What focal lengths should my lenses cover

[MrEd31]

When I bought my N80, I purchased a cheap zoom to go with it. At this point, I'd like to add a few lenses to my bag of tricks. What focal lengths do you find most important?

I'd prefer to stick to prime lenses for sharpness. But it seems that its costly to have a wideangle lens, 20mm, a 50mm normal lens, a macro 60mm, and an 85 or 105 or 135 for portraiture. Anyone have any ideas? I don't have the $ to afford any of these lenses, let alone all of them. What is a guy to do?

 

[markc]

I'd pick the one you think you would use the most and then go from there. Add as you get the money. My first was an 85mm f1.8, which was perfect for the kinds of pics I ended up doing. Maybe I ended up doing them because I loved the lens so much. I don't know. Sharpness is a plus, but so is the wider aperture. A 50mm is a good place to start if you aren't sure.

 

[Mitica100]

Markc is right. Start with a 50mm, add a good quality 85mm, then add to the extremes, little by little. 20mm would be perhaps a little too WA to go into, you might want to look at a 24mm. A good 135mm, a good Macro lens should fill the recipe for your lens needs. But do invest in quality lenses by all means.

 

[Skyeg]

i use a F1.4 50mm, an F2 135, and an F2.8 24mm but i also use an F3.5-4.5 AF-S 24-85 and the sharpness definitly is not an issue with this lens. I usualy use the zoom lens because the quality is near enough that i cant notice a differnce and im pretty sure most of the people on her ecouldnt either. the only reason i use prime lenses is when i need wider apitures.