Tamron AF 28-80mm, or Nikkor 50mm F/1.8?

anubis404

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I have a budget of about $100, but will go to $200 if a lens is far superior. These are the two lenses that I am deciding between. Autofocus, Zoom, and even the F stop are not of much concern for me. My biggest concern is image quality. Which will produce better?
 
Primes almost always provide better IQ than zooms do.
This is true in this case as well. So the Nikon in this case is much sharper than the Tamron. But, there is other things to consider when talking about image quality. Color rendition, contrast, bokeh... All of those are hard to measure and are totaly subjective so the best advice you can get is to get on flickr, and do a search for sample pictures for both of these lenses.
 
I have the 50mm f1.8 and it produces crisper pictures. But the differences with the kitlens is not visible until you enlarge it. Good for portrait. It also produce reddish tones lightly more than the kitlens. Kind of when you shooting at sunset.

Also with steady hand and dead on focus shot - it can reveals the hair skin and the skin pores :D.
 
to be honest comparing two completely different lenses doesnt really help, it depends what you're going to be using them for...primes usually give a better image quality but a 50 is terrible to get things that are close in the frame, i took just a 50mm to lisbon a few weeks ago and i had to miss out on some shots because i just couldnt walk any further back haha so the 28mm of the 28-80mm could help a lot in those cases
 
SBlanca makes some good points. You're really comparing apples and cumquats here. My suggestion: Go back though you images, and check the EXIF data to find your most used focal lengths, and then look at the ones where you wished you had more tele/wide and based on that, decide what FL would be most useful. Then go looking for lenses.
 
I'd suggest you get the 50mm 1.8. Basically, you already have the 18-55 to cover the wide-angle to short telephoto range, and the Tamron will probably have about the same image quality as the kit lens, possibly a bit worse. The 50mm, however, although it also has the same focal range, leads you into a whole new kind of photography. Low light without a flash becomes really easy to do, photographs when you want (or need) a razor-thin depth of field become much easier, whereas the Tamron is really a slight extension of your kit lens.

However, the 50mm is pretty bad for getting close-up photos, but your 18-55 should cover that very well until you can get a true macro lens.

Have fun, and best of luck!
 
I just got my camera yesterday. Rebel XTi and a 50mm f1.8 lens. I have to tell you, I am in love. If you do get the 50mm f1.8, you will probably get spoiled.
 
The Nikkor 50 f1.8 is actually 75mm on DX cameras like the D40, it is 50mm on full frame cameras.

I have one, and it produces the best image quality out of all my lenses. It's very sharp, contrasty and the colours seem to be more saturated than other lenses. If you can live with the manual focus, it's a great lens for the money!
 
to be honest comparing two completely different lenses doesnt really help, it depends what you're going to be using them for...primes usually give a better image quality but a 50 is terrible to get things that are close in the frame, i took just a 50mm to lisbon a few weeks ago and i had to miss out on some shots because i just couldnt walk any further back haha so the 28mm of the 28-80mm could help a lot in those cases

I already have an 18-55mm to cover that.
 
The Nikkor 50 f1.8 is actually 75mm on DX cameras like the D40, it is 50mm on full frame cameras.

I have one, and it produces the best image quality out of all my lenses. It's very sharp, contrasty and the colours seem to be more saturated than other lenses. If you can live with the manual focus, it's a great lens for the money!

Thanks for the advice. I have saved up some money and want to get a new lens. Since it was made clear that 50mms have better image quality, I am probably going to get one. I was kind of deciding between that and a low end telephoto. I wanted a telephoto because I've said to myself many times "damn! I wish my lens could zoom more!" when out taking photos. I would also look like a complete badass carrying around a telephoto, but I am more concerned about price and image quality.
 
I take back my previous statement about the focal length.. I just did a test. The "AF Nikkor 50mm f1.8D" lens I have is the same focal length as the kit lens zoomed to 50mm on the D40. I think there is an older version, or another version of the 50mm f1.8 for full frame cameras, which is where I got confused.
 
You have a zoom try the prime, What you are going to find is that the 50 will make you work your shots more to get what you want. Plus the added bonus of more f-stops will give you a good dedicated low light lens.
 
50mm prime

Have fun manual focusing at 1.8 with three af points.... it turns kids into men.....
 
I take back my previous statement about the focal length.. I just did a test. The "AF Nikkor 50mm f1.8D" lens I have is the same focal length as the kit lens zoomed to 50mm on the D40. I think there is an older version, or another version of the 50mm f1.8 for full frame cameras, which is where I got confused.
That's because both of those lenses are suffering from the exact same crop factor. It doesn't change it to 75mm, it gives you the field of view that a 75 mm has on a full frame sensor. Not magnifaction.

The only downside of the primes on the D40 or D60 is manual focus. It's the exact same magnification as any 50mm on the same body, be it a 18-55 at 50, or a 28-80 at 50, etc, it's not the lens changing anything, it's the sensor size.
 

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