Which lense to get???

[ajkuzia]

Hi everyone,
I need some help on purchasing a lense with the Nikon D90 I will be purchasing. I am a beginner and want something that will have high quality image. I will mainly be photographing landscapes, wildlife, some sports and my child. I looked into 3-4 diffrent lenses and have no clue what to get. I basically want a good starter lense and I would rather have high quality image verse zoom range.I have read good and bad about all. Want some personal recomendations from current users. Please any advice on any other lenses welcomed. Suggestions please
choices so far
Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S DX VR II
Nikon AF-S 18-105MM f/3.5-5.6 VR Lens
Tamron AF18-270mm F/3.5-6.3 DiII VC lens

 

[itznfb]

welcome to the forum first of all...

that Tamron is garbage. cross it off your list.
you pretty much want to shoot everything and you don't want to sacrifice quality for convenience, so that pretty much crosses the other two off your list.

for landscapes you want a high quality wide angle or wide angle zoom
for wildlife you want a fast telephoto or telephoto zoom, same with sports
for your kid you want a fast mid or standard zoom.

generally 3 zoom lenses can cover all bases. and if you're willing to put the money in up front. you can carry those lenses with you for the rest of your life.
all depends on your budget really.

 

[ajkuzia]

thanks for the quick response. Budget wise I want to be around 1000 or less for the lense that will do the basics. Any models or recommendations?

 

[itznfb]

depends on what you mean by the basics...
as i described in my first post the basics for landscapes are not the same as the basics wildlife and so forth.

if you want a single lens with a lot of range the nikkor dx 18-200mm is probably your best bet. it's not the greatest quality though. it suffers from vignetting on the long end, distortion on the short end, lack of sharpness throughout, and a poor low light performer.

you may want to look at the Sigma APO 50-150mm F2.8 II EX DC HSM. not a lot of reviews on this lens yet as it's fairly new.

 

[redtippmann]

Hi just was wondering if that $1000 covered the body? Well even if so I like my set up b/c it covers wide angle(18mm) to a tele (200mm) and also low light conditions(the 50mm F1.8)But the the piece of glass that I will be replacing next is my kit 18-55 so i guess if I had more money I'd do that now.

Also dont skimp out on not getting VR

 

[manaheim]

That 18-200 is a nice lens and will cover pretty much 90% of the things you want to do, but will have some quality issues here and there (most particularly at the outer extremes- fully wide and fully zoomed).

I haven't specifically researched the 18-105, but odds are VERY good that the quality on that lens will be better... simple fact is the "super zooms" tend to suffer a bit on quality just because they have to make some compromises to make it be able to cover such a range.

The 18-100 will be great for everything within the range of "a standard household". Like, consider it an excellent party lens. If you had all your friends or family over to your house, you could probably zoom in on someone's face from the other side of the next room over. (I say this because I used my 28-100 a LOT for this)

Note that on the D90 18mm is more like 27mm, so really not all *that* wide. It will be doable for landscapes, but not great. The Sigma 10-20mm would work better here, but is VERY specialized and won't likely get used for too much else.

Note that 105mm will not be terribly useful for shots of games... the 200mm will work much better, keeping in mind that if you zoom into the full 200mm the quality will suffer noticably. (I've noticed this lens is FAR worse zoomed all the way in than it is zoomed all the way out)

By the way, don't get me wrong... I love my 18-200. I have it bolted on my camera nearly constantly as the "just in case" lens, vacation lens, etc.

BTW, here is a site with excellent reviews on lenses:
Nikon / Nikkor (APS-C) Lens Tests

Good luck and let us know what you decide.