a photo.net guide by Philip Greenspun; revised August 2008
The Nikon system of digital single-lens reflex (SLR) bodies and lenses is a popular choice among serious photographers worldwide. This page makes it easy to shop for Nikon digital bodies and Nikkor lenses. Every component manufactured by Nikon is covered, plus a few exceptionally good third-party components. If you are new to photography, you might want to start with my article "Building a Digital SLR System".
This article goes through every section of the Nikon system and concludes with some starter system recommendations.
Most Nikon digital SLR bodies incorporate a "small sensor" or "APS-C" sized sensor. This is smaller than the standard 35mm film frame and effectively multiplies the magnification of any lens attached to the body. A small sensor is good for telephoto work, such as wildlife photography, where a 300mm lens that is too short for bird photography on a film camera becomes a 450mm (effective) lens. Beginning in November 2007, Nikon will add the D3, their first full-frame sensor DSLR professional camera to their arsenal of DSLR bodies. The full-frame sensor bodies are good for wide angle photography, low light photography, and optimum image quality.
For nostalgia buffs and collectors, Nikon still makes film bodies:
F-number: lower is better.
VR is "vibration reduction", a technology lifted from camcorder image stabilizers. The lens electronically compensates for unsteady hands. VR is especially important at long focal lengths, e.g., 200mm and above, because the lens magnifies camera shake at the same time it is magnifying the subject. A VR lens will allow you to use slower shutter speeds without introducing camera shake. The alternative to a VR lens would be mounting the camera on a tripod or using a high ISO setting, which reduces image quality but allows the use of higher shutter speeds.
"ED" is "extra-low dispersion" glass, a more expensive and higher quality glass that reduces chromatic aberration, in which light of different colors takes different paths through the lens, which would result in a dot of white light being fuzzed up by the time it reaches the film or sensor.
"IF" is internal focus, meaning that the lens does not change physical length as you focus on subjects that are closer or farther away.
"DX" are Nikon's lenses that only work on its small-sensor digital SLR bodies, i.e., they don't cast a large enough image circle to be used on a film camera.
"FX" refers to the full frame sensor
"G" lenses are Nikon's newest lenses. They don't have an aperture ring, which is a shame because it means that you are forced to adjust the aperture with a command wheel on the camera. The G lenses don't work on older bodies.
AF-S is "silentwave motor". Old-style Nikon autofocus lenses did not have motors in the lens, but relied on a screwdriver blade in the camera body to turn the focus ring. An AF-S lens has a built-in ultrasonic motor, a technology copied from the Canon EOS system. When using an AF-S lens, the photographer can push the shutter release (or a button on the rear of the camera, if a custom function is set) and let the autofocus system do its best, then touch up the focus manually by twisting the lens ring. The AF-S lenses also focus faster and more quietly.
A normal or standard lens is light in weight and approximates the perspective of the human eye. Normal lenses have large maximum apertures, indicated by small f-numbers such as f/1.4 or f/1.8, and thereby gather much more light than zoom lenses. It may be possible to take a photo with a normal lens in light only 1/8th or 1/16th as bright as would be required for the same photo with a consumer-priced zoom lens. Another advantage of the large maximum aperture is that the viewfinder will be correspondingly brighter and therefore easier to use in dim light. (SLRs keep the lens wide open for viewing and stop down to whatever aperture you have set just before taking the picture; this is why the viewfinder always looks the same even if you switch from f/1.4 to f/8 to f/16.)
In terms of flare, contrast, and sharpness, these are the highest quality lenses that you will ever attach to your camera. If you can do the job with a normal lens, as many of the 20th Century's greatest photographers did, you can save yourself a lot of weight and cost. There are good zoom lenses, but they are very expensive and heavy.
A wide-to-tele zoom is what you get as a standard "kit" lens with a cheaper digital SLR body. The range goes from moderately wide through normal to moderately telephoto. They are good when you are too busy to change lenses, e.g., at a wedding reception. The 24mm perspective (full-frame) will capture a table of guests; the 70mm or 105mm long end is good for a flattering portrait. The main weakness of these lenses is that the cheaper ones have a very small maximum aperture, e.g., f/4 or f/5.6, and can only be used in bright light, on a tripod, or with a blast of on-camera flash that gives everyone a moon face.
Good for general-purpose dramatic wide angle photography. More distortion than wide-angle prime lenses, which makes them less suitable for photographing architecture (though many kinds of distortion can be fixed by a PhotoShop wizard).
These are good complements to a normal lens when traveling. The long end may not be useful indoors due to a small maximum aperture.
These let you get close to your subject while still showing a lot of background information. Wide angle lenses are good for "environmental portraits" in which the subject occupies most of the frame, but nearby objects are in sharp focus. Photojournalism has gone gradually wider and wider over the years. A typical photo in a newspaper these days might be taken at 20-24mm on a full-frame camera, which would be 14-17mm on a small sensor digital camera.
A prime wide angle lens will have much lower distortion of vertical and horizontal lines than a zoom lens and is therefore preferred for architectural photography. All of these lenses are designed for film and full-frame sensor cameras.
A prime or fixed focal length telephoto lens offers maximum image quality, light gathering capability (aperture), and magnification. The good ones are big, heavy, and designed for use on a monopod or tripod. Sports and wildlife photography require these lenses. Nikon does not make any telephoto lenses specifically for their small-sensor digital cameras, which is a shame because it would be possible to cut the cost and weight dramatically without the requirement of casting a 24x36mm image for an old film camera.
The better Nikon telephoto lenses are designed to work optically with the teleconverters. Image quality will be acceptable, even at maximum aperture. As noted above, however, there is no free lunch. A teleconverter provides additional magnification, but the overall amount of light gathered by the lens remains the same. Thus, you lose one f-stop of light with a 1.4X converter and two f-stops with a 2X converter. The viewfinder will be dimmer and the camera will have a tougher time autofocusing. With a 2X converter and a slower lens, therefore, you will lose the ability to autofocus with many bodies.
These are heavy lenses. If you have a tripod quick-release system, get plates for each lens and remember to mount the lens, not the camera body, to the tripod.
Macro lenses let you fill your photograph with a subject that is physically small. The longer the focal length of the macro lens, the farther away you can be from your subject, which is important with live insects, for example. A macro lens that goes down to "1:1" can be used to take a frame-filling photo of something that is 24x36mm (1x1.5 inches) in size, the same dimensions as a frame of 35mm film or the sensor on a full-frame digital body. All Nikon macro lenses can be used for ordinary photographic projects as well, i.e., they will focus out to infinity if desired. Note that a "macro zoom" will focus reasonably close, but is not a substitute for a "macro lens".
The easiest way to ruin a photograph is to use on-camera flash, which blasts the subject with an unflattering light. The resulting lack of shadows means that it is tough for a viewer to make out the features of the subject. On-camera flash is useful outdoors for filling in harsh shadows. Otherwise, the professional uses flash mostly bouncing up towards the ceiling or held as far away from the camera as possible. This is why the professional camera bodies don't incorporate the pop-top flashes the way that consumer bodies do.
Nikon makes a great line of products, both wired and wireless, for coordinating and controlling multiple flashes. Covering all of these accessories is beyond the scope of this article, but if you are going to use flash as a primary light you should consider added additional speedlights and mounting them off-camera.
A perspective correction (PC) lens lets you take a picture of a building, from ground level, without the lines converging and making it look as though the building is falling over. It works because you are able to shift the front portion of the lens up, the lens being designed to cast a larger image than the 35mm film frame. To some extent, this is obsolete because these kinds of linear distortions can be fixed post-exposure in a digital editing tool such as Adobe PhotoShop. Some of Nikon's older PC lenses were designed for their film bodies and are manual focus. If you are deeply interested in in-camera perspective adjustments, note that Canon makes a more flexible line of "tilt-shift" lenses that come closer to what is possible with a 4x5 view camera (cloth over head, bellows, sheet film).
For a camera body and one lens, the average professional photographer would not use a case at all. To hold a camera system, you should probably find a nearby professional camera shop and experiment to see how your gear fits. I usually end up preferring Tamrac and Lowe cases. Here are a few ideas:
Average family:
Serious photographer:
Digital Cameras • D70s • D2Hs • D1 • D100 • D1H • D1x • D70 • Coolpix P1/P2 • Coolpix 2500 • Coolpix 5000 • Coolpix 775 • Coolpix 8700 • Coolpix 995
35mm Film Cameras • SLR Body Comparison Chart • F100 • F100 • F3/T and F3 • F4 • F6 • FE and FE2 • FM3A • N65/F65 • N80/F80 • N80/F80 • N90s
Lenses • 105mm/2.8D AF • 20/2.8 AF • 200 F/2G AF-S VR IF-ED • 20-35mm f/2.8 AF D IF • 24/2.8 AF • 300mm/2.8 AF • 35mm AF f/2D • 60mm/2.8 AF macro • 80-200mm/2.8 AF
Scanners • Coolscan 4000 • Super Coolscan 35mm Film Scanner
Text and pictures copyright 1993-2007 Philip Greenspun. The top left photo was taken with a 20mm lens. The top right photo with a 300/2.8.
