which lenses??

[giselet]

Ok, if I buy a Nikon D200 - what lenses would be best to get if I enjoy:

-- taking wildlife shots / landscape ***
-- some wide angle / macro shots.

[jdepould]

What's your budget?

[giselet]

including the body of the camera... no more then 2000$

[ELAY]

Hi Giselet --

Can I suggest you give the D80 another look? I remember you posted about it earlier.

The D200 is a dynamite camera, but for what you have described I think the D80 would suit your needs just fine. You don't give up anything really in terms of image quality -- and you would have another $400-500 or so in your pocket for lenses.

You do give up build quality (and the weight that goes with it), but then you ask yourself how hard you plan to be on your camera.

From where I sit, the one big advantage that the D200 has is that it allows you to meter with AIS lenses -- but if you don't have, and don't plan to be buying, older used manual focus lenses then this won't matter.

All in all, I wonder if the investment of that $$ in lenses rather than a D200 wouldn't leave you better off.

Now, in terms of lenses. It is going to be hard to find something that shoots all those things for $500. The 18-200 VR goes for around $800 and will do most of that -- it isn't a macro, but you can get as close as 20 inches, which will get you some pretty good closeup shots with that kind of magnification. Sigma now makes an equivalent length, but I haven't heard much about how it compares to the Nikon.

If you go D80, you will have a bit more flexibility, though you may still end up looking at the 18-200 as a good lens to start with.

EL

[jdepould]

Agree on the 18-200 VR, it'll cover all of those minus the macro. I would say either save up and get a new macro when you have the money, or check your local shop for used glass. A friend of mine gave me a 55 manual focus macro that I've been playing with lately. In a pinch the 50 f/1.8 might net you some good macro-ish shots, even if you don't use it for that, it's only $100 and yields some of the best image quality around.