[fujitsu1522]

Hi there, just read the article on faster lenses, can anyone help me with budget lenses like sigma, I presume they are cheaper than Nikon, so my next step would to check out what lenses will fit my Nikon D50, because I am not sure what to look for, and everyone likes a faster lense, it makes sense to own them, Is there anyone who sells them uk side, at good prices, what if anything would I be losing I f I used a Sigma, would I have to meter manually, or do some Sigmas work with ttl etc on the D50?, thanks for any pointers anyone can give...I get asked do take a lot of portraits, and sometimes light conditions dictate the outcome and quality, so the cheaper and faster I can get my hands on would be a good thing, any comments please that will help me. thanks

Pete Holt

[Markulous]

AFAIK, the whole Sigma range are available as Nikon fit but I'm sure someone can answer definitively!

Personally, I've gone for a Sigma 105mm F2.8 which I use for portraits but also have an M42 adaptor'd F1.8 50mm (which I have to manually focus/set aperture). Advantage of latter is that there are plenty of good, inexpensive 50mm lenses about!

[JMitchell]

Yep the whole range is. You don't lose much, definitely not things like metering, perhaps some quality, but there certainly are some high end sigmas as well. What about the Nikon 50mm 1.8? That's only £79 at warehouse express.
If you're gonna buy online, then warehouseexpress is the place to be really. And if you find any cheaper web prices (not eBay), then they will match it.

Hope that helped a little.

Jack M

[Dabhand16]

Another thing to consider is what sort of photography do you want the lens for? During my recent holiday in York, I became so frustrated with the limitations of the kit 18-70 lens not being wide enough, I brought forward my planned purchase of the Sigma 10-20 f4-5.6 zoom, and it has virtually not been off the camera since! This is a lens that is not particularly fast, but I would recommend to anyone wanting a wide angle zoom. But it is not much good for say, wildlife use.

Fast telephoto lenses are expensive and heavy. One of the big advantages of the stabilized lenses that tend to be slow in the conventional sense, is that they can be used with much lower shutter speeds. This will tend to offset the relatively small maximum apature they have.

There is a test of zoom lenses in this month's DP.