Can I purchase a Tamron lens for Nikon D5100? - 1
I planned to purchase Nikon D5100(body) DSLR, also my plan is to buy a Tamron lens (Model: Tamron AF 18-200mm F_3.5-6.3 XR Di-II LD Aspherical (IF) Macro for Nikon Digital SLR Lens) for D5100. I don't know much technical things about the 3rd party lens for D5100. I need to know which lenses are the best one for Nikon, within the above mentioned Tamron lens price. Please assist me.
Sure, you can buy any compatible lens that is compliant with Nikkor AF-S compliant (internal auto-focus motor)
The best third party lenses for Nikon cameras are the Tokina, followed by Sigma.
Certain lenses made by Sigma and Tamron can outperform each other, but unfortunally there are not not any real lists of which is which.
I suggest you save your pennies until you can budget for the Nikkor 18-200 mm lens
Sigma, Tamron and Tokina each make some fine lenses, but also many that are not so good. These brands each seem to specialize a bit on certain types of lenses. Especially Tamron is popular for its fast standard zooms, the 17-50mm/2.8 is an excellent lens for a good price. But other lens types are usually better when done by Nikon, Tokina and Sigma.
As a rule of thumb, these are the brands that i'd choose from for each type of lens:
Ultra wide angle: Nikon, Tokina, Sigma
Standard zoom: Nikon
Fast standard zoom (17-55mm/2.8 or similar): Nikon, Tamron (Sigma is ok but Tamron is a more popular choice here)
Prime lenses: Nikon, perhaps Sigma
Macro: Nikon, Sigma, Tokina
Telephoto: Nikon, Sigma
Superzoom (18-200mm): Nikon and most definitely nothing else.
You could buy a Tamron lens, but it will not be as good as a Nikon lens.
You should invest in the Nikon 18-200 DX VR or a 35mm f1.8
Of course you can.
Just make sure the Tamron lens you get has a Nikon mount. I'm pretty sure the IF means it will autofocus with the D5100.
Here's a warning though. Super zoom lenses like that are very poor optically. It would be better to chop that focal range into at least two lenses, 18-55mm and 75-200mm. You can even opt to go for a 75-300mm instead of the latter. The best of course would be to use single focal lenses but that would be too expensive for someone just starting (I assume).
http://keerok-photography.blogspot.com/2011/05/lenses-so-many-of-them-there-is-no-best.html
http://keerok-photography.blogspot.com/2011/05/third-party-lenses.html
http://www.kenrockwell.com/...s.htm#dslr
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/...rtclk=sort