Need help with which lenses to buy with Nikon D90

[twotealeaves]

Hi, I'm going to buy a Nikon D90 in the next week or so, but it'll be my first SLR so I really have no idea what lens/lenses it would be best to get. I'll be using my camera mostly for street, wildlife and portrait photography.

The options I have are:
18-55mm VR & 70-300mm G
18-55mm VR & 50-200mm VR
18-105mm VR
18-105mm VR & 55-200mm VR
18-200mm VR II

I was leaning towards the standard 18-55mm VR & 50-200mm VR because of the cost and the zoom which will be useful with the wildlife photography, but any suggestions of other lenses would be really helpful.

Thanks!

[Sonny Lim]

Originally Posted by twotealeaves

Hi, I'm going to buy a Nikon D90 in the next week or so, but it'll be my first SLR so I really have no idea what lens/lenses it would be best to get. I'll be using my camera mostly for street, wildlife and portrait photography.

The options I have are:
18-55mm VR & 70-300mm G
18-55mm VR & 50-200mm VR
18-105mm VR
18-105mm VR & 55-200mm VR
18-200mm VR II

I was leaning towards the standard 18-55mm VR & 50-200mm VR because of the cost and the zoom which will be useful with the wildlife photography, but any suggestions of other lenses would be really helpful.

Thanks!

Hi Thread

Your best bet is the Zoom Lense 18-105mm with or without VR. You will find the zoom lenses to 200 and 300mm only useful for wildlife and sports photography. At that long focal lengths you will be better off with prime lenses. They will give you the advantage of larger apertures to enable the use of faster shutter speed.

I normally use the 28-105mm 80 percent of the time and prime 180mmf2.8 for my telephoto needs.

Nikson

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by Sonny Lim

Hi Thread

Your best bet is the Zoom Lense 18-105mm with or without VR. You will find the zoom lenses to 200 and 300mm only useful for wildlife and sports photography. At that long focal lengths you will be better off with prime lenses. They will give you the advantage of larger apertures to enable the use of faster shutter speed.

I normally use the 28-105mm 80 percent of the time and prime 180mmf2.8 for my telephoto needs.

Nikson

Hardly.

The 18-105 is a great starter lens, that's for sure. It only comes with VR. But there are other options. There's also no fact in the claim that 200+mm focal lengths are only good for sports and wildlife. They can be used for just about anything, including portraits and landscape. That kind of claim is absolutely false.

If it were me, I'd go for a 16-85 f/3.5-5.6 VR and a 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 VR and supplement them with a 35mm f/1.8

[pmarkstone]

Osmosis is right. I use my 70-200 2.8 quite frequently for portraits. Out of the choices which you list, I'd go with the 18-55 & the 50-200.

[Almond.Butterscotch]

I'd go with Osmosis's suggestion of the 16-85 + 70-300, but from your list, the first for sure. The 18-55 + 70-300 is a good combo and your feet can make up for the 55-70mm range if you're worried about that.

[jherman]

I really like my AF-S Nikkor 18-105 VR 1:3.5-5.6 ED DX, gives me nice options. I do tend to zoom out more often than not in most modes.

[Shokinen]

Based on your suggestion I would go with the 18-55 / 55-200 VR. You will get some nice results for the price and will give you more option than the started kit (also better picture than the 18-200). Don't go for the non VR 300. VR is really usefull at this range.

But if you want to invest in a serious amateur kit that you won't change for a while, I also recommand the 16-85 VR / 70-300 VR / 35 or 50 prime. They all have a metal connector / back rubber seal. It's not a must but deffinitly a step in quality build. The optical quality is also very good. Hence, check my signature

If you want to have some examples check my flickr. You can go in each pictures and click more option to see what lens I used.

Hope this help

[twotealeaves]

Thanks to everyone for their replies.. I'm currently researching other lens options because of your recommendations