Right so at some point in the future I want to get myself as sharp a budget lens as possible for my D3200. The kit lens is OK but I want to unleash the full potential of the 24MP sensor, so I'm looking for something affordable (and not necessarily Nikkor) that has superior optics. I'm not in any hurry to buy; just interested to hear people's opinions and experiences. I used to be a Canon guy using a lot of Canon and Sigma lenses, but now that I'm in the Nikon camp I feel like I'm a complete novice where gear is concerned. What lenses do you use and what's sharpest? I already know about the 50mm 1.8 which gets Pookyhead's approval, but I don't particularly like 50mm on crop bodies; I'd prefer something shorter. The 35mm 1.8 seems to be very good like the 50mm, but I'll wait to hear people's input. I'd prefer to keep the cost below £100 if possible, which is tough for good glass, I know!
Carl Zeiss Flektagon 35mm f2.4 is pretty much as sharp as you can get for that budget. It's a quality piece of glass. It'll be £150+ on a buy it now, but can be had for under £100 on auctions.
You will be able to get the same Sigma lenses in Nikon fit Just slightly over your budget at £140, but the Nikon AF-S 35mm f1.8 is a great lens on a crop sensor body. My gf uses it as her general walk about lens and it's comparable to the 50mm f1.8 on full frame.
Thanks guys. I checked out the Zeiss lens (and others) and it's looking very good indeed. However I'm increasingly tempted by the 35mm 1.8 since I can easily get it for around £100 on ebay, the IQ is very good, and I get both AF and metering guaranteed. I'm not inclined to go back to Sigma because 1) their quality control is disgraceful, and 2) the optics don't really justify the price IMO. I'd have to fork out at least £200 on a prime, and there's just no point given the price of the 35mm. I also checked out some Vivitar lenses and they can go for very little and would be excellent for video recording...
Have a look at the MC Rokkor 50mm f1.4 too. It's incredible. Very characterful Bokeh, very sharp, even wide open. Can be had for under £40
Nikkor 35mm f1.8G. Standard lens on DX. Pin sharp... no nasty surprises.. just a great lens. The Zeiss Flektagon is manual focus... you're aware of that, right? Whilst I'm prepared to be corrected, isn't it also M42 mount? If so, you'd need an adaptor, and could have infinity focus problems. You'll probably lose matrix metering too... check your manual. Silly idea... as it's not even that great a lens actually. The Nikkor 35mm 108G will kick it's ass.
Yeah you're right - the Flektogon would be MF, which wasn't a big deal as I disable AF when shooting video anyway, however the lack of metering would be a big problem so I'm pretty set on the Nikkor 35mm... just have to start setting some money aside for it. For now I'm surviving with the cheap and cheerful kit lens which is actually not bad at all... only it'd be nicer to have something fast for all the indoors footage I'm shooting (in a deliberately dimly lit room, no less). Oh, and yes, the Flecktogon is M42, so lots of reasons not to get it lol.
On what are you basing that opinion? I adore mine. It's ultra sharp with zero aberrations or flare, barely any distortion and is a dream to focus and set.
A wee update... a very kind friend has loaned me his 50mm 1.8D an so far I'm totally loving it. Although I'm intending to use it primarily for video, I'm really enjoying doing some MF photography with it as well. f/1.8 is a challenge but as long as the subject is close it's totally doable. Seeing that I can pick this lens up for £60ish on ebay, I think I'd probably sooner get it than go for the 35mm, mainly because if I ever upgrade my body to a D7100 or something FX, I'll immediately inherit the AF capability and the "proper" focal length of the lens. I want to see how this lens fares at, say, f/9 or f/11 in terms of resolution, so I'll try and grab some snaps today which will showcase the lens (and, to an extent, the D3200 sensor).
So here's a quick sharpness test at f/11 using hyperfocal distance, although not strictly measured so the focus is definitely not spot-on, but close. This lens is insanely sharp, considering that this is on a crop body and therefore not using as much of the glass as a full frame body would use. There was no processing of the JPG crop to adjust sharpness, colour or contrast... straight conversion from RAW to JPG, cropped and saved. I really need to do some environmental photography with this lens!
Slightly off topic but I recently got a 3200 too. It's my first real camera and I'm getting to grips with it slowly. That lens looks nice.
Yep, great entry level camera and great lens, however if you're just starting out I'd definitely suggest getting the AF-S version which has a built in autofocus motor. AFAIK they're virtually identical optically.
I bought the 35mm 1.8g for my D5100 and love it. Pretty much my standard lens except for landscapes and car shows where I need the wider angles! If you do lots of people shots,especially indoors, its great.
I can't really offer much in the way of lens suggestions unfortunately as I simply don't have enough experience. I can confirm the prowess of the f1.8 as a friend also has one, great budget lens. I do have a question though. I noticed you mentioned you're shooting a fair bit of indoors video in low light, how's that treating you? I'm currently rocking a d3200 also and have been trying to get to grips with the video, but I've found it really grainy, no matter the settings or lighting I choose? I've tried in bright light, dark, indoors, outdoors, tripod, handheld you name it, but they all yield similar noisy results. I've checked in the settings to see if I'm recording at a lower quality or similar but apparently I'm not. If you're getting good results I would be very interested in what methods you're using. I feel like the video should be better than what I'm shooting, meaning it's likely user error rather than a camera problem.
The main setting responsible for image quality (photo or video) is ISO speed, which is directly related to the quality of light that you are shooting with. If you are shooting in bright (eg daylight level) light, ISO 200 is perfect, and that's what I've tried to use when shooting video. What you may consider "bright" indoors is significantly darker than outside; it's just that your eyes adjust and the lights can feel very glaring. I've got a nice halogen bulb that is basically a floodlight (lol) and it's still orders of magnitute dimmer than direct sunlight. I found exactly the same as you have found - that the video quality really suffers in low light, and sadly that is just the mark of an entry-level camera. Very high level cameras will yield better quality results, however it's still important to have as much light available as you can. Where possible I tried to shoot in daylight and I found that at 1080p the image quality is very good but still needed tweaked in PP.
