Nikon 50mm f/1.4D Lens

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

When I got a digital SLR, I knew that there were a few lenses that I wanted to get.  I got my Nikon D50 with 35-135 lens, which was good for longer shots.  I got a 28-90 lens, which was better for objects closer to me.  I decided that I wanted to get a 50mm lens, mostly because I wanted something with a good f-stop.

You may be asking what a 50mm f/1.4 is good for.  The 1.4 means that it’s good for lower light.  This is because the lens can open up, thus letting more light in.  You don’t need as long of an exposure, which is great with people.  On a film camera, 50mm is considered to be normal perspective.  (On a digital camera, like mine, it’s effectively 75mm.)

Since it’s a prime lens, it does one thing and it does it well for a low price.  (Last I checked, the lens retailed for about $280.)  It’s also a small lens.  Putting it on a camera leaves it very light and easy to hold.  This is the biggest advantage of getting a lens that has just one focal length.

It’s worked fine on my D50.  (If you have one of the newer cameras that don’t have a focusing motor, like a D40 or a D60, you won’t be able to use this lens on auto focus as it doesn’t have a focusing motor.)  Depth of field is great.  I’ve taken several pictures of my cats, all of which have come out great.  The subject has come out clear while the background has come out blurred, just as I wanted it.

If you’re taking a picture indoors and of a person or animal, you’ll want to use a flash.  Outdoors, I’ve never had to use a flash.  I’ve been able to get great shots of plants and trees.  I have a few pictures up on Flickr.  (My user name is seacow_99.  I’ve tagged the pictures with Nikkor 50mm f/1.4.)

To focus properly, you have to be a few feet away.  I’ve gotten a set of close-up filters which allows me to get within a few inches, but it gives the pictures a tilt-shift effect.  (You should be able to pick them out if you go to my Flickr account.)  This effect has made it a tradeoff.  Yes, I can get stuff close and I can minimize the effect, but it’s still there.

I’d recommend getting this lens.  You’re going to want a 50mm lens and you should definitely get a Nikkor lens if you do get one.  (I don’t think this particular lens is still in production; I bought it used from my brother.)  It’s a 52mm thread, which is fairly common for 50mm lenses.  I’d recommend getting a UV filter and a circular polarizer.  (I’d also recommend getting the close-up filters if you can get them for a good price.)

If you do find this lens, buy it.

Nikon Nikkor 75-300 mm F/4.5-5.6 AF-D AF Lens

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

When I bought my Nikon D50 from my former manager, he sold it to me with a Nikkor 35-135mm lens.  The lens was (and still is) great for taking photos, but there were cases where I needed to get a little closer.  He also had this lens and was willing to part with it for a reasonable price.  I have to say that I’m not at all disappointed with the lens.

One good thing that Nikon has done is to allow photographers to carry over the film lenses to a digital body.  This means that while the 75-300mm lens was intended for film cameras, it will still work on a digital body, like the D50.  The only noticeable difference is that since the image sensor on a digital camera is smaller than one frame of film, this lens effectively becomes 112.5-450mm.  (If you’re looking for more telephoto, this is a good thing.)

I tend to use the lens for taking pictures of things that aren’t that close to me, so I’ve never really had to worry about how close you can get to an object.  However, I can speak as to the other extreme.  I’ve taken a few pictures at the 200mm-300mm range.  Handheld, the photos don’t come out well as often as with a tripod.  For every 100 I take handheld at 300mm, maybe 5 will come out well enough that I’d want to do anything with them.  On a tripod, it’s the opposite; 90-95% will come out well enough that I could do something with them.

The lens actually comes with an adjustable tripod mount.  The lens is so long and heavy that it will affect your camera’s center of gravity.  I haven’t noticed a big difference between the camera’s mount and the lens’s mount.  (This is probably due in large part to the fact that my tripod isn’t one of the better models out there.)

To zoom with the lens, it uses a push-pull system.  For those that grew up on zoom lenses that rotate, this is going to be a little bit of a shock, but it’s pretty easy to figure out.  The only complaint that I have is that when zooming from 75-200mm, the lens has more gradual increments.  200mm and 300mm are very close to each other.  It’s never been a huge deal, as I’m usually just judging what works best for the image.  I’m not really worried about the exact number of millimeters I’m using.  It really isn’t that hard to go from 200mm to 300mm.

There’s no real noticeable distortion.  I also haven’t noticed any darkening around the corners that I’ve gotten with some other lenses.  These are both things that I wouldn’t expect from any lens above 50mm, especially considering that I’m going with a Nikkor lens.

The auto focus works on the digital camera fine, but that may vary depending on which digital model you have.  Some of the newer cameras produced in the past couple of years such as the D40 and the D60 don’t have a focusing motor.  This was done to make the camera lighter, but has the side effect of making a lens like this into a manual-focus lens.  The reason is that this lens doesn’t have a focusing motor, either.  If you have a digital camera or are considering getting one, I’d look into that if you’re considering getting a film lens like this one.  (For that reason, I’m a little worried about getting a new body.)

On that note, you don’t see too many new film lenses any more.  This model was discontinued a while ago.  With digital cameras, new lenses were made for the digital bodies.  (I believe this model was replaced with another one, but I don’t recall which one.)   I don’t really know how the newer models compare to this one, but I doubt that they could do much better.

I’ve had the lens for over a year now.  I don’t use it as much as I’d like to, mostly because of its size.  It doesn’t fit in my camera bag, but I will bring it with me if I know that I’ll need it.  It’s great for wildlife, so I’ll bring it with me to a park.  When traveling up to a wildlife sanctuary in West Palm Beach, I was able to get some great shots.  (If you’re on Flickr, look for my pictures tagged with ‘Nikkor 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6’.  My username is seacow_99.)

Another reason that I don’t bring it with me is the weight.  It’s the heaviest that I own.  Without any filters, it comes to around 30 ounces.  It’s not that much of a strain, but you won’t soon forget that you have it around your neck.  Also, the lens does extend if you’re wearing it around your neck, so you really have to account for a lot more volume than you might normally.  There were a few cases where I would bump into something and hear metal against wood.  (One advantage metal has over plastic is that the lens won’t break as easily.)

The lens takes 62mm filters, which is the same as the 35-135mm lens.  Even though the take the same filters, I’ve gotten a UV filter for one and a Haze-1 filter for the other.  (Both act as basic protection.)  I have a circular polarizer between the two of them, but I think I may get another one.  I often go out with one lens only to realize that I left the circular polarizer on the other.

If you can find this lens used online or in a store somewhere, I’d recommend buying it.  It’s a great lens and has gotten me a few really great pictures.  As I said, go to Flickr and take a look at what I’ve been able to take.  Just remember that you’ll want to pick up a reliable tripod, as well.

Sigma DC 201940 10-20 mm F/4.0-5.6 HSM EX IF ASP Lens

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

When I first got a digital SLR, my brother gave me some great advice. He told me to wait a few months before buying any new lenses. At the time, I had a Sigma 28-90 and a Nikkor 35-135. Those should be enough for a while. Eventually, I’d figure out what, if anything, I needed to get. It didn’t take me long to realize that I wanted to get wide-angle shots. 28mm was pretty wide, but there were shots that I just couldn’t get.

The day I decided to buy something, I was in North Carolina. There was a bus station I wanted to photograph, but I had a building to one side and a building behind me, so I couldn’t get into a position where I could photograph the entire building. I knew it was time to buy something wider.

I knew that I wanted to get really wide shots and didn’t want to have to go out and buy yet another lens, so I decided to go all the way. I looked at several lenses, including the Nikon 12-24. I finally decided on the Sigma 10-20 for several reasons. (The most important was that the Nikon 12-24 was more than twice the price of this lens at the time.) I had looked at lenses that weren’t as wide, but I was afraid that it wouldn’t be enough.

When set to 10mm, I get an extremely wide shot with this lens. It ranges from 63.8 to 102.4°, which is pretty good. My mother wanted me to take pictures of various tents. I was standing so close to one that my mother wanted me to stand back. I actually moved a little closer so as not to include a fence in the picture. I’ve also found that it’s hard to take pictures without people because they often don’t realize they’re in the picture.

The lens is f/4-5.6, which means that it’s not letting in as much light as other lenses. Then again, I intend to use the lens mostly outdoors. If you’re indoors, you’ll have to get an SB-600. I have a Nikon D50 and the onboard flash isn’t enough. You can actually see where the on-board flash falls off.

I have tried using the lens on occasion for nighttime photography. It’s a little trickier because you need a tripod and no flash. You’re better off using a tripod and going for a long exposure. If you go to my Flickr account, I’ve actually tagged many of my Sigma 10-20 shots as such. Many came out good, but not as good as they could have been.

The lens works better with nature photography than with architecture, the reason being that it’s tending towards a fisheye lens. The distortion is somewhat noticeable at 20mm and very noticeable at 10mm. (The distortion can be compensated for in Photoshop.) When I had the lens at work the other day, a coworker was using the lens to take pictures of our faces. It looked almost like a funhouse mirror.

If you’re at 10mm and you’re taking pictures of a room, you have to have the lens aimed perpendicular to the wall. If you do point the lens perpendicular, you’ll notice that the room seems deeper than it really is. If you don’t, you may see some of the vertical lines tilting. This is true for any straight line, really. If you can go into a store and test out the lens, point the lens at a wall and move the camera left to right. You’ll see what I’m talking about.

One interesting aspect is that it’s a HSM lens, which is the Sigma designation for High Speed Motor. If anyone reading this has a D40, D40x or a D60, you’re thinking to yourself that the salesman may have said something about having to use Nikon DX lenses. This is because those cameras don’t have a lens motor. You have to buy lenses that have motors, such as the Nikon DX lenses or (drum roll, please) Sigma HSM lenses. Yes, this lens will work on the aforementioned cameras. (In retrospect, I should have tried it on one of those cameras the other day, as I work in a camera store.)

If you have a full-frame camera, like a Nikon D3, you’ll see cropping. The lens was intended for digital cameras. If you’re wondering if they make a VR version of this, it would really be pointless as you don’t need it with smaller distances. You have to really move a lens to get shake at 10mm. As for color fringing, I have noticed it on one or two photos, but the lens has been pretty good at not having it. This is especially important for outdoor shots.

Overall, the lens gets five stars. The lens is exactly what I want and, while expensive, was worth every penny.