jimmix7 Loc: England

I bought the Nikon 50mm 1.4 and never use it, At 1.4 it is totally crap with lots of 'green fringing' ( and yes I have tried it on a tripod)I find my Sigma 70mm 2.8 much better on my D7100 and my D90.. The 50mm is another purchase I wish I had not made.
Jimmy

GPS Phil Loc: Dayton Ohio

The Nikon 35mm 1.8 @ about 200.00 is about the best bargain out there. Very, very sharp, and very good low light lens! Small enough to fit in about any pocket, you can always have it with you. The 35mm works out to about 50mm on your camera, and is about equivalent to what your eye see's.

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

The Sigma 70 f2.8 is one of their best.

GeorgeVee Loc: Staten Island NY

:thumbup: I agree

cthahn

Do you know what a prime lens is? A prime lens is a fast, fixed focal length lens. If you are old enough to have purchased a new film camera, the chances are it would have come with a 50mm f1.8 prime lens. It is the best all around lens that you should have. The lens is small, fast, better quality than any zoom lens, For Nikon, a DX 35mm, f 1.8, under $200. Do not let anyone talk you out of a prime lens, as if they do, they are not a very good photographer.

Edmund Dworakowski

If you need to ask if you need a f1.4 lens, you probably donn't !
I'd take a look at the most excellent Nikon 50 D or G f1.8 and 35 G 1.8 lenses. Both are sharp, fast and inexpensive... I particularly like my 35 f1.8 on my D300s...

peterg Loc: Santa Rosa, CA

I love my Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G lens. Has great reviews. The Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G lens is about half that of the f/1.4G and also has great reviews. Some prefer the f/1.8.
Zooms and primes each has their pros & cons.

TJ28012 Loc: Belmont, NC

I have both the Nikkor 50/1.8 and the 35/1.8 and prefer the 35 in most cases. Be sure that whatever you purchase has a motor in the lens as your D3100 body does not.

TJ28012 Loc: Belmont, NC

Sorry... D5100. Same issue.

Musket Loc: ArtBallin'

The 50mm AF-D 1.4 is known for having bad CA which can be corrected in Lightroom with 1 button push. A tripod wont fix CA but can be taken out with some editing. At F2 it loses almost all of that issue. If its the 50mm AF-G newer lens, then that sounds like a bad copy (and that does happen) and should be sent to Nikon. My 50mm G does not CA at all wide open.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

Sounds like you really want a zoom to cover the lower ranges. Your camera is an APS-C. Sigma has some new or lenses that look good. I am waiting delivery (later today according to UPS) of the 18-35 1.8 art series lens. A little bit pricey for me (but nothing compared to some of the Nikon glass.) The 1.8 is constant across the whole range so it is touted to replace several primes. They also have a 17-70 2.8-4 that is much improved over the older version I have used for a couple years and been relatively happy with. The 18-35 runs around $800.00 and the 17-70 around $500. Dpreview gives the 18-35 a gold award. And it is backordered nearly everywhere.
Here is the dpreview of the 18-35
http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/sigma-18-35-1-8
and the 17-70
http://www.dpreview.com/lensreviews/sigma-17-70mm-f2-8-4-os-hsm
Gotta love dpreview

Arca

Dear Maisy Mae,

As has already been said, a prime lens is not a zoom lens. It is a lens with a fixed focal length, e.g. 35 mm or 50 mm or 85 mm etc. These are always sharper than a zoom lens for reasons of optics and physics, which I won't get into now. Thus, if you want to take a really good photograph of something, anything, you would prefer to have a prime lens.

Having said that, if you have your heart set on a zoom lens, try to afford the more expensive ones with a fixed aperture throughout the length of the zoom. The lower the number, the faster the lens because of the larger the size of the glass allowing more light to enter and thus with larger glass comes a larger housing and with both larger glass and housing comes larger price and larger weight. If you can afford an XX mm to XXX mm at 2.8, it is a much better lens than the same xx mm to XXX mm at 3.5 to 5.6 even if made by the same manufacturer.

Some of the highest quality fixed/prime lenses are made by Zeiss for your Nikon. There is certainly sticker shock here, where you could easily spend $2,000 on a prime lens. And let's be real: wouldn't you expect or demand better clarity, higher contrast, better coatings, in short, closer to perfection with that lens than you would for a lens that cost only $600.00?

If photography is only a hobby, have fun and save the money. But if you are thinking about this becoming a profession, get the better glass, your reputation will ride on it.

Arca

WayneL Loc: Baltimore Md

Prime lens = Nikon 35mm G DX

Wall-E Loc: Phoenix, AZ

CA????

Musket Loc: ArtBallin'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_aberration


Nikons 50mm AF-d 1.4 suffers from this phenomenon in a lot of hard light/backlight situations when used at f1.4 a lot. Lightroom corrects it pretty good. It can really stand out in trees.

There are some cameras that apply an in-camera process that tries very hard to remove this, and it does a good job. It however cannot compensate for lenses that suffer from it in a hard way, the 50mm AF-D happens to suffer rather harshly from CA until about f2 when not only does that lens get sharp as a tack edge to edge, but loses almost all of the CA effect as well.

Its normal to have to deal with CA on older lenses. Todays current Nikon line up of AF-S/G glass doesnt suffer nearly as bad from CA thanks to new coatings/LD/ED elements.

My Nikkor 50mm f2 AI doesnt CA much, the 50mm 1.4 AIS does, the 50mm 1.2 AIS does a lot more, the 50mm 1.4 AF-D does a ton, the 50mm 1.8 AF-D does a bit until f2, and the 50mm 1.4 G doesnt CA much at 1.4 what little CA is seen is gone by f2 as well.