1 reply to this topic

[marley808]

I currently own a Nikon N80, and a digital Canon Powershot Pro1. I moved to the digital world about 2 years ago, and now I dearly miss the SLR. I am pretty set on buying the Nikon D80, but I am at a loss when it comes to lenses. It would be wonderful to be able to use my lenses on both SLR's, but I think that the cross over uses are limited. If anyone has any advise on buying DSLR or SLR lenses let me know. The first two lenses that I am looking to purchase is a Macro lens and a wide angle lens (any tips or suggestions would be appreciated). Thanks

[FiZZ]

I firmly believe that old lenses (those made for manual SLRs) have better quality glass and build, since they were made entirely of metal and high quality optics.

I miss the days when companies made the equipment for their beauty and not the quick buck.

First thing I recommend is finding a cool wide angle for your camera. By that I mean something that is still a wide angle even after the crop factor is taken into consideration.

Owning a Nikon D80 means you have a 1.6x crop factor.

What this means, is that any lens you get (unless its a DX lens) will be cropped by 1.6 times, and you will only be using the centre of the lens. This also effects the focal length. Say you get a 50mm lens, and you use it on the D80, the effective coverage of the lens will be equivalent to a lens that is 50x1.6, which equals roughly around 80mm.

That being said, a true wide angle on your D80 is a lens that equals 10-15 mm.

I recommend a Nikkor 24/28/35 mm lenses. These are quiet decent and fairly priced, and are fast enough to be used indoors for most situations.

I personally am biased towards the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8. This is a standard lens, and when put on the D80 will give you a view of 80mm. I found that to be sufficient outdoors, but a bit tight indoors. My favorite bit about the lens is that you can go up close to about 0.3 m, and it magnifies quite beautifully.

With a macro kit, you can get great macro shots.

Best of luck.