Recommend a lenes

[piture it]

June 29, 2009 at 1:19 am

Hi all

I have a Nikon D80 , can any one recommend a good lens for portraits / sports , i have from 700 – 1000 euros to spend

[damien.murphy]

July 10, 2009 at 8:44 pm

Hi Patrick,

I’ll take a stab at it, seeing as no-one’s biting.

For a start your budget is pretty sizeable, and I would recommend you’re sure of what you plan on being before blowing a large wad of cash on a lens/ lenses that may not suit.

I’m not sure what lens you have already, but would imagine you have the typical portrait focal lengths covered by your kit lens. Generally these tend to break down (all 35mm equiv’s):

28- 35mm – Groups/ environmental portraits
50mm – Full-Body
85mm – Half-Body
135mm – Head & Shoulders

What you probably don’t have, and are looking for is probably a large aperture lens, ala the modern fashion for low depth of field portraits. In this regard, I would recommend either a 50mm f1.8 or an 85mm f1.8; the 50 tends to make a good general indoors portrait prime lens, and the 85 a good general outdoors prime lens. Either will double as a decent low-light lens also if you don’t have one of these in your arsenal yet.

Sports, I’m not an authority, but in general an 85mm/ 135mm equiv. lens will serve you well for indoor sports (ie basketball, etc). Outdoor sports can take a heavy toll, as 300mm/ 400mm lenses are usually the price of entry. DX helps here though, making those lens the equivalent of 450mm/ 600mm in traditional 35mm full frame terms.

In all, your shooting will determine what focal lengths you will need. For portraits and indoor sports, a 50mm f1.8/ 85mm f1.8 can do double duty, but if you are mixing portraits and outdoor sports you will need something like a 70-200mm f2.8 with a 1.4 extender for reach when shooting sports.

Hope this helps,

Damien

[Ballyman]

July 10, 2009 at 9:13 pm

The best available sports/portrait lens is the 70-200mm f2.8. Might stretch your budget a little with the Nikon version so have a look at the Sigma also.

[sean1098]

July 10, 2009 at 9:18 pm

piture it wrote:

Hi all

I have a Nikon D80 , can any one recommend a good lens for portraits / sports , i have from 700 – 1000 euros to spend

If it was me, i would go for the 70-300 vr, and you will have plenty of change for a 50mm 1.8

. the 70-300 is not that fast but is a great lense for sports and portraaits.

Sean.

[piture it]

July 10, 2009 at 10:47 pm

Thanks lads for all the feed back i didn’t think any one was going to get back to me on this thanks again