Suggestions on wide angle lense for the D3000?

riwa

New member
I bought a 50mm 1.8G lens a little while ago and since my kit lenses have been kind of obsolete. They dont provide nearly the sharpness Im after. So I went to the store only to realize most prime lenses with wide angles are quite expensive. Im quite new to all this but I would like to take some wider night shots without spending a ridiculous amount of money. The 35mm wont give me what Im after and the 20mm is too expensive for my budget.

If anyone could give me some pointers I would appreciate it.
 

Felisek

Senior Member
Sigma 17-50 f/2.8 is an excellent lens and in terms of sharpness it can compete with most primes. It is also reasonably priced. I find the range of 17-50 mm to be very useful on a DX camera for general photography.

Mind you, to make the best of this lens you might need to adjust the focus. I don't suppose it is possible with D3000. If you find that your copy shows some back- or front-focusing, you can probably send it to Sigma (together with your camera) for calibration. I haven't done it but I've heard Sigma are quite good at it.
 

riwa

New member
Thanks for all the replies. I think my budget for this lense is around 300 euros. As I'm new to this I don't want to spend too much money before I know what I really need. But I know I want a wide angle lense. I was gunning for a prime but its not written in stone. The focal length I want is kinda the widest possible with the least distortion. To me this seems to be somewhere between 18 and 25 on my cropped sensor. Hope this does clarify some
 

aroy

Senior Member
Thanks for all the replies. I think my budget for this lense is around 300 euros. As I'm new to this I don't want to spend too much money before I know what I really need. But I know I want a wide angle lense. I was gunning for a prime but its not written in stone. The focal length I want is kinda the widest possible with the least distortion. To me this seems to be somewhere between 18 and 25 on my cropped sensor. Hope this does clarify some
If you want it between 18 and 25, in my opinion the best and the least expensive option is to sell off your D3000 and its kit lense and get a D3300 with its kit lens. The new 18-55 is a wonderful piece of glass - small, light and quite sharp. You cannot get any better for twice the price. The D3300+kit lense is a fantastic kit and a very low cost - 650g, 24MP, 5fps and a long battery life. Here in India the kit is selling with bag and 8GB card for less than US$500/.
 

riwa

New member
Yes I was actually thinking about getting the D3300 without the kit lens after I bought my wide angle lens. The sharpness of my kit lense compared to my prime is ridiculous, so I thought only a prime lense will provide the same same sharpness as my 50mm 1.8G (unless I would be willing to spend a lot more money). But if you say that the kit lense on the 3300 is that much better it might be a viable option.

The sigma 10-20 also seems very interesting on paper. The aperture is quite small but if it is as sharp as you say it might just do the trick. Unfortunately they dont have it in the stores in town, I already checked all their lenses in this range, so I dont have any means of testing it.

The 20mm 1.8 i found in the store seemed quite perfect but at over 700 euros its not an option.
 
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aroy

Senior Member
One option that you can consider, if most of your shots are going to be wide especially in low light, is to get a current full frame body. Then automatically the 24mm on FF has the same FOV as 16mm of DX and 16mm the same FOV as a 10mm on DX.

Lenses cost a quite a bit, and good wide angles a lot of it. So in my opinion, look at the total lifetime cost of the body+lens while upgrading. Hanging on to a $300 body and spending thousands of dollars of lenses makes very little economic sense in today's digital world. With a newer body you get less noise at high ISO and in most cases more resolution, which translates to faster shooting in low light and ability to crop out more (or in another words make more sense of smaller objects).

With FF body you can use the older AIS wide angles, some of which are at par or better than the current glass, except for AF. Good lenses will last the lifetime, while bodies keep upgradinf fast (between 1 and 5 years)
 
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