Nikon D40

Cece

Hey guys,

Couple of years ago I was brought a Nikon D40 for my 21st birthday which came with a standard 18-55mm lens. I would now like to buy a new lens with more zoom, maybe to 200mm.

Can anyone recommend any good lenses?

I've heard Tamron are good but any advice would be great. Include links to them if possible

Cheers,

Cece

moonrakerz

Depends on what you are willing to spend.

A very good lens to complement the 18 - 55 is the Nikon 55 - 200 VR

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/55-200mm-vr.htm

If you want to get by with just one lens (and spend a lot more!) try the Nikon 18 - 200 VR (I have used the Sigma version of this - not a patch on the Nikon, and I'm not sure it will work on the D40)
I have the Nikon on my D90 as my "standard" lens.
The main disadvantage of this lens is that it is a big piece of equipment and although it functions perfectly with the D40, it turns a nice small camera into a bit of a heavy lump !(see photo here: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40.htm)

Go and try them before you buy. Do lots of searches on the web for reviews of each lens.
Sigma and Tamron do produce some good value lenses, but they do tend to be a little thinner on the ground than the Nikons (but - Nikon have produced one or two stinkers in their time !!)

Enterprise_1701C

Don't forget that the auto focussing is built into the lens and not the camera, so you need to get a lens that reflects that fact. (The above lens does!)

ahmjt

Look for Af-S lenses if you are buying from Nikon. These are lenses with auto-focusiing lense in-built. Nikon D40 does not have motor for auto-focussing. If buying 3rd party lenses please check for that as well.

For Sigma (http://www.sigma-imaging-uk.com/quicklinks/HSM_lenses.htm) these lense with auto-focus.


What moonrakerz suggested is probably the best (money-wise) solution for you, but then you will have carry 1 extra lense with you.

The Nikon 18-200 mm VR is quite costly (may be not an issue if money is not tight). This small camera becomes very heavy with this lense.

My personal camera is Nikon D40. For various reasons I moved to the Nikon AF-S F1.8 35mm dx which made my camera lighter. The crop factor makes this lense a 50mm lens. The lens is lighter and smaller than the kit lens. I am uiqte happy with it.

Cece

Thank you for the help guys

mr_fishbulb

Cece wrote: »

Couple of years ago I was brought a Nikon D40 for my 21st birthday which came with a standard 18-55mm lens. I would now like to buy a new lens with more zoom, maybe to 200mm.

Can anyone recommend any good lenses?

I've heard Tamron are good but any advice would be great. Include links to them if possible

If you want more zoom, there are a couple of ways to go

1 - get a lens to supplement your 18-55 kit lens
Pros - usually better image quality as you are not getting a "jack of all trades" lens.
Cons - you may find yourself having to frequently swap lenses which can cause you to miss a shot, or get dust on your sensor.
Example lenses
- Nikon 55-200 good lens, lightweight, lovely contrasty and sharp shots - I have one of these. I wish it could be a longer lens some times, but the majority of times it covers what I need).
- Nikon 70-300 These are also well regarded. They are a bit more expensive than the 55-200s. They are heavier but feel like a better constructed lens (less plastically). They are designed for the full size sensor lenses but will work fine on your DX size sensor on the D40. The crop factor means it has a zoom up to 450mm.
- Nikon 55-300 wouldn't really recommend this unless you need long zoom and light weight. Image quality isn't as good as the above 2.
- I'm assuming you don't have the budget or arm strength for the Nikon or Sigma 70-200 2.8

2 - Replace your kit lens with a zoom covering wide-angle to telephoto.
Pros - you just stick one of these on your camera and don't have to change it for the majority of shots. Referred to as a walk-around lens.
Cons - the image quality will not be as great as it has to accommodate for a much larger range of focal lengths.
Example lenses
- Nikon 18-200 Generally recommended as a good walk-around lens. Covering the majority of all focal lengths you need. The quality does suffer a little though (it's still good, but your 18-55 kit lens will be sharper than this).
- Nikon 18-105 This doesn't go all the way to 200 like you asked, but is still much longer than your kit lens. I'm suggesting this one as gives phenomenal image quality for the price and size/weight.

Tamron and Sigma make some good lenses for certain occasions (for the price their wide-angle offerings are better than Nikon's, and I love my Sigma 17-70) but for the types of lens you are considering, I'd say stick with Nikon.

NeilF3485

Cece wrote: »

Hey guys,

Couple of years ago I was brought a Nikon D40 for my 21st birthday which came with a standard 18-55mm lens. I would now like to buy a new lens with more zoom, maybe to 200mm.

Can anyone recommend any good lenses?

I've heard Tamron are good but any advice would be great. Include links to them if possible

Cheers,

Cece

I too have a Nikon D40, I bought the Nikon (nikor) 55-200mm zoom lens for about £150, I think it is this one on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nikon-55-200MM-4-5-6-VR-Black/dp/B000O161X0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1306836681&sr=8-1-spell

Good reviews. I'm no expert though so other people can probably point you to better options, but for my limited use I've found that this does the job just fine.