BlueMorel Loc: Southwest Michigan

I have a 18-55 mm lens that came with my camera (Canon Rebel) and bought a 50 mm f-1.8 to take better closeups. I can tell you the 50 mm. is OK for a prime but I often wish I also had the 70-300 for landscapes or farther-away closeups, esp. this time of year. The 50 is known as the "nifty fifty" for its versatility and it's a great closeup and portrait lens, good sharp images, not too expensive, easy to find refurb or used. It also focuses well for landscapes but with its "normal" view you don't get the foreshortening that the telephoto does, so faraway hills look faraway. Sort of like your own eyes looking at the landscape, same effect.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

Rab-Eye Loc: Indiana

And Nikon's version of that lens is a great bargain!

jnuss

One of the most used prime lenses in my collection is the 50 1.8. For a relatively inexpensive lens, it never disappoints. If you have a friend who is a Nikon user, he'll have one. Ask him if you can take
a few shots with it. Almost every other prime that Nikon offers is pricier.

steve03 Loc: long Lsland

when I use a prime lens I say I'm zooming with my feet.

GKarl Loc: Northern New Hampshire

I recently purchased an 85mm 1.8 Nikon for my D 7000 and find it is exceptionally sharp. I was surprised at how effective it was at a Cirque du Soleil event in Montreal.

moonhawk Loc: Land of Enchantment

The man is not a beginner. Just new to digital, and crop sensors . He would be fine with a prime. I think he knows what he wants.

appealnow Loc: Dallas, Texas

I went with the 35 mm f/1.8 for my prime for my D5300. It's equivalent to a 52 mm full frame.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

That seems to be your standard excuse for not using prime lenses. You cannot, of course, zoom with your feet if your subject is far away.

However, if your subject is nearby, it makes a lot of sense, especially with normal to wide angle lenses.

A normal or wide angle prime lens has many advantages over a zoom ens: it's lighter, smaller, less expensive, often more robust, usually has better resolution, has less distortion and usually a wider maximum aperture so it works better in low light and can focus more accurately. And your need for autofocus goes down as your focal length drops.

Buying a high resolution camera and then handicapping it with a low performance zoom lens is the ultimate giveaway that you are a beginner.

Unless you are hampered by a physical handicap (or you are just too lazy) there is no reason not to adjust your composition by stepping closer or farther from the subject.

r.grossner Loc: Rockford IL & Sarasota FL

A faster 24 or 35mm prime would suit a crop frame camera. Check out B&H used stuff. I would stay with Nikkor myself.

ltcarizona

Talk to any good eye doctor a 35mm DX is not going to give you a normal field of view. Articles on this are greatly misstated. A persons field of view could be as wide as 24mm to 50mm. It is all based on your eyes. The 35mm can offer maybe the most normal perspective for you but that is it. Do not short change yourself. I can usually see as wide as 24-28 in many cases. One good example is in caves. Hope this helps your decision making.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

On your DX/APS-C camera...

A 50mm lens would serve as a short, fast telephoto... Typically an f/1.8 or f/1.4 lens, it would be nice for low light shooting and/or shallow depth of field effects.

An 85mm f/2, f/1.8 or f/1.4 can be a nice, somewhat longer telephoto and great for portraits or concerts, but it duplicates focal lengths you already have covered with your 70-300mm zoom.

A 28mm, 30mm or 35m lens would serve more as a "normal" (i.e., not especially wide nor telephoto).

Or a 24mm or shorter focal length can provide you a wide angle of view. (There aren't a lot of really wide primes for APS-C cameras... most are zooms).

Frankly, if the 70-300mm is your only lens now, for now you might want to complement it with a "standard zoom" instead of a prime. I am not very familiar with what's available for Nikon... but in my Canon system I might choose their 15-85mm for it's versatility or their 17-55mm f/2.8 if I wanted to have lower light capabilities. Both those Canon are excellent, but of course won't work on your Nikon camera. So look for similar in the Nikon system. Note that for larger apertures there is almost always considerably less range of focal lengths in a zoom lens.

Later you might identify specific prime focal lengths that you'd like to have in your kit for various purposes and can add those lenses then.

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

I suggest a 50mm f./1.8 or f./1.4 (if you will do available light shots indoors with no supplemental lighting). We old guys are started with that view (supposed to equate to the human vision area) and learned to find the images that we could capture with good effect. It was a tough school, never wide enough and never tight enough, but it made us see as the camera was recording. With the plethora of zooms and fixed focal lengths in today's world you don't learn to see the image as your mind would see it through 50mm. It's a good experiment to live with only a 50mm (or 35mm for the DX format body) for a while and learn to capture with that limited range Field of View. Then, you will appreciate more what the wider and longer lenses really do for you and use them more creatively (from my experience).

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

But the process is different. When I stand in one spot and zoom, I preserve the perspective and change the framing. When I "zoom with my feet" I change the perspective as well as the framing, because they are chained together in a prime lens. Personally, I really like the freedom that comes from being able to make the two decisions independently of each other.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida