Life or Death decision!!!!

[Ouch]

If you had to choose between a 28-100mm and a 19-35mm lens, which would you take? Bear in mind that my only other lens option is a 70-300, so this other lens will be used the bulk of my time.

 

[Southern Cross]

It depends on what your main shooting preference is. Also if you have a DSLR with a 1.5X crop factor or a 35mm camera.

Either way, I'd go for the 28-100 because it's a good zoom range for pretty much anything on a film camera - portraiture, scenics, etc. It would be rather limited for wide angle stuff on a DSLR, but still useful.

Are you shooting Nikon? If so, rethink the 28-100mm lens. It's not a great performer and you will likely be unsatisfied with the image quality if you are even remotely picky about your photography work. If you can, spend just a bit more. In the end, what kind of camera you shoot with matters very little. It's the lens you stick on the front of your camera that makes all the difference in the world.

If image quality at an affordable price is your main concern, take a look at the Tamron 24-135mm lens. Yes, it's more money, but if you can swing it, the lens will take care of most shooting situations and deliver images that are reasonably sharp, contrasty, and with excellent color rendition. These lenses can be picked up used on Ebay for $225-$275 or so in like new condition.

The best lens out there for the money in the Nikon line up is the 50mm f1.8.AF-D. At just around $100, you get sharp crystal clear images and excellent low light performance. You can use your legs to zoom!

 

[Piano Player]

If you had to choose between a 28-100mm and a 19-35mm lens, which would you take? Bear in mind that my only other lens option is a 70-300, so this other lens will be used the bulk of my time.

I would opt for the 19-35mm. A lot more unusual perspectives can be achieved with that lens. In combination with your 70-300mm you can take pictures in every situation.

 

[Southern Cross]

Piano player has a good point. When I read your post, I did not think you had the 70-300mm lens yet. I thought it was one of your available choices. If you go for the wide angle, try to go for a well rated lens with decent sharpness and low distortion at the wide end. My original advice holds true - your images will only be as good as the glass you stick on the front of your camera.

 

[Ouch]

Thanks for the ideas so far. It looks like a battle between incredible practicality (28-100) and incredibly intersting perspectives. Ohhh, the decision makes the noodles cook!

 

[Jer]

It depends what you are shooting. If you are going for the general stuff then probably go for the ultra wide angle lens, although if it's got a lot of barrel distortion then don't even think about it, as there is no real point if you are wanting to sell. This might be ok to a certain extent if you have a good digital editting software, scanner (or digital camera) and good skills at editting, so you can fix the distortion. The 28-100mm would normally be better, but the 70-300 you already have should cause this to be not much of a problem.

 

[Ouch]

Hmmmmm. If I happen to go for the wide-angle, is it necessary for me to by ultra thin filters without front threads? Because the filter companies seem to market these to users of wide angle lenses. Additionally, someone asked what I was shooting with: I have a N80. Thanks!

 

[Jer]

I'm not exactly sure what you are asking, but if you go for a wideangle then you would probably have to get a bigger filter set, although it depends what size and type you have at the moment. If it's a filter holder and filters slotted into it then you will probably have to get new ones as the edges of the holder could appear in photos. If you have screw in filters then you might have to get new ones, but it depends on the size of the lens and also the screw size of the filters you have already.

 

[Southern Cross]

Most of today's newer wide angle lenses should do fine with the filter vignetting problem. For instance, Tokina used to make a 20-35mm f3.5-4.5 lens (version 1) with 72mm filter. Excellent lens, but you would see vignetting at 20mm if you were using a polarizer. Version 2 of this lens was truly a great lens for the price - and it had a 77mm filter ring, which prevented the vignetting problem unless you had to stack multiple filters.

The problem is that you will not generally see vignetting until you get your pictures back, because you can't see the true edges of your image in your camera's viewfinder. I believe that the N80 has something like a 94% viewfinder, so you are not seeing 100% of the image area when you shoot the picture.

Check out www.photographyreview.com for user comments on specific lenses (check out the 'reviews" section, find your lens, see user comments). DPReview and Nikonians.net also have great information. I check there often. If users have experienced vignetting problems due to filter use, you'll hear about at the above link I provided.

 

[Jer]

Or if needs be then you can remember that there is vignetting and take the picture with this in mind and compose the image within the viewfinder and crop it after you get it back. It would be better with ^ though, if you can afford it.

 

[utdbear]

What are the aperatures of the lenses in question?

 

[Ouch]

What are the aperatures of the lenses in question?

Here we go: 19-35 == 3.5-4.5 | 28-100 == 3.5-5.6

 

[creep]

personally i'd take the 100mm. the other lens is really just a wide angle lense.

( i think )
not really much in the aperatures so it really does come down to personal preference

 

[Ouch]

personally i'd take the 100mm. the other lens is really just a wide angle lense.

Ahhh, but this is what makes the decision so hard. I think the wide angle perspective is really cool. I've never been able to take a picture with wider than 28mm angle, I like the idea. However, the problem is that would leave me without a practical, do everything sort of travel lens for when I was like walking around and stuff. See what I mean?

 

[Southern Cross]

Ouch - what is your budget for this lens? It almost sounds like you'd need to go for two lenses. Jusst buy one and then save for the other.

 

[utdbear]

Here we go: 19-35 == 3.5-4.5 | 28-100 == 3.5-5.6

I would take the 19-25 mm. You'll use a wide angle a lot more than you will a medium zoom lens. Remember that you can always take your large zoom and shoot macro like nature shots too.

 

[Ouch]

Ouch - what is your budget for this lens? It almost sounds like you'd need to go for two lenses. Jusst buy one and then save for the other.

Well, I will probably be doing something like that anyway, but I'm on a really tight budget. I'm buying an engagement ring for my girl in a few days, and so I'm likely only going to have a couple hundred dollars to spend. Definitely not enough to buy a higher end lens, but then again I'm your typical amature so that is okay, I make do with what is affordable.

Remember that you can always take your large zoom and shoot macro like nature shots too.

I don't know, I don't think the particular zoom I have (70-300mm 4.0-5.6 G) would be very suitable for a macro sort of application. Am I correct in this?

 

[eviltangerine]

I wouldn't think the larger lens would be the best macro, I like my macro with a large aperature (like 2.8) and a 4, at the largest, seems to have too large of a DOF for macro shots...

imho.

 

[$J-MAL$]

just kill yourself do us all a favor

 

[Ouch]

Hehe, all this talk about macro is funny in that, being an amature photographer, I'm not really doing a whole lot of macro-ing anyways. But, I thought I had read that some people like their Macro-ing with a little shred of DOF, and others stop down to f8-11 and get more of the image in focus. Maybe it depends on what is being photographed.