Baptism Shoot

[wrdm]

My wives friend has asked me to shoot a baptism as a favour (which we where attending anyway).

I need to hire a lens and I can't make my mind up between 2,

Nikon 17-55 f2.8 or Nikon 105mm f2.8 marco

I would love to rent both, but funds are against me. I keep adding one to the basket thinking that I've made my mind up, but then just as quickly remove it and have another argument with myself.

Can anyone offer me some help???

[wulf]

Why do you need to hire a lens? What lenses (and camera) do you have already?

Wulf

[wrdm]

I have a D5000, desperately saving for a D90 though.

Lens wise I have 18-55mm kit lens, sigma 18-200 f3.5/6.3 and a Nikon 50mm f1.8 - which won't autofocus on my camera or it would've been prefect. I also have a sb600.

[wulf]

I shot a friend's wedding last September with my D40 and made a lot of use of my two manual primes (50mm and 90mm), neither of which autofocus.

Apart from practising with manual focus (and learning to love the little green focus blob, which does co-operate with the lenses - all you are really missing is a motor to turn the focus ring for you until the blob lights up), the trick is to take several shots for each "frame" with minor focus adjustments between each one. You are bound to miss some "would have been great" shots where critical elements are blurred but you may also find that, by taking lots of shots, you also capture things you would otherwise have missed.

Wulf

[wrdm]

I've shot at weddings before and I've been doing portraiture but have always used an autofocus lens, and for the trickly low light levels I always shoot RAW and on contunious burst, my theory being that I should get at least 1 keeper out of 5.

The D5000 has an inbuilt rangefinder, I'm not sure wheter the D40 does or not, and I've notice that my hand is not the steadiest and this leads to both the green dot and the rangefinder both flashing in and out at a rapid speed. This is obviously because of the very shallow DOF that an apature of f1.8 gives. I'm not sure I could trust myself to focus quick enough or even have any keepers.

[wulf]

You would probably want to back off a bit from f/1.8 anyway unless quite a distance from your subject or wanting a very narrow depth of field. You can stop down to f/2.8 or even f/4, which is still pretty fast but might benefit from being not on the very edge of the range (an advantage over an f/2.8 lens). When the focus blob flickrs in and out, it means the camera isn't entirely sure about focus; in autofocus mode that can mean the camera seeks in and out for focus and you miss your shot while it is trying to get there.

Out of the two lenses you are considering, it depends whether you want to focus more on individuals (in which case, go for the 105mm) or get shots of the whole group (the other one). However, every penny you spend on hiring gear is a penny further way from upgrading your camera

Wulf