Being new what should I expect from my lens?

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CharmedLife

New member
Hi All,

I have a D3100 with the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-S Nikkor Zoom Lens. I hear it's not that great of a lens but it's what came with the camera so...

Can you guys tell me what to expect as far as limitations or issues so that I know it's not me making the mistakes?

Thanks!
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4

480sparky

Senior Member
It's not the fastest lens Nikon makes, but the optics really aren't that bad. The rotating filter threads is a minus, especially if you use a CPL.
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
CharmedLife said:
Hi All,

I have a D3100 with the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-S Nikkor Zoom Lens. I hear it's not that great of a lens but it's what came with the camera so...

Can you guys tell me what to expect as far as limitations or issues so that I know it's not me making the mistakes?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
There's nothing *wrong* with the lens you have it's just that there are so many *better* options. The 18-55mm has very good image quality. Not great but quite good. It's not particularly fast -- with a maximum aperture of f/3.5 at 18mm and closing down to f/5.6 at 55mm -- so it's not going to be a great choice if the light starts to get scarce, if you're shooting indoors or want to get really blurry background bokeh in your shots.

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C

CharmedLife

New member
Thank you and yes I've read where it's not too good in low light settings. And being a novice, can I also assume, too what you said about "It's not particularly fast" is that I won't be able to take shots at rapid speed like perhaps in a action shot where time is precious?
 
SkvLTD

SkvLTD

Senior Member
I think I can think of a new phrase here - if you got an entry body with the kit lens, don't worry about it until you can certainly tell what it's lacking for what you need. Play around if you have money to spend, and oldies aren't a bad idea here either.
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
CharmedLife said:
Thank you and yes I've read where it's not too good in low light settings. And being a novice, can I also assume, too what you said about "It's not particularly fast" is that I won't be able to take shots at rapid speed like perhaps in a action shot where time is precious?
Click to expand...
When a photographer talks about how "fast" a lens is, they are referring to the maximum aperture which, somewhat counter-intuitively, is expressed as the smallest number. For instance f/2 is "faster" than f/5.6 which is "faster" than f/8. Faster apertures, like f/1.4 or f/2.0, are generally considered desirable.

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M

Moab Man

Senior Member
It will be quite a bit down the road, with constant practice, that it will no longer be you holding the lens back. Initially everyone thinks it must be the lens as to why your photos aren't as good as you expect. It's actually lack of proper technique and practice followed up by your editing skills. The key is to shoot edit, shoot edit, shoot edit and it will come to you.

Welcome to the forum.
 
A

aroy

Senior Member
The lense is quite good, thought the later iterations are slightly better. As long as your hands are steady and the light is good, you can expect great images. Shoot RAW and you can adjust your images to produce stunning results, much better than you can if you shoot jpeg.

If you have not, download the View NX-II for viewing and converting your RAW images. You can also download and install Capture NX-D for post processing your RAW images.
 
D

Don Kuykendall_RIP

RIP :(
aroy said:
The lense is quite good, thought the later iterations are slightly better. As long as your hands are steady and the light is good, you can expect great images. Shoot RAW and you can adjust your images to produce stunning results, much better than you can if you shoot jpeg.

If you have not, download the View NX-II for viewing and converting your RAW images. You can also download and install Capture NX-D for post processing your RAW images.
Click to expand...

Just remember that if you do decide to shoot RAW then you MUST do post processing and sharpen the photos before you use them. Just shooting RAW and changing them to JPEG will give you a worse photo than shooting JPEG to begin with.

If you are shooting JPEG and are not ready to move up to post processing please let us know because there are setting in your camera you need to change to get the best results.

RAW with good post processing skills is the best way to go when you are ready to move up.
 
J

J-see

Senior Member
I've shot quite some with that lens and can't say I ever complained about the quality of photos. More often than not, all quality they lacked originated in me as the photographer. Quality is often only a matter of comparison. Once you put better quality next to our current quality, in many cases that current suddenly becomes bad quality even while we were perfectly happy with it before.

It's like with monitors. If you always worked on a 17" and then suddenly experience the pleasure of a 21", returning to the 17 feels as if you suddenly require a microscope. You can go forward easily but it's very hard to step back.

I liked the lens but it's a bit short for some shots and I had some issues inside when light was low and I didn't want to use the flash. But all in all it's a good lens to start out with.

Remember that the quality of some of the photos you see elsewhere has often more to do with processing than with the actual lens.
 
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RON_RIP

Senior Member
You will read a lot on this site about the quality of this or that lens. But keep in mind that these are evaluations of folks with sometimes thousands of hours of experience and some of the differences that they point out about various lenses are sometimes very minute. Most Nikon lenses will give you good results once you master the lens and your camera. I ,too, over the years, have flitted from lens to lens and can tell you that in most cases it was my bad technique that kept me from getting the results I wanted. So work with the lens you have until your technique is perfected and you outgrow the lens or need longer lenses or specialty lens to perform given tasks like macro. You will save yourself a lot of money if you do not hop from lens to lens.
 
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