Nikon Lenses for d3100 for beginners?
I have bought a d3100 recently and this is my very first DSLR camera. I would like to get into photography as a hobbie and I was wondering where I can purchase cheap lenses, they don't have to be great brands or quality, even used because I would like to experiment and learn before I splash some cash on decent ones when I'm financially able to do so. Thnak you very much in advance!
Links, and information will be appreciated!
If you wanted cheap lenses then you bought the wrong camera.
The cheapest ones will be secondhand Nikon mount lenses, but some will fit but be incompatible to various degrees.
Honestly, buying lenses twice is a foolish waste. Save up for the best ones you can afford and in the meantime you can buy and use a perfectly good superzoom bridge camera for less than the price of a lower priced, poor image quality, third party, lens. The whole point of investing in the Nikon system is that you can build a collection of excellent lenses as and when you need and can afford them, and that you can then eventually upgrade or replace your budget model body when you need to, safe in the knowledge that you'll already have glass good enough to plug onto the front of it.
The 18-55mm kit lens is provided for good reason
Get to know somebit about photography, get to know your gear
It should be sufficient to keep you busy for quite awhile, maybe even years
Eventually you will know what you are missing and can decide on what exact you need to get
Get off your a**e, get moving… Start clicking!
Did you not buy the camera with the 18-55mm kit lens? That should be all the lens you need for now. Compliment it with a AF-S Nikkor 35mm f1.8G DX when you've mastered the basics of exposure and composition.
I know where others are coming from when they say you should get to know your 18-55mm lens first, but it's kind of frustrating to buy a DSLR which has as one of its major selling points that it takes a wide range of interchangeable lenses, only to be told that you aren't ready for that yet!
The Nikon 50-200mm VR lens is a very good choice as a second lens for your camera. That would give you quite a bit of extra zoom at not too high a price. It is about £160 new at the moment at Amazon.co.uk or you should be able to pick one up off ebay for under £100.
If you decide you need something longer or better later on then it should hold quite a lot of its value for sale on ebay or part exchange, as you can see if you look at current ebay prices.
Cheapest new price I can see at the moment is just under £160 at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/...hotogr-21/
For its price it is actually a very good lens - pretty sharp, reasonably quick autofocus despite the relatively slow maximum aperture and the VR helps keep the shakes away at the long end.
Make sure you do get the VR version. The non-VR version is not much cheaper and it really is worth paying the extra for the Vibration Reduction system.
There are plenty of good reviews around. For example:
http://www.photozone.de/...st-report/
The 18-55mm lens you have is also very good for a kit lens. Combined with the 55-200mm VR that will give you 18-200mm, which is a very useful 11x total zoom range. That should keep you going for a while.