thoughts and ideas please, camera lens

Hi,

Right i have had the camera now for a while, and only been using the kit lens, starting to get some good results (IMO) but feel a little restricted with the 18-55 kit lens. i am in particular wanting to be able to take sporting and wildlife shots, and i am obveously not a pro by any stretch so am looking at getting the following lens

http://imaging.nikon.com/products/im...d_vr/index.htm

what do you think, have found it for £210 which is a good price, but will i see a dramatic reduction in quality?

I was also looking at the 70-200 as well.

What do you think?

Cheers in advance

Sounds a bit cheap tbh, Ive got the 70-300 VR nikon lense, I paid £430 back in October.
Its a very good lense IMO for the money.

[kaivalagi]

Does sound a tad cheap for what you get which does raise questions...it might be very good for the cash or you may find it lacking. I can't find any reviews on it in the usual places e.g. dpreview.com and cameralabs.com but did find this good one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbbfNXgAVYU

Don't feel you have to limit yourself to Nikon only brands though, although I have a canon camera body I have 2 canon, 1 tokina and 1 sigma lens

My Sigma is one of those super zooms (this one), it goes to 500mm with all the bells and whistles etc but is heavy and quite expensive, and I still find with that zoom / range I am still left wanting in some situations believe it or not.

It is true you do get what you pay for with lenses...but saying that the lens you mention may well do all the things you need just fine?

edit: one other thing to bear in mind, when buying a lens it may be beneficial to get one that will work with a full frame DSLR even though you might not have one....so if you do upgrade camera body you have extra lens that still work with it. I'm not sure what the Nikon model numbering is all about but Canon have the EF-S range for the 4/3'rd DSLRs such as my 450d and EF range for full frame (which also work on my camera)....all my additional higher quality lens work with both EF and EF-S so I know I can continue to use then if I upgrade camera body later on

Hope that helps and sorry if I am preaching to the choir as it were

yeah that is really helpful, i have seen several reviews now, and read a couple. i know that it is not the best quality lens out there, but i only got the camera in Jan, so am very much so at the entry level of photography, if as and when i cet better i will upgrade the camera and the lens' but at the moment cant justify (and dont really have) £400 to spend on a lens!

i just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything major about this lens that i should avoid!

Originally Posted by Jimmy2Feet

yeah that is really helpful, i have seen several reviews now, and read a couple. i know that it is not the best quality lens out there, but i only got the camera in Jan, so am very much so at the entry level of photography, if as and when i cet better i will upgrade the camera and the lens' but at the moment cant justify (and dont really have) £400 to spend on a lens!

i just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything major about this lens that i should avoid!

I've never used this lens, but from what I've read so far, it sits (quality and feature wise) right between the 55-200 VR and the 70-300 VR. It'll only work with crop sensor (DX) Nikon cameras, and it'll probably be very decent up to 200 mm and then image quality will start going downhill.

It'll be lighter and smaller than the 70-300 VR because it doesn't need as much glass (the 70-300 is a full frame lens - FX), but more importantly to me it lacks the full AF-S system with instant focus override, i.e., on the 55-300 (just like with the 18-55 / 55-200) you have to flick a switch to be able to use the lens in manual focus, whereas the 70-300 will allow to just grab the focus ring and use it. This might be more important than it sounds like, especially as your photographic skills progress.

Of course the 70-200 f/2.8 you also mentioned is a very different story, and gets everyone's seal of approval without restrictions, but then it's ever so slightly more expensive...

IMO, if you can wait a bit longer, save for the 70-300 (and shop around, I got mine for less than £390). If you're serious about your photography, and you sound like you are, the 55-300 will become "newbie tax" and you'll want to get something better that wouldn't have been that much more expensive to get in the first place.

this does make complete sense, and cheers for all of that filipe. as always your are a fountain of knowlage.

I was not really planning on buying another lens quite yet, and was planning on getting the 70-200, and a teleconverter to go along with it.

However i am going on a surfing trip next month and managed to break my metatarsal last week, so decided to get the camera out for the weekend whilst the other lads are in the water to take some snaps.

As my only current lens is the kit 18-55 i looked into hireing a telephoto lens to get as close to the action as poss from the beach. however when i saw the cost of hireing a lens for the weekend i couldn't justify spending 1/6th the cost of the 70-200 or even 1/4th the cost of the 70-300 just for 3 days use! hence looking into purchaseing one.

I know that if i go for the 70-300 i will eventually want to get something better, but at the same time, i only have an entry lever camera (d3100) so will i not eventually want to update the body as well as the lens' in time when i improve my skills. use this as a learning period, get my abilities up, hopefully start selling some pics and make a little money then start spending money on better set up all together, and i will still have this set up as a backup!?!

I just dont know!!! i am also concerned that the 200mm will not be enough for what i need!

Originally Posted by Jimmy2Feet

I just dont know!!! i am also concerned that the 200mm will not be enough for what i need!

Lenses are never long (or wide...) enough for any given situation. Fact.
That said, I find the 70-300 long enough for pretty much everything except wildlife and sports where you're standing a fair distance away from the action.
Don't forget the 1.5x crop factor comes into play, meaning a 200 mm lens will give you an equivalent field of view of a 300 mm (and 300 mm will give you 450 mm field of view). This link will show you how the different focal lengths behave. Of course nothing beats trying it out for yourself, so maybe it's time to go to a camera shop or find an understanding friend that also uses Nikon and happens to have something within that focal range you can borrow

cheers for that link filipe, i have been looking for something like that for a while now. I might pop into my local jessops and see if they have a 70-200 and a 70-300 that i can try out. hopefully they will!

as for people i can borroe from......no one unfortuantly!