A short introduction about a Dslr lenses for me?
I'm new to photography. Can anybody teach me what camera lenses on a Nikon D5100 do? I mean I know the lenses are used to take the picture but how will it enhance the picture? I find some Slrs having a scope as if it was a gun attachment or something alike. How is this necessary?
I'm going to buy a dslr for an independent music video. I don't want to buy something I'll regret.
The D5100 could easily produce a 'music video'… In the right hands.
In all honesty you wouldn't regret buying the D5100… You might not enjoy the amount of work that's involved in learning how to get the best out of it… This is the problem nowadays… Cameras don't produce great material… It's the person operating it…
And you might not have what it takes to produce a decent video… And that's experience.
The only thing you use a scope for is aiming if you are doing astrophotography - shooting the stars and planets… Otherwise, you look through the eyepiece on an SLR and compose with the lens. That is why you own an SLR.
The camera lenses allow you to take photos. The camera itself houses the shutter, sensor, and electronics. Without a lens to focus light, it is useless. You pick a lens for what you need. A wide angle lens (low mm, like a 12, 16, 20mm lens) is wide angle, 'normal' range lenses are 35mm, 50mm, 80mm or so and are good for portraits. Telephoto lenses are longs, 100mm, 200mm, 400mm… And are used to magnify something far away.
Lenses also have a maximum opening, the aperture. The lower the f number, the wider the opening, and the more light that some in. So if you are shooing in a dimly lit club, a f/1.8 50mm lens, would be a better choice and than a lens that only opens to f/3.5 or so.
Zoom lenses cover a range, and can be fairly narrow, (16-35mm is common) or really long (28-300mm). In general, the greater the range, the poorer the optics. It is very difficult to make a lens that performs well over a huge range, so a superzoom will do OK over the whole range, but will be great no where. There are exceptions, but these lenses are very expensive.
I have a 16-35mm f/2.8, a 28-80mm f/2.8 and a 70-200 f/2.8, along with some prime (non-zoom) lenses.
Here is a list of all the current lenses made by Nikon.
You want to buy only AF-S lenses if you want to be able to auto-focus with your camera.
http://www.nikonusa.com/...index.page
This link will show you what various lenses "see"
http://imaging.nikon.com/.../index.htm
When shooting video, you need a few extra accessories.