

As far as 3rd party lenses go, I'm not totally sure. They seem somewhat hit-and-miss as far as quality goes.