Hi all, I wonder if you can give me some advice on which lens to buy for my very particular purpose. This is what I want it for:
I have an art shop: paintings as well as 3D-objects. Pictures on my website are increasingly important, so some years ago I bought a Nikon D60 (I'm on a very tight budget!) and used it with my age-old lenses, mainly the 50mm kit-lense, as this seemed, with a DX camera, a nice length for my purpose. I have to point out that I do not (or hardly) care for anything being automated; as getting the lighting and camera position right may take me from 5 minutes to an hour, even using a measuring tape for the distance wouldn't be too much of an additional hassle And of course time is no object either, with the old but rock solid tripod I use.
Increasingly, however, I am not satisfied with the results. Take the colors. You might well think that those uncalibrated computer screens are so far off anyway that it doesn't matter much, but that's not true at all. For instance, very subtle color-variations - often essential for the painting - sometimes don't show up, even though the eye can clearly see them in the original. I learned to work with raw-pictures, which helped but not enough. Also, 10 Mpix is not a lot these days. (I use the 'Zoomify' system on my site, so visitors can zoom in to very fine detail.)
So I decided I want to do better. As you'll have gathered, I'm not much of a photography buff; I do not even know WHY those subtle color-differences do not show up. Nevertheless, after reading the reviews I more-or-less settled on a good deal I could get for the D3200. However it comes with the 18-55mm lense and from the reviews I gather this does no justice to the quality of the sensor. So, I'm looking for the best (prime) lense for my purpose. I stress again that I'm only concerned with the quality (detail, color, distortion) in optimal circumstances. My best deal might be a modern AF-S DX lense, or it might be a second-hand lense of 30 years old - I wouldn't know, especially as I can't find any tests comparing those new and old lenses, at least not on the points I value most.
Can you help me?
I have an art shop: paintings as well as 3D-objects. Pictures on my website are increasingly important, so some years ago I bought a Nikon D60 (I'm on a very tight budget!) and used it with my age-old lenses, mainly the 50mm kit-lense, as this seemed, with a DX camera, a nice length for my purpose. I have to point out that I do not (or hardly) care for anything being automated; as getting the lighting and camera position right may take me from 5 minutes to an hour, even using a measuring tape for the distance wouldn't be too much of an additional hassle And of course time is no object either, with the old but rock solid tripod I use.
Increasingly, however, I am not satisfied with the results. Take the colors. You might well think that those uncalibrated computer screens are so far off anyway that it doesn't matter much, but that's not true at all. For instance, very subtle color-variations - often essential for the painting - sometimes don't show up, even though the eye can clearly see them in the original. I learned to work with raw-pictures, which helped but not enough. Also, 10 Mpix is not a lot these days. (I use the 'Zoomify' system on my site, so visitors can zoom in to very fine detail.)
So I decided I want to do better. As you'll have gathered, I'm not much of a photography buff; I do not even know WHY those subtle color-differences do not show up. Nevertheless, after reading the reviews I more-or-less settled on a good deal I could get for the D3200. However it comes with the 18-55mm lense and from the reviews I gather this does no justice to the quality of the sensor. So, I'm looking for the best (prime) lense for my purpose. I stress again that I'm only concerned with the quality (detail, color, distortion) in optimal circumstances. My best deal might be a modern AF-S DX lense, or it might be a second-hand lense of 30 years old - I wouldn't know, especially as I can't find any tests comparing those new and old lenses, at least not on the points I value most.
Can you help me?