Nikon SLR Cameras

Telephoto and macro lens advice for nikon dslr?

doctoragl
doctoragl

I think I have finally made up my mind: I'm going for the nikon d3100, which comes with a 18-55 VR lens. I would also like to get a telephoto lens (for my sports shots mainly) and a macro lens (for my super close ups of nature)… Of course I'm concerned about expense and quality. So I heard that sigma and tamron both make compatible lenses that work well. What specific lenses would you recommend that are high quality but don't cost too much of a fortune? Will they also have VR/stabilization built in? Is it possible to save money by buying the camera in some sort of "kit" with the lenses included (haven't found anything like that in my searching so far)? Thanks.

Added (1). What do you think of these lenses?
Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 DG Macro Telephoto Zoom Lens for Nikon SLR Cameras http://www.amazon.com/...B000A0UHXU

Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 DG APO Macro Motorized Telephoto Zoom Lens for Nikon SLR Cameras
http://www.amazon.com/...0012X61U2/

Picture Taker
Picture Taker

I recently started using the Nikon 28-300 VR lens for sports events and other subjects and it's a nice lens. You give up some on the wide end (as it's an FX lens), but gain on the tele end. Before that, I used the very nice Nikon 70-300 VR lens, which works great if you don't need to go wider than 70mm. I found that I had to do a lens swap at events when I used that lens and that's why I bought the 28-300 when it came out. The 70-300 VR is not terribly expensive, either. Nikon recently came out with a 55-300 VR lens that is a consumer graed lens. It reviews "okay," but it's ont exceptional. If you just want to get the shot, it will be fine, but if you are going to be critical about image quality, you might not be 100% satisfied. It's quite affordable, though.

I have no experience with modern Sigma or Tamron lenses, but I will just say that I have read good and bad. Don't get anything like a 15X zoom, as they are too much of a compromise and image quality suffers.

Nikon macro lenses are all good, but not cheap. I use the 60mm f/2.8D lens, but it won't autofocus on your camera. Most people don't rely on autofocus for macro anyhow. The near focus on both of the tele-zooms I mentioned is pretty good. You can't do true macro, but you can get some pretty darn close shots with them. Such as: and

28-300 samples:
70-300 samples:
60 macro samples

grandpa
grandpa

I have a D3100 too and if you are like me ( not a professional photographer or you may have bought a larger format camera) you will find the Nikon lenses to be affordable and just great. I bought a Nikon 55mm-200VR and almost bough a 70mm-300 but didn't think I would need it yet for my purposes. The VR matched lenses are in my humble opinion is the best choice. With my old Fuji manual camera I had many years ago I had a Soligor 80mm-200 and it was great but the mount doesn't fit Nikon.

I thought it was a Sigma. I checked and wanted to be accurate.