Help nikon lens experts?
Thanks so much to everyonr who kindly helped me so far… Basically I have the new nikon D3100 and i need a portrait lens (massive aperture etc)… I want a top range one. I would LOVE a suggestion as ti what ine to buy… I'm a little confused as ti what one is best. Please help… And please explain which F or D or whatever mount i need for the d3100… Thanks
Forget F, D, or whatever
Look for AF-S lenses. Any and all AF-S and AF-I lenses will work with your camera
http://www.nikonusa.com/...index.page
That means that the portrait lens you need is the Nikkor AF-S 50 mm f/.14 or f/1.8
Right, Nikon has been making SLR cameras since 1959, the lens mount (called the F-mount) has remained almost identical since then. In order to keep the lenses up to date, the lens mount has been through a number of generations.
The earliest was Pre-AI, these lenses relied on the "rabbit ears" to tell the camera the lens information, these lenses won't fit onto a D3100.
AI (and the derivative AI-S) came next, this meant you didn't have to go through a hasslesome lens change procedure, and these lenses will fit onto your D3100, however you won't have any metering.AI-P was brought in at the end of the AI era, which will give you metering, as these lenses have a CPU.
AF was brought in in the late 1980s, this is the first generation autofocus lens made by Nikon. These lenses will behave like AI-P (i.e.manual focus), on a D3100 as your camera doesn't have an autofocus motor built into the body.
AF-S/AF-I, it soon became apparent that in-lens autofocus motors were far superior to in-body focus motors, these lenses began to replace the complicated system implemented from the original AF lenses. These lenses give you full functionality with your D3100.
Other markings:
D - this just indicates distance information given by the lens.
G - newest type of lenses, don't have aperture ring
DX - image circle covers only a DX sized sensor
FX - image circle covers a full frame sensor
ED - extra low dispersion glass
IF - internal focusing lenses, focus is faster and you often have full time manual override in autofocus lenses.
If you wanted a specialist portrait lens, you will really want the DC-Nikkor 105mm f2.0 D, or DC-Nikkor 135mm f2.0 D, these are specialist Defocus Control (hence DC) lenses targetted mainly at portrait photographers, they are AF era lenses, so you'll have to manual focus these lenses but they are specially designed for portraiture. Forget about the 85mm f1.4 or 50mm f1.4, they are nothing compared to the DC-Nikkors.
Http://keerok-photography.blogspot.com/2011/05/lenses-so-many-of-them-there-is-no-best.html
It doesn't matter what you choose, F or D. Both will work. If you can't survive without autofocus, get AF-S or AF-I only. Your choices for portraits are as follows.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/...rtclk=sort
The best is this.