I'm about to buy my first SLR. I've decided on the Nikon F65. But i haven't decided on which lens to get. I have read some advice that i should upgrade the basic kit from the 28-80mm to the 28-105mm, especially if i only plan to use one lens. Assuming that i only buy one lens for the time being, should i pay the extra money (almost 3 times the amount for the 28-80mm) and get the 28-105mm?

-- Raymond Mah (raymondmah@hotmail.com), November 01, 2001

Answers

gosh, don't they make 50/1.8's any more?

:)=

-- Rick Oleson (rick_oleson@yahoo.com), November 01, 2001.

Get the 50mm f1.8. Sharper, brighter in the viewfinder, better focusing performance, better low-light performance, better control of depth of field than either of the zooms. Cheaper and lighter, too.

You might want to get the 50mm and the 28-80, still saving money over the 28-105. It looks like the main difference between the two zooms you're looking at is that the 28-80 is a series G. The series G lenses have cheaper construction details than the normal AF lenses, and lack an aperture ring, making them unusable on older bodies, and unusable with certain accessories, such as bellows and some extension tubes.

-- Richard Cochran (rcochran@lanset.com), November 01, 2001.

Goodness! I think I'm about to disagree with Rich Cochran! I must be very careful about this, 'cos Rich certainly does understand both photography and Nikon extremely well.

One thing I'm not going to disagree with, Raymond, is his advocacy of the 50mm f/1.8. His answer is a purist one but it ain't in any sense wrong. If your goal is to learn the craft of photography, and acquire a foundation of understanding that you will use for many years, then starting with a single-focal-length lens (often called a prime lens) is an excellent idea. Then, in a few months, when you understand how to "see" with the angle of view of a 50mm lens, you can move on to a wide-angle or a telephoto ... the 24mm f/2.8 and the 105mm f/2.5 are classic examples.

Even more purist is to begin with a manual focus, manual exposure camera, so that you build a solid understanding of depth of field, of movement, and of exposure.

It's a wonderful way to go. (Bias warning -- it's the way I started.) More-over it's absurdly cheap: a secondhand FM and AIS 50mm f/1.8 are likely to cost only about GBP 200. Even more-over, since designing zoom lenses inevitably involves some compromises, the three lenses I've mentioned are probably better than *any* Zoom-Nikkor lenses.

The snag with the purist approach is that it is just not what many SLR buyers want to do. If, for example, a couple buy an SLR ready for the arrival of their first baby, what they want are pictures not education. They know that SLR lenses run rings round point-and-shoot zoom lenses, and they want that extra quality at little extra effort. They want to use zoom lenses. Telling them different is a bit like the (probably apocryphal) ferry attendant who told a passenger, "You can't be sick here."

If you have consciously decided to use zoom lenses, Raymond, then I think you have been well advised to consider the 28-105mm. Not that the Nikkor kit lens -- the 28-80mm G -- is a bad lens: such is the precision of modern polycarbonate moulding that bad lens-element postioning (the bane of inexpensive lenses) is well controlled. But it is built to a price and cannot compete with the mid-range 28-105mm.

Summoning all my courage, I'd say that I disagree with Rich's suggestion of combining a 50mm with a 28-80mm. I'd say that you should decide how purist you are, and go down either the prime route or the zoom route. If you go down the prime route with an F65, but don't want to be restricted to a single focal length, I'd suggest the 50mm f/1.8 and the 28mm f/2.8D (which should cost less in total than the 28-105mm). If you go down the zoom route with an F65 and a 28-105mm, then keep the 70-300mm f/4-5.6D ED in mind as a telezoom that matches the optical and build quality of the 28-105mm well, and even uses the same size filters!

And of course -- I have to say this -- sometime soon you'll need a tripod.

Later,

Dr Owl

-- John Owlett (owl@postmaster.co.uk), November 01, 2001.

I'm flattered. And Dr. Owl, master that he is of photography, Nikon, and Pooh, isn't disagreeing with anything that I hold dear. I don't know the modern zooms that well, but my "you MIGHT want to consider..." suggestion was mostly way to keep the budget in check. I almost wrote an additional phrase about how that selection would simultaneously allow you to experience a zoom while teaching you why many people prefer to avoid zooms.

-- Richard Cochran (rcochran@lanset.com), November 01, 2001.

Raymond:

I too second the advice to get a 50 mm or 35 mm lens for a year, then move on out.

I have the 28-105 Nikkor Zoom and can not say enough good about it.

There is virtually no barrel or pincushion distortion( Thats where where straight lines are distorted outward into a barrel shape or inwards into the shape of a depression in a cushion)and no light fall- off at the corners.

I have just made a 16 x 20 print of a shot of the Shanghai/Pudong riverfront from the Bund using the 28-104 and Kodak T 400 CN. Even with 16x magnification, I still need a loupe to see the finest detail in the corner of the print. I was truly surprised.

The lens is not cheap, but you really do get what you pay for.

Cheers

-- RICHARD ILOMAKI (richardjx@hotmail.com), November 03, 2001.

You'll learn a lot more about composition and perspective with a fixed focal length lens. I have a full suite of lenses and I almost always find myself using the fast f/1.4 50mm.

-- Jeff Polaski (polaski@acm.org), November 05, 2001.

Raymond wrote to me outside the forum with a couple of questions. With his permission, I'm posting his questions and my reply here.

> Hey Doc!
>
> Thanks for your reply....
>
> I'm a zoom kind of guy.

Hi Ray, and thanks for the note.

Many people are zoom people nowadays. Don't let any prime lens purist get away with dissing your choice: you're just setting different priorities.

> let me put it this way.... if you had a choice between the Nikon
> F80 and the 28-80mm f3.3-5.6D or the Nikon F65 with the 28-105mm
> f/3.5-4.5, which would you choose?

I have to be careful here, because I've never been in your position, so I don't want to pontificate, but I think I would choose the F65 with the better lens.

In my youth, I used the Praktica SLR that was so common in the UK at the time. Then I was able to buy an elderly Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex cheaply. The optical quality of the large negative and the Zeiss lens, and the build quality of the camera captivated me.

Accordingly, when I returned to 35mm photography many years later, I was able to afford good equipment, provided I bought it secondhand. My main camera is a 1985 Nikon F3 -- manual focus but beautifully made.

I had a look to-day at the specs for the F65 and the F80 to see what the significant differences were. Three differences seemed to me not to matter much at all:

• The F80 has a 1/4000 sec shutter speed. This is mainly used when you want a narrow depth of field (for a portrait say) and happen to be using a fast film. An aperture of f/2.8 can then require a very fast shutter speed. If you don't have the fast speed then you can always get around this with a neutral-density filter.
• The F65 has no film speed option to override the DX setting. With colour print film, you don't need to do this. With colour slide film, you can use the exposure compensation feature to override the DX setting.
• The F80 has optional grid lines in the viewfinder. This is nice, and many Nikon enthusiasts use the "E" screen for the more expensive models. But it is not really essential.

One difference matters more, but you can work your way round it:

• The F80 has spot metering. You use this only very occasionally, but if, say, you are photographing a flower against the light, a spot reading off a petal will be much better than most matrix readings. Without it, you have to take the camera off the tripod, and meter off something neutral-toned, such as grass; then use manual exposure.

And two differences seem to me possible reasons for wanting an F80 rather than an F65:

• The F80 has more advanced flash metering than the F65 and a faster electronic flash synch speed (1/125 rather than 1/90). If flash, particularly fill-in flash, photography is important to you, then maybe the F65 is not for you. F65 flash is not primitive -- it's a lot more sophisticated than my F3, for example -- but modern flash control is a boon.
• Neither camera is heavy, but the F80 weighs 120g (4 oz) more than the F65 ... and a lot of that seems to have gone into solidity of build. A Nikon body traditionally has about the highest build quality in its class -- it's one of the Nikon brand values -- and, if that's why you chose Nikon, then the F65 may seem just too "plasticky" to you. (Bias warning: with a Rolleiflex and Nikon F3 background, I suffer from severe buildqualititis.)

If neither of these last two differences frightens you, then I think that the traditional advice -- to buy the best glass you can afford, and put it onto an adequate body -- applies, and that the F65 body and 28-105 lens is a good way to go.

> Would you advise against getting the Nikon f65 body but with say a
> sigma 28-105mm f/3.8-5.6 instead of the Nikkor 28-80?
>
> Thanks.
> regards,
> Ray

Hmmm. I don't think I've never used a Sigma lens! So like you I'm dependent on repute, which is that they are optically good and of rather light build quality.

The many people who have reviewed lenses all have to decide how to tackle the impossible task of reducing the strengths and weaknesses of a lens to a single assessment. None of them is definitive, but one I regard as providing useful information is Klaus Schroiff's idea of taking the average of the assessments published in photo magazines (go to

http://www.photozone.de/

and click on "Lens Test Guide").

My own practice has been to stick with Nikkor lenses. That more or less guarantees I shall avoid poor optical quality or flimsy build. It also means that all my lenses share Nikkor's standards for colour rendition and lens mechanics. (I do not really expect to be able to stick with Nikkor if I ever go outside the 20mm to 300mm amateur range of focal lengths.)

Later,

Dr Owl

-- John Owlett (owl@postmaster.co.uk), November 05, 2001.