Good short range telephoto lens for Nikon D200

[angik_sarkar]

<p>I recently upgraded from D40 recently since I got a good deal on it. I have the following lenses 1)18-55mm 2)55-200VR 3) 105mm F4 AIS macro.<br>

I am a science graduate with a passion for photography. I mostly shoot outdoor. I am not very satisfied with the performance I get from the 18-55. The pictures are not very sharp. Neither is the bokeh good. I was most disappointed on a recent trip to Yosemite where I was shooting lakes and streams near mountains at f/22. So I was thinking about upgrading to a better lens atleast for outdoor nature photography. Which lens would be best for my needs considering that I dont much savings right now. Will a 18-70 give me better performance than the 18-55. I have heard of low light problems with 18-70. Are there any off-brands which would better bang for bucks? I would have loved to own a 17-55 but that is not possible to afford on a student stipend.<br>

Also would cheaper primes be of any help?</p>

[jim_momary]

<p>Before buying ...<br>

@ F22, diffraction is rearing its ugly head and squashing your resolution.<br>

Try no more stopped down than F11 and see if you don't like it.<br>

Jim M.</p>

[elliot1]

<p>Both the 18-55mm and the 55-200mm are capable of extremely sharp and colorful images. Lenses that offer better bokeh can be expensive. Perhaps you want to master the use of these lenses first before you invest in additional gear.</p>

[Two23]

<p>I hardly ever use f22, and that's only when sharpness isn't important. You're lenses are actually OK. Believe it or not, I have the same two for my compact travel camera kit. I think what you might consider buying is a decent tripod & head. Look for a used one on eBay to get the most for your money. If you were shooting f22 without a tripod, that would go a long way to explaining why you are complaining about sharpness.</p>

<p>Kent in SD</p>

[Michael R Freeman]

<p>What Jim said. Stopped down to mid-range apertures the 18~55m is capable of very sharp images. Stop down *any* lens to f/22 on a DX format camera and you are likely to see some overall softness caused by diffraction.</p>

<p>If you really need to use f/22 to achieve slow shutter speeds for creative reasons, then you would do far better to shoot at f/11 and use a <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/23351-REG/Hoya_A52ND4X_52_mm_Neutral_Density.html#features">4X ND (neutral density) filter</a> to get the equivalent exposure.</p>

[mark_drutz]

<p>Tamron makes a 17-50 f/2.8 and Sigma makes an 18-50 f/2.8 Macro that sell between $400 and $500 and are very good lenses. However, before you spend your limited funds, do as Elliot suggested and master the lenses that you have now. If the problem is poor technique, no lens is going to help.</p>

[phototransformations]

<p>I don't know about the Tamron 17-50 (which I've heard good things about but don't own), but the Tamron 28-75 is quite sharp from f/3.5 up and has great bokeh. It serves as a nice mid-range zoom on a DX camera and also will work on FX.</p>

[eric_arnold]

<p>angik, if you want to shoot lakes and streams, invest in a nd grad filter and/or a polarizer.</p>

<p>jim is right about diffraction, on DX sensors f/11 is about as far as you want to go.</p>

<p>the 18-55 is fine optically; i have 18-70 and it's not as sharp as either tamron 17-50 or 28-75, though its faster than the 18-55 (f/4.5 at 70mm vs f/5.6 @ 55mm).in fact your 18-55 and 55-200 combo should be perfect for the application you mention.</p>

<p>if you have a d200 i would advise getting the tamron 17-50 over the 28-75 as 28 is not very wide. for a budding landscapist, nikon 16-85 would be possibly even better but also more expensive. if you're not taking people pics and/or a lot of low light stuff and you're on a tripod, you don't need 2.8.</p>

<p>you <em>were</em> shooting with a tripod on your yosemite trip, right?</p>

<p>if not, that should be your first purchase--a good pod and ballhead. maybe a book on outdoor photography as well. improving your technique will go further than getting new lenses at this point. if you were going to add any lens, i would maybe get an ultrawide to complement the lenses you already have.</p>

[shuo_zhao]

<p>>>" I was shooting lakes and streams near mountains at f/22. So I was thinking about upgrading to a better lens atleast for outdoor nature photography. "</p>

<p>With proper technique and post processing, most lenses in the market today are capable of producing excellent results for landscape/outdoor shooting in good light. Bytheway, as it is mentioned by others, you should not be shooting beyond f/11 on DX machines as they are diffraction limited this way. </p>

<p>>> "Will a 18-70 give me better performance than the 18-55. I have heard of low light problems with 18-70."</p>

<p>The 18-70 is slight sharper than the 18-55G non-VR (the 18-55 VR seems to be even sharper), and it does feature the faster ring type SWM AF-S motor with fulltime MF, a distance window, and a real MF ring. Yet on the other hand the 18-70 suffers unnatural distortion patterns and vignetting at 18mm </p>

<p>>> "Are there any off-brands which would better bang for bucks?"</p>

<p>The best 3rd party offerings in terms of performance are the lower cost f/2.8 zooms: alternatives to the 17-55 f/2.8.</p>

<p>>> "Also would cheaper primes be of any help?"</p>

<p>They are usually extremely sharp for their price; they are also generally faster than the zooms too. You can probably make good use of something like the 50m f/1.8 or 35 f/1.8 DX.</p>

[cmulcahy]

<p>My recommendations:</p>

<p>Tamron 17-50mm 2.8<br>

Nikon 16-85mm<br>

Nikon 35mm 1.8<br>

Nikon 24mm 2.8<br>

Nikon 85mm 1.8</p>

<p>Don't shoot at F22. Keep it under F16 for most landscapes and use a tripod. If too much light is an issue then use a ND filter.</p>

 

[rene gm]

<p>Gerneral advice: "You will not be satsified with any other lenses, until you have learned how to get the best out of the ones you have."</p>

[peter]

<p>In this range the 18-70 AF Nikkor is a good bet. Every review I read rates it highly. It does have a bit to barrel distortion at the wide end but that's never an issue for nature photography only architectural work.</p>

<p>Another option you may consider if you do<strong> not</strong> need a lens that is terribly wide is an older lens that I own. It's a Nikkor 28-85 AF f 3.5-45 from the mid 1990s. (The second version of this lens. Some authorities claim it was updated and improved from the first AF version.) It is available dirt cheap on eBay as its range is not popular for digital. Personally I prefer it as I do much more shooting at the long end than the wide. It is very sharp with nice color rendition and its only real flaw is a tendency to flare rather badly in some conditions when shot against a strong light. Apart from that its super. For about $120 - $150 bucks US you will have a lens that I certainly have never found a thing to really complain about and much to praise. Never fall for the Camera manufacturer's patter that newer is necessarily better. On the other hand if you do not need a zoom, you cannot go past the 105mm f2.8 Micro Nikkor AF D. Its not badly priced now its superceded by a new model and is regarded as another Nikon all time great. Here are some links to these:<br>

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkoresources/AFNikkor/AF2885mm/index1.htm</p>

<p>http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkoresources/AFNikkor/AFDMicroNikkor105mmf28/index.htm</p>

<p>I like very much the short tele range and find to be terribly useful in a whole range of shooting situations.</p>

[tobey_bilek]

<p>F22 is the problem. Use 5.6 8 or 11 if you need the debth of field. This is how lenses work. Better ones will work towards wide open better, but nearly every lens I own starts to fail to at 11 or 16. The only that does not is my 50 3.5 Elmar for Leica.</p>

[tobey_bilek]

<p>To answer the question more directly, 60 2.8 micro, the new version.</p>

[joe_a2]

<p>Just to clarify to people reading this thread: It is NOT the lens that "starts to fail" around f/11 or f/16. There is diffraction at those apertures, yes, but the problem comes when the light gets to the sensor, and is much worse than we saw on film.</p>

<p>It is the size of the pixel sites that limit all lenses to f/5.6 or f/8, depending on the sensor, and this is what is meant by the phrase Diffraction Limited. A pinpont of light (like a star, for instance) gets fuzzy and larger due to diffraction as aperture gets smaller (f/5.6 and larger numbers), and once that "fuzz" is larger than a pixel, you lose sharpness and contrast. With small pixels (in a D90 or D300 or D3x, for example), the light spills over into surrounding pixels around f/5.6. With large pixels (in a D70 or D40 or D3 or D700), the light spills over around f/8.</p>

<p>Really makes you look at lenses (and future cameras) differently.</p>

[bsd230]

<p>The Tamron 17-50 is a nice lens. The Sigma EX line is a great line of 3rd party lenses as well. I don't know what your price range is but the Nikon 16-85 VR is a nice lens too.</p>

[angik_sarkar]

<p>Thanks to everybody for their advice, I am a novice, I stooped down to f/22 since I saw a few good lake sunset/sunrise shots with both foreground and background in good focus. Another reason to use it was that I was trying to get silkyness in the waterfalls at noon. Yes I was using a tripod and ball head. But yes I have decided I will stick to my combo. The reason I was upset is that my photos are missing the zing that I normally see in Professional quality photos. I dont know what is wrong. Some of my compositions are widely appreciated but the photos are not vibrant or leave me agape. I guess I will spend a bit more time with my camera and lens combo to get what is going wrong</p>