Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8D

[kalon_rg]

<p>Hi everyone,<br>

I've Nikon D70s and am interested in buying a lens for street photography, landscape etc. Basically I'm looking for a lens that will help me isolate the subject from the background. I've tried to learn that trick but have not been able to master it. Even if I want to click flowers and want to isolate a single flower from the background, how do I do it?<br>

So my main question is what Nikon lens is best for isolating the background from the subject? Secondly I've been reading about the Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8D vs. Nikon 70-200mm VR? Which one would be better for my purpose?<br>

I'll be very grateful if someone could give me some feedback/suggestions on how to get a good street photograph/ an animal in the zoo etc where I'm trying to isolate a subject? And which Nikon lens is best?<br>

Thanks in advance,<br>

Kalon</p>

<p> </p>

[bmm]

<p>Hmmm...</p>

<p>Ok first the simple part. Both 80-200 and 70-200 are excellent lenses and you won't go wrong either way. 70-200 is newer and has VR, on the other side some people say 80-200 is a touch better on full frame (but this isn't an issue with your D70s, only if you want to go to an FX model such as D700 or D3 sometime soon).</p>

<p>Important to know that subject isolation can be done in 2 ways, and to answer you we need to know which way you are talking about. The first way is to zoom in close, so that you 'cut out' most of the background and your subject dominates your image. The second is to have a wide aperture, resulting in a shallow depth of field... what this means is that your subject is pretty much the only thing sharply in focus and that you deliberately make everything else out of focus (so soft and blurry). Obviously in some cases you want to combine both effects.</p>

<p>Finally, you talk about street photography, animals in zoos, etc. Again important for us to know exactly what you want. If you want a whole street-scape or landscape including wide vistas, buildings etc then the lenses you suggest may be too 'long' (that is they may zoom in too much, not be wide angle enough to capture the scene that you want). However if what you want is to capture detailed close-up images of people or animals from some distance, then you're on the right track.</p>

<p>One closing question which you are sure to be asked. What lenses do you have now with your D70s, and if the answer is more than one what lens (or lenses) do you use most often?</p>

[kalon_rg]

<p>Thanks Bernard for the detailed response. I use Nikon 50mm f/1.4, 20mm f/2.8 and a zoom lens 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5. I love the 50 and the 20 but I'm basically looking for a good zoom lens. I know my previous question had too many things going on...but besides the feedback on the two lenses, I'm looking to learn the technique for isolating the subject (the second way that you have described).<br>

Quoting you:<br>

"The second is to have a wide aperture, resulting in a shallow depth of field... what this means is that your subject is pretty much the only thing sharply in focus and that you deliberately make everything else out of focus (so soft and blurry)".<br>

This is exactly what I've been trying to do, but I have not been successful with the three lenses that I have. I'm new to the field and that's why I thought I could learn some ways to achieve this.I've tried using wider apertures but I never seem to get that effect?<br>

Suppose there is a street performer and I want to blur the rest of the background and focus on the performer. I've tried this so many times, I cannot get the effect even with wider aperture with my 50mm or 20mm. Is it possible to achieve this effect with the lenses I have?<br>

Besides close ups etc, I thought either 80-200 and 70-200 would might help me to achieve the above? Although those lenses will give a smaller perspective of course.<br>

Thanks once again for your wonderful response, I look forward to hearing from you again.</p>

[bmm]

<p>Yes the longer the lens generally the easier to isolate based on DOF as well as the more obvious 'tight' view of the subject.</p>

<p>I've attached an image that I recently took of a street performer on the champs elysees in Paris to demonstrate what I think it is you are after, taken with 85mm lens at f/2 - so to be honest I could have isolated him even more had I used it wide open at f/1.4 ... is this the kind of effect you are after?</p>

 

[bmm]

<p>Take 2...</p><div></div>

[borgis_karl_johan1]

<p>One thing to remember is that the 70-200mm -though an excellent lens otherwise- performs dismally if the sun shines anywhere near or down the lens barrel. The 80-200 mm on thr other hand has no particular problem with flare.</p>

[alvin_lim5]

<p>I am not sure if you have tried either lens as they might not be really suited for street photography; they may be good for sniping though ;-)</p>

<p>The reason for that is that they are both heavy and huge. You are very likely to be attracting unwanted attention when you use those lenses. However, if you decide to really get one of them, the 70-200mm, by virture of VR, would be a much better option.</p>

<p>If you constantly shoot under the bright sun, you may want to consider the 70-300mm VR. Being smaller than the 70/80-200mm, it will definitely help in being "hidden".</p>

<p>For landscape shots, again depending on your style, the 70/80-200mm may not be the best lens as they are just not wide enough. Usually, the lens people get for landscape would be one that is as wide as possible; something like the 12-24mm would be good for landscape.</p>

<p>With regards to having the shallow depth of field, all of your lenses can do so. You just have to be closer to the subject to get it done. The 70/80-200mm would help but by not much more. At the end of the day, a lens can only do so much and the rest would be technique.</p>

<p>For starters, you may want to put on your 50mm and practice. Set your aperture to f1.4 and focus on your keyboard, get as close to what you want to focus as possible and you should be able to get the shallow depth of field.</p>

<p>Alternatively, you can also post a picture of not being able to attain the shallow depth of field and we can better guide you along =)</p>

[mark_gonda]

<p>As a former D70+80-200/AFD user, I found the focusing to be too slow for capturing moving subjects, unless there is an adequate amount of setup time - which is counter to street photo. Further, the size and intrusiveness of either of these lenses makes them rather unwelcome to whole environment (hence, rangefinders were the choice and now some of the high end P&S digicams, e.g., Canon G10). </p>

<p>Since your are looking for zoom, there is 24-70/2.8 as well as 105/2.8 VR prime. Now my 80-200/AFD is used with D300 and is fast enough focusing for most action/sports shots. 70-200 would definitely would be better for focusing speed and VR would help too.</p>

[kalon_rg]

<p>Thanks so much for the responses. I'm really excited to get all the advice. Bernard, that's exactly the kind of effect I'm talking about. And Alvin, I'm posting one of the worst street performer picture ever:) to get feedback. I know the guy is not even looking at the camera on this picture but the clutt in the background is the problem. I'm also posting a picture of tulips.<br>

Performer picture:<br>

Usually in these situations, I'm unable to open the lens too much if the sun is bright. The picture gets burnt, how does one resolve that? I mean if I open at 1.4, the picture is overexposed. So does one look for opportunities in comparatively low light?<br>

Tulips:<br>

This often happen to me. I've been practicing with the 50mm. As you see the half tulip should have been much more focused, but I wasn't able to do that. This is the best I could. I know I need more practice and I'm doing that over the summer :)<br>

I do feel the focus of lot of my pictures are not as sharp as I would like them to be? When I focus I think I do it correctly. Are there tips for sharp focus?<br>

I've heard about the bulkiness of 70-200/80-200 and also that 80-200 is too heavy? So maybe I'll go with another lens. I'll explore more.<br>

But if you have tips on what might be a better lens for street pictures, please do share. Thanks!!</p>

<div></div>

[kalon_rg]

<p>Tulips:</p><div></div>

[ed lake]

<p>Greetings<br>

Here is a rose, taken with a 105 micro-Nikkor 2.8. The exposure was 1/3000 @ 5.6, iso 400. It has isolation and adequate sharpness. Takes some practice and luck. Best of both.<br>

Ed</p><div></div>

[ijmackay.blogspot.com]

<p>I own both the Nikon 70-300 AF-S VR and the 80-200 AF F2.8. I can tell you that the 80-200 is a terrific lens, and much more usuable for indoor sports at low ISO's than the 300mm even with VR (which effectively allows you to work 2 stops higher than you would without it)<br>

The 80-200 is a brute though, really quite heavy, and it's not going to focus nearly as fast as the 300mm......it is going to be tough to hand hold even in very bright conditions, and I would highly recommend a good monopod (even if you're shoting form your knees). Manfrotto makes a great series of pods.<br>

The 80-200mm is a pro lens, and produces razor sharp images all the way down the length of the telephoto.<br>

Costs is also a factor. The 80-200mm will run you at least a grand for a used one. New AF-s models eclipse $1500. Anything cheaper and I be suspicious. The 70-300mm can be purchase for well under a grand for a very nice lense. The 70-300 mm is quite light, fast focusing and a great all around lens for the cost.<br>

You could also try a manual focusing 500mm mirror lens. Several of them are for sale on Kijiji or Ebay at well under $500 CDN.</p>

<p> </p>

[bmm]

<p>Kalon -<br>

Now funnily enough I'm currently doing a photo workshop to 'round out' my skills and we spent all of last night focusing on the issue of Depth of Field. In short you need to think of 4 things:<br>

1. sensor size (smaller gives you deeper DOF, larger gives you shallower)<br>

2. distance from subject (closer gives you shallower DOF... but good reason to not be too intimidating to your subject with huge gear!)<br>

3. focal length (longer FL gives you shallower DOF, so you're right in looking at longer telephoto options)<br>

4. aperture (wider open gives you shallower DOF, again you're right in looking for f/2.8 or faster glass)</p>

<p>Now some opinion of mine. Whoever it was above who mentioned the size of the lens for street is spot on. To get good street images you don't only have to have the best gear, but also the best gear for interacting with your subjects. That is to say, you have too be aware that big, long, heavy gear can often be intimidating to subjects especially when they are within 10-20m. With my image above, even though I was shooting from 25m away, would the performer have been as natural if I had a big zoom on compared to my relatively small D80+85mm prime setup?<br>

For this reason I tend to have some sympathy for the views of Ian just above. The 70-300 as a flexible lightweight zoom to complement your overall kit (albeit not so 'fast' an aperture) and maybe one faster prime might do the trick for the same price as you'd be spending on the big zooms. For the prime, given your current kit already gets you to 70mm, my own gut feel is that a 105/2.8VR would be the one to look at. And when you think about your overall kit it makes sense too as you would have a 'base' of 18-70 and 70-300 zooms to cover your everyday needs, and then 3 primes (one wide, one normal and one moderate long) to do your sexier high-quality stuff. A really good balanced little setup in my opinion.<br>

Finally don't be afraid to crop. Isolating a subject has to do with all the above but also has to do with the best final composition and the cutting out of distractions on the periphery of an image. In the image above I probably only use 6MP of the 10MP in the original RAW file, but its what I visualised when I took the shot and I'm very happy with the result.</p>

[kalon_rg]

<p>Thanks you so much for all the responses. It makes a lot of sense now and I'm almost decided on the lenses. The bulkiness and price of 80-200mm is a concern for me, I'm a female student, I would want to have something cheaper and less heavier. The 105/2.8VR sound an excellent idea too.<br>

Bernard, I wish I could attend your workshop! However thanks for the detailed post on DOF. I'll follow all those suggestions. I think theoretically I sort of read about most of them, but when one is actually in the field sometimes they don't work out. I mean it takes time.<br>

I'm attaching one sunset picture taken with my 20mm.I focussed manually and tried many of them. But I wish the picture could have been sharper. Does anybody have any suggestions to make such landscape photographs sharper?<br>

Thanks!</p><div></div>

[bmm]

<p>First of all nice image. I really like its soft tonal qualities and mood. I don't think it has a problem with being not sharp enough but the obvious rememdy (if you're not already doing this) is to use whatever lens you have on stopped down to at least f/4.0 if not more (f/8 or so) where all lenses tend to be at their sharpest, and to use a tripod.<br>

On the workshop, even simpler is to read. Best early book I ever read was 'Understanding Exposure' by Bryan Pedersen. (Hope I spelled that right). Anyway its the best tool I got in the first year I was learning, and as I read each section I went out and tried to learn what it was saying.</p>

[alvin_lim5]

<p>Kalon, I noticed that you manual focused for both the tulip and landscape. At least for the tulip, I think you may have just missed the focusing altogether. Even at f2.5, the depth of field would not have been that shallow.</p>

<p>You certainly have got the rest of the out of focus bit correct in the tulip picture. My guess is that with more practice, you should have little problems getting the focusing correct.</p>

<p>I am not sure if the D70s has something like a Katz Eye focusing screen. I find that they really help for manual focusing.</p>

[kalon_rg]

<p>Thanks so much everyone. I'll get a hold of the book, Bernard. And yeah, these are practice shots and its very possible I missed the focussing on the tulips. I think I need to get used to a tripod, I tend to shoot mostly w/o one. Thanks, and all the best. More later!</p>

[bsd230]

<p>The two main things that help isolate your subject are focal lenght and aperture. As far as as the 80 versus the 70. They would about the same. They are both 2.8 and the same focal lenght. The only other things I can think of that would affect bokeh would be the number of blades and the minimum focusing distance which would probably be very similar between the 2. I'm sure the 70 would have a better bokeh.</p>

[sjoerd_leeuwenberg]

<p>Regarding the flowers, i would be carefull selecting lenses.<br>

I have an old 80-200mm and it's closest focus distance is around 1.5 meters.<br>

It is also pretty heavy (1.3Kg), was shooting it last week for 5 hours and that is heavy.<br>

For flowers the micro nikkor 105 is excellent, but expensive.</p>

 

[Dieter Schaefer]

<p>Good advice so far. It appears the performer image was shot with a P&S camera - tough to get a narrow DOF with a sensor that small. On the tulip - clearly focus was missed completely - manual focusing any lens on a DX camera will always remain challenging. I learned from experience to trust the focus indicator and not what I see on the viewing screen - which is a 50:50 proposition at best (looks in focus but isn't). For very obvious reasons, relying on the focus indicator is a tough job when the subject isn't stationary. Now, the 80-200 is a great lens, but due to its size and weight does not balance well on a small camera like the D70.</p>

<p>Frankly, for street photography, I would take a good look at the Sigma 50-150/2.8 or the 150/2.8 macro. Nikon's 180/2.8 might be an option as well, though focus is a tad slow (about the same as the 80-200).</p>