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Im after a new lens for my camera. Its a Nikon 3100, Im taking pictures of fast moving stuff.
I realise I probably have to spend big £'s to get the results Im after but I hoped that looking for 2nd hand kit might help. The kit lens is great but I would like something a bit bling, so your experience and knowledge would be appreciated.
Cheers.
Would help to know what 'fast moving stuff' is, how far away you may be and budget...
fast moving kids inside or stuff outside?
Its bikes and cars.
So, presumably outside then 😉 Moving fast around a track?
Fast moving at what distance?
Sigma 24-70 f2.8 or 70-200 f2.8
Or a 50mm prime..
Aye, exactly that. Downhillers, TT'ers etc.
What lens(es) are you using now and what problems do you perceive? Posting a pic or two may help...
You'll find that for currently supported lens mounts, even second hand fast glass is (relatively) expensive. A cheap fast bargain would be the AF 180mm f/2.8 IF you could cope with manually focusing.
However, I think I'm correct in saying the D3100 handles noise well at higher ISO values, so don't discount Nikons 70-300mm VR if large apertures (i.e. small f numbers)(and therefore great subject isolation) aren't required:
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All taken with 70-300mm VR on D200.
Got a D3100 myself but a couple of weeks ago, first DSLR. Still getting to grips with it, but some good shots have happened!
And lots of rubbish one too...All my fault of course.
Nifty fifty, sir?
You'll have a problem with some lenses, the 3100 doesn't have a built-in focus motor. You'd need something AF-S to have any autofocus.
Aside from that, take your pick..
Merak, sorry, could kick this back and too all night, which would be daft.
Just my 2 cents....
Honest advice, take photos with what you have, learn from them, take more, learn from them, repeat 🙂
Sounds harsh? Not meant to be....
Many moons ago I went to the british touring car races @ (think it was) Donnington.
Nikon D70, sigma 70-300 5.6 lens - not exactly designer gear. I read up on technique and all that before I went. Came away with a couple of shots I was happy with.
18 months ago a mate asked me to take photos of him racing his MG Midget at Oulton Park.
On that day I used 3.5k of kit.... D700 and Nikkor 70-200 2.8. My 'keepers' rate was higher but it was largely technique, not kit, that accounted for that....
FWIW photography is what I do for a living - mostly subjects that are all but static 🙂
50 or 85mm prime. I've got a 50, its great but I'd probably get more use from an 85.
TuckerUK - nice shots. Reinforces (if I may be so bold) that technique is key.
Pyro - good point, in Nikon terms i'm still kind of old tech - focus driven from the body of the camera!
Many thanks indeed for the feed back. Its a the kit lens that came with the camera that Im using.
marsdenman; I appreciate what your saying. I just feel I could do with a hand up in terms of lens. If nothing else!
Please remember Im a complete novice. Your techy references are baffling me.
I just feel Im not getting close enough or sharp enough.
A wider aperture eg f/2.8 is pretty necessary as the aperture affects auto focus speed - the wider the lens the quicker the camera will auto focus.
The 3100 doesn't have an AF-motor, so you need a lens with a built in Auto-Focus motor - see here for compatibility guide: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/compatibility-lens.htm#dslr
I'd look for a cheap Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 lens to start with (I have one, cost me $200 and it took very good shots). Modern equivalent is this one: http://www.parkcameras.com/4430/Tamron-SP-AF-17-50mm-f-2-8-XR-Di-II-LD-IF-mkII---motor--Nikon-Fit--.html
Just about the best Mid Range Nikon Zoom for Sports is the 70-200 f/2.8, but that will set you back £1600 - worth every penny if you get serious about sports photography.
If you want lots if zoom and high sharpness you will need to spend a bucket of cash. You provably don't really need 'fast' lenses since whilst cars are moving fast you can pan and you will be outside. Not quite the same as capturing tennis players striking the ball for instance. Tracks can be big though so a 70-300 5.6 would be ok I reckon. Getting much more than that Sigma in aperture, sharpness or range would probably cost ten times as much. Olympus do some amazing lenses for my camera but two grand buys me less reach and two measly stops at most.
Re aperture and AT speed, don't bother. Pre focus on the section of track you are going to shoot at and wait for the car to come into focus. Hard to imagine it working any other way tbh. Also having a nice wide aperture can make it harder to get focus since the dof is so thin any error or movement means the image is soft. Found this out on my 30mm f1.4 but never used a long lens at wide aperture, mind.
In the Canon world, this is what people tend to buy as a first sports lens (at least where you need to be a bit of a distance away):
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http://www.dpreview.com/news/2006/8/24/canon70-200f4lens
What's the Nikon equivalent?
Does anyone know how it manages to maintain constant aperture over the whole zoom range?
What's the Nikon equivalent?
Not sure there is one, either one of their cheap zoom e.g. 17-200:
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or their big seller is the 70-200 f/2.8.
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Can't help with Nikon I'm afraid but this is the kind of thing I get with my Sony 70-200 f2.8
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Am now thinking of adding a teleconverter but undecided due to conflicting quality reports.Be aware camera stuff just like bikes can suck the £ from your wallet quite easily
I want a 2.0 teleconverter for my 70-300. Despite people saying that it's really hard to use because of the two-stop loss.
You still have the option of zooming out to 140 of course, but I think with enough light it could be fun 🙂
[quote=molgrips ]Does anyone know how it manages to maintain constant aperture over the whole zoom range?
*disclaimer, I'm not an expert, I just use stuff, but I think this right*
complex electronics which vary the size of the aperture as you move the zoom - you can look into the end of the lens and see it as you twiddle zoom ring.
No, don't think it works that way.
I think the actual diaphragm in a normal lens doesn't change size as you zoom, it's just that you are spreading the light from a smaller part of the lens over the sensor, so there is less light.
It appears to change size as you zoom if you look down the objective end, because the magnification is changing. Take the lens off and look at the other end whilst zooming.
What I don't understand is how some lenses avoid this.
All zoom lenses avoid this. Set a zoom lens to f/11 or something well within its range and zoom. It will maintain f/11 over the whole zoom range, just like the fancy Canon keeps f/4.What I don't understand is how some lenses avoid this.
So that begs the question of why the Canon, which in theory has a physically large aperture at 200 and f/4, can't use that big opening at 70mm to give it f/2.8 or something.
The reason is more complex than I can recall but is something to do with the complex optical trickery used to build zoom lenses being much less simple that the focal lenght/aperature diameter/f stop relationship is in theory. So while in theory a 200m lens at f/4 will have a 50mm aperture in reality the hole isn't actually that size due to all the lens elements playing tricks with the light. (AFAIK the focal lenght of 200mm is virtual as well).