Just bought a new Nikon D3100 that comes with a 18-55 lens. Camera is for all sorts of stuff, bike product images, dogs, family days out etc.

Being new to this lark what lenses would be best to cover a fair few situations?

Depends what those situations are doesn’t it?

How much do you want to spend??

I got the 18-135 kit lens and then bought the 70-300VR as I wanted it for motorsport & wildlife photography (not at the same time).
It might be best to just start using the 18-55 for a while until you can hone in a bit on what you want/need.

Why did you get it with the 18-55?
If I’d have wanted a lens for overall duties, I probably would have gone for the 18-105 VR.

Depends what those situations are doesn’t it?

Err, some still shots of new product in out door situations as well as ‘action’ shots. I like the very blurred background look of still shots. The rest of the time it will be for days at the beach, in the hills etc with the dogs and wife.

Why did you get it with the 18-55?

thats what lens the camera is bundled with, no choice on the matter 🙁

As you can tell, im a novice at this, but am willing and able to learn 🙂

Sounds like the lens you have is ideal then. Remember, don’t get carried away with this stuff.

Use the one you have and make a mental note of the times when you think ‘oh damn, I wish I could do this or that’.

I got mine with the kit lens and I also got a zoom cos it was a ridiculous bargain and I often fancy taking pics of wildlife a long way off. However on one holiday I really wished for more, so I bought a longer zoom. Then I started wishing to do macro so I got a macro. Now I am wishing I had something with me out on the bike, so I am looking at a small pancake lens.

There’s my camera advice, now can I have a free bike in return please? 18″ or medium, cheers.

Ah. When I got my D80, there was the choice of the 18-55, 18-105 or 18-135. I assumed there was more than one kit lens bundle, but doing a quick google search suggests otherwise.
There are some 18-105 kits available but they aren’t exactly from well known sellers.

How much do you want to spend?
Ideally you’d have a few lenses for different scenario’s – although it doesn’t sound like you’re particularly interested in a lens with a very large zoom, so perhaps you can rule that out.
Of your description of things you envisage using the camera for, I would have thought that something like the Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 would be a good buy. Not exactly cheap though (although less than half the price of the Nikkor equivalent)!

Depends on budget, but assuming you want to keep to the cheap end, something like a 55-200 mm for zoom purposes (about £200-£250) and possibly a 50 mm prime (f1.8) for portraits/messing about with.

The latter can be bought pretty cheaply (about £100) and have excellent image quality. Do check if autofocus is supported on your body, manual focus and wide apertures (i.e. the very blurred background you mentioned above) can be very frustrating (and rewarding).

Hang on – you lot are all recommending new lenses when he has barely even opened the box? Isn’t this a little crazy?

Well, it is a post asking what lenses to buy…

But, fair point. Worth getting to grips with the kit lens and camera first – especially if you’re used to just snapping on auto.

That’s why I wrote:

It might be best to just start using the 18-55 for a while until you can hone in a bit on what you want/need.

but he is asking……..so we are suggesting.

50mm f1.8 is worth the money IMHO, but not if you don’t yet know where you’d use it! Save the lens money and go on a course instead!

Save the lens money and go on a course instead

+1

I wouldnt bother with the courses, just read. Subscribe to a photography magazine, Digital Camera is a good one.

As for lenses a 50mm f1.8 prime would be a great purchase. Its excellent for portraits and still shots. And you’ll learn a lot from it in terms of focusing technique and aperture control. Also a prime is great for learning composition as you have to compose with your feet not by turning you wrist. Makes you think.

I think people are right though, I’d hold off and play with the camera first…

Also a prime is great for learning composition as you have to compose with your feet not by turning you wrist

See I am not sure about this. Why would using your feet be better than turning your wrist? And what if you can’t move your feet? I’m not climbing up a building just to get a better shot.

And using your feet or wrist gets different results anyway. DoF changes and so does field of view, so even if the subject is the same in the shot the background will be different.

I wouldnt bother with the courses,

Seb Rogers changed my photography in a day from utterly utterly shite to actually not too bad. I’ve read loads and loads of stuff but nothing beats feedback and personal guidance in my view.

The f1.8 50mm will do the blurry back ground

but you need the new AFS version other wise it won’t focus on your body

but as others have said just start snapping

my tip would be shoot in RAw process in lightroon

The lens you have will also do blurry background, just not as readily.

I’d say don’t bother with raw, just snap away on auto and think about your pictures.

thanks for all the advice, and i will have a play before splashing any serious cash.

Regards the f1.8 50mm, can someone point me in the right direction?

And what if you can’t move your feet? I’m not climbing up a building just to get a better shot.

You must have quite the zoom if it saves climbing up buildings! 😛

I’d say don’t bother with raw, just snap away on auto and think about your pictures.

I dont think you can think about the pictures truely if you’re shooting in auto all the time. A photograph is all about the exposure and if you dont decide yourself how you want it exposed then you’ll never fully be in charge of your own photography.

I think playing around with aperture and shutter speed is one of the first and most important steps to photography. You all know about the bucket theory right?

Nikon 50mm f1.8
or
Nikon 35mm f1.8

Dont buy from here though, theyre not the cheapest!

A photograph is all about the exposure

Subject, composition and then exposure! Your camera can handle one of those for you reasonably well, to start out with, so it makes sense to think about the other two first 🙂

I guess there are two scenarios.

1) There’s a good photo opportunity and you want the best thing there is to capture it. This is when you need all sorts of gear.

2) You’re in control of the photo. You decide to go somewhere or place a subject or set up a mini-studio so that you can capture it.

For number 2 a nifty fifty (50mm f1.8) is absolutely perfect. It’s also a great platform for learning photography imo.
Before I’d got mine it still felt like I’d got a good camera, rather than a hobby (although admittedly my kit lens was complete pants).

Places to buy one from:
http://camerapricebuster.co.uk/prod132.html

There may be cheaper around, but as I’m not a Nikon user, I haven’t investigated.

it makes sense to think about the other two first

Yeah, you’re right mate. I’m just an advocate of people being photographers not camera operators and button pushers lol.

But yeah totally, let the camera do the work at first so you can concentrate on other things.

See thats one of the reasons I like RAW

I concentrate on composition at the time, exposure afterwards.

Depends what you are doing some times RAW makes no odds, some times the shot is impossible with out it. For me its worth more than a pile of lenses

As an newbie owner of the same camera I’ll add my tuppence! Theres a Nikon 3100 group on flickr, you can read the same question a dozen times. The problem with the 3100 is it requires a lens with a built in focus motor which increases the price so research what you do need. As for the nifty fifty these come recommended all the time, I would say from what I’ve picked up is that you don’t necessarily need an auto focus job, but you might want to get one which can handle the metering and what not.Which should lower the price by quite a bit. I think that if the lens has a ‘G’ in the title its fully 3100 compatible.

To achieve the blurry background(with kit lens) choose your single spot focusing and you should get some nice results. As done here with my kit lens.

As for shooting in RAW I tried this and haven’t got to the bottom of it yet but it seems the Nikon RAW is peculiar, insamuch as what I took I couldn’t open with photoshop. I believe you must use Nikon’s software which is shite.

I don’t particularly like Nikons software but it certainly is capable of amazing results

photoshop (and lightroom and elements) will open NEF but you’ll need the latest version to read RAW from the a Nikon D31. Sadly older versions of photoshop may not be able to upgrade to read NEF from the D3100

Please please don’t buy a manual focus lens, or lens that won’t focus on your body. Yes if you go on a photography forum loads of people will tell you it will work just fine. But this is equivalant of coming on here as a new cyclist and being told that that its easy to nip round the beast at CYB on a rigid single speed. Its not that its not true its just not necessarliy a great starting point.

If you want a good forum I’d recomend this one

http://www.flickr.com/groups/nikon_d90_d40_users_group_/

its friendly with a good focus on commenting photos and developing peoples talent. There are competitions and challenges which help keep the focus on photography. There is at least on other mountain biker on the forum and he’s taken some good shots

To try to address some of the above, to get the desired background you need a big aperture (low f number). Cheapest way to get this is with the wide (18mm end) of your kit lens (f3.5 isn’t that wide though), 2nd cheapest and better is with the 50mm f1.8 as mentioned above. It is a superb lens for the money, and spends a lot of time on my D700.

Shoot in RAW if you want to spend time processing in photoshop or lightroom and have a fair bit of hard drive space. You may need a relatively recent RAW converter plugin for PS, some older versions wont support the D3100, Adobes site should offer more details on the update you require. RAW lets you do a lot more with an image before the quality of the image degrades especially if really pushing exposures from the original. Yokaiser, i’d check this out before you stop using PS, however the nikon software isn’t bad. And windows needs a little plugin so you can view RAW’s just like JPEGS (thumbnails and the like), but its very handy.

Now get out and shoot. Lots. Keep the stuff you like and ask yourself why. Read, ask, post, look at critique and have your work critiqued. Join a club, but keep taking pictures, and enjoy it!

Oh and you’ll want an AF-S or AF-I lens to autofocus on a D3100.

The G designation means it has no manual aperture ring.

New Nikon 50mm 1.8 AF-S is out soon. I would get the 35mm 1.8 AF-S on a crop body though.

Get the 35mm ƒ1.8 as it’s closer to a “standard lens” on a cropped sensor. You’ll learn more with a prime as you do less zooming to find something interesting.

Regarding RAW – each new camera model has a slightly different RAW format which takes a while to get added to the software via an update (Lightroom, Bibble, Aperture, Adobe Camera RAW etc). Same with any manufacturers RAW format, not just Nikon.

Search for a program called Adobe DNG Converter. It’s free and it will convert any RAW into a Adobe Digital Negative file, another RAW essentially that can open on any version of photoshop. It’s a pain to use but at least it’s there til an update for your RAW format comes out