What can I do with Nikon NIKKOR AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8G lens?

Question

What can I do with Nikon NIKKOR AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8G lens? I am thinking of buying one.

Is this lens a good choice? Could anyone suggest a good lens for me? I have 18-55mm kit lens which came with my Nikon D5000.

Asked by ParagM

Answer

According to numerous reviews and Nikon forums, this lens belongs to so-called Nikon's Dream Team and, as Alen above said, it's a must have.

Firstly, it's a really bright and fast prime lens with a rather unusual focal length. Most importantly, you can get this lens for a very reasonable price. The lens is really small and light but well built. The f/1.8 aperture lets in a lot of light so you can shoot with a very fast shutter and that's why people say that prime lenses are 'fast'.

Secondly, the DOF (depth of field) you can achieve with this lens is really shallow compared to kit lenses with a typical f/3.5 aperture. This means that you will be able to blur the background of your image in order to make your subject stand out and even experiment with bokeh. Also, you will be able to achieve good quality images even in low-light situations.

Finally, it's a prime lens, which means that there is no zoom. Prime lenses are ideal for portraits but a typical portrait focal length is 50-80mm and above. The longer focal length, however, implies smaller field of view so you will have to step back to get a decent field of view and frame your subject. This lens, on the other hand, is more versatile. Its 35mm focal length means that you don't have to step back a lot from your subjects and you will be able to use it indoors in tight conditions.

I've had this lens for about 2 years and have to say I wouldn't change it for anything else.

Answered by Greg

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What can I do with Nikon NIKKOR AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8G lens? I am thinking to buy one

Question

What can I do with Nikon NIKKOR AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8G lens? I am thinking to buy one.

Is this a good choice? Suggest me some good lens. I have 18-55mm default lens which came with Nikon D5000.

Asked by ParagM

Answer

According to numerous reviews and Nikon forums, this lens belongs to so-called Nikon's Dream Team and, as Alen above said, it's a must have.

Firstly, it's a really bright and fast prime lens with a rather unusual focal length. Most importantly, you can get this lens for a very reasonable price. The lens is really small and light but well built. The f/1.8 aperture lets in a lot of light so you can shoot with a very fast shutter and that's why people say that prime lenses are 'fast'.

Secondly, the DOF (depth of field) you can achieve with this lens is really shallow compared to kit lenses with a typical f/3.5 aperture. This means that you will be able to blur the background of your image in order to make your subject stand out and even experiment with bokeh. Also, you will be able to achieve good quality images even in low-light situations.

Finally, it's a prime lens, which means that there is no zoom. Prime lenses are ideal for portraits but a typical portrait focal length is 50-80mm and above. The longer focal length, however, implies smaller field of view so you will have to step back to get a decent field of view and frame your subject. This lens, on the other hand, is more versatile. Its 35mm focal length means that you don't have to step back a lot from your subjects and you will be able to use it indoors in tight conditions.

I've had this lens for about 2 years and have to say I wouldn't change it for anything else.

Answered by Greg

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Will I regret buying an older lens that doesn't autofocus or have image stabilization with my Nikon D5000?

Question

I am planning to buy a Nikon Normal AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D Autofocus Lens.

It doesn't autofocus on the D5000 but for the price, I think it's a good choice of lens for portrait.

What do you think? Will I regret the fact that it doesn't have AutoFocus, neither VR?

Answer

VR: I don't think VR matters at all for portraits, where you can control the lighting to make sure you have a suitably fast shutter speed (1/125 or 1/250) to avoid blur due to camera shake.

AF: This depends on how good you are at focusing manually. For portraits with shallow depth of field (wide aperture), it's critical to make sure that one or both of the eyes is in perfect focus. If you can do this manually, then by all means, go for the manual focus lens.

Before buying, you can try manually focusing on one of the lenses you already have, and then check your focus by looking at the full-size image on your computer. I often find that I've missed by a bit when focusing manually, but some people are quite good.

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How do I select a focus point on the Nikon D5000?

Question

My Nikon D5000 has 11 selectable focus points but shamefully I don't know how to choose another point other than the center point.

How can I do this?

Am I misunderstanding concepts?

Answer

First you need to set the AF area mode to Single or Dynamic on your LCD display. Then you select the point using the D-pad. You can quickly return to the centre point by pressing the OK button.

The difference between Single and Dynamic is that Single keeps the focus point wherever you put it, whereas Dynamic will try and automatically keep the object originally focused on in focus by selecting other focus points automatically.

Also note that if your metering mode is set to Matrix or Center-Weighted, you are still metering the whole scene (with a center bias in CW's case), not the selected focus point. Set your metering to Spot to meter from the selected point.

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Can I use the on-camera flash along with an off-camera SB-700 on my Nikon D5000?

Question

I recently bought an SB-700 flash for my D5000 and I was wondering what would be my options to use this as an off-camera flash along with the on-camera flash.

Is it possible? TTL cable, wireless transmitter, whatever...

Answer

Yes, using the on-camera-flash in manual power setting and the SB-700 in SU-4 optical slave mode.

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How to Force my Nikon D5000 to take a photo in low light?

Question

Every so often I try to take a picture in low light, usually indoors and find that my camera attempts to focus, grumbles a bit and then refuses to take the shot.

This is annoying, not least because I entered the bewildering and expensive world of dSLR photography precisely so I could get away from the 'point and shoot' paradigm and its restrictions and thought that a dSLR would give me total control over what I wanted to shoot. I might still want to take the picture whether I think the light is poor or not...

Am I missing something here - is there some kind of override setting or have i inadvertently snookered myself out of five hundred quid?

Answer

It is simply too dark for the camera to focus. And by default it will refuse to take the shot unless it has focused.

There are some possible workarounds: - Some cameras can be forced to take the shot when you press the button, no matter what. The inevitable result is an unsharp photo. I don't suppose that this is what you want.

• I assume that you are using the kit lens, an 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 kind of job? The downside to this type of lens is that it doesn't let in a whole lot of light, which makes the autofocus system's job more difficult. A faster lens, such as a 35mm or 50mm f/1.8 will do wonders for autofocus performance.

• Be aware that autofocus depends on focusing something that has a bit of contrast. If you point it towards a blank wall, it will most likely simply hunt and hunt and never lock on. Poor light makes this worse. Instead, point it at a part of the motive that has good contrast against the background, this will make the AF's job easier.

• Manual focus. The viewfinder of the entry-level cameras tend to be tunnel-like but you will at least get a photo this way.

• Use a flash, either the built-in one or an external one. External flashes, at least the larger models, can project a grid-pattern on to the motive to aid focusing. The built-in ones tend to strobe a number of times I think, which is not all about red-eye reduction but also helps focusing. (I am not familiar with your camera model but suspect that it does not have a separate autofocus illumination lamp and depends on the flash for this.)

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What would be the fastest memory card for a D5000 that is worth buying?

Question

I own a D5000 and I wonder what memory card to buy for it. I will keep the kit 4GB and downgrade it to "backup" card probably (I will keep it always on me).

Considering a RAW image (I shoot RAW exclusively) is around 10MB and this card cannot shoot faster than 4 frames/second (it's bottlenecked by the internal buffer memory, RIGHT?! Not the memory card?) then it's safe to assume a 40MB/sec card should suffice.

But I'm not sure. Am I correct?

So what speed should suffice for a memory card put in my D5000?

Answer

Burst mode with RAW format will always be bottle-necked by standard SD-cards. I use a class 10 16GB card in my D5000 and I really don't see a noticeable different in the burst speed once the buffer is full compared to the old class 4 card I had. That's why pro cameras still use compact-flash and have larger buffers, it's much faster.

Edit to clarify SD card classes:

The class number is the minimum write speed in megabytes/second when the data on the card is fragmented. So a class 10 card will always be faster in the worst case than a class 4. The class number has nothing to do with the maximum write speed or the latency of the card however. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#Speed_Class_Rating

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Can I do exposure bracketing as a burst of shots on a Nikon D5000?

Question

Is it possible on Nikon D5000 to do AE bracketing in a burst?

Currently I've been able only to set bracketing mode but all three firings had to be done manually with the trigger button.

Answer

I believe you'll need to set the 'release mode' in your camera to 'Continuous' to get it to burst the three shots.
Also, reportedly, if your camera is on a self timer it will also take the three shots in a single button press after the time delay.

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