What is your best lens

[Derf]

I have now played with my Sigma 18-35 1.8 lens enough to know that it is not a good lens to go spotting with unless your right next to the runnway, but even then things seem far away.


But for shooting indoor low light events it focused better in low light then my 50mm 1.4 and on a crop camera the 50mm is always too close. With my new lens it will be used for portraits of familys and good times...I do not want a person cut off or a moment lost.

I did a sweet 16 with it the other day and it was better than I could have imagined! I could not believe that the focus was that much better then the 50mm and using my 28-75 2.8 was not an option because even 28 on a crop camera is not good enough for those wide shots. Oh, and the best part is that it has better quality image at all zooms than the 50mm prime. This lens is a must if you are shooting a lot of indoor family occasions and weddings. For wedding I would have the 28-75 on a backup body.

The tammy 70-300vc is no joke of a lens and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for $1000 glass for $499....but by far my most important lens is 18-35 1.8

I have
8MM FISHEYE image quality good
18-35 1.8 Sigma image quality OUTSTANDING
28-75 2.8 Tammy Image quality GREAT
70-300 Tammy Image quality GREAT
50MM 1.4 (On loan to a friend) Image quality GREAT



What is your favorite lens and why

[gonzalu]

I have

10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 Tokina Fisheye Zoom. For Panoramas mostly, but it is wonderfully flexible in the right situations...
14-24mm f/2.8 Nikkor Rectilinear, sick sharp. Some consider it sharper than primes at same apertures in range.
24-70mm f/2.8 Nikkor Again very sharp. Mine has the dreaded light leak defect (bad for long exposures unless you cover the window)
50mm f/1.8 Nikkor. Sharp and cheap... doesn't get any better than that. Does not get enough use.
70-200mm f/2.8 VR-I Nikkor. One of the best lenses ever made... mine was bought brand new when it was released like 100 years ago. Still sharp as can get.
200-400mm f/4 VR-I. New one has better VR and Nano Coating. I want it but my version is still my favorite lens. As sharp at f/4 as it is at f/8.

Samples shot with each of the above respectively

Created by Airliners.net BBCode Generator

[Matt Dueck]

My lenses include:

Nikon 35mm F1.8
Nikon 50mm F1.8
Nikon 18-55 F3.5-F5.6
Nikon 70-300mm F4.5-5.6

Both the 35mm and 50mm I use for anything indoor, at family events, and especially my cities yearly autoshow, its nice to have that faster speed for those crappy convention center halls.
The 18-55mm is used mainly for close up of aircraft. Sharpness is average, nothing spectacular but I know what the range is for the sharpest images.
Finally the 70-300mm, this lenses hardly ever leaves my camera, especially when out spotting. Again not as sharp as some lenses but it has gotten me into a magazine and Airliners. This one is my favorite for aviation, hands down.

Matt

[NIKV69]

I love the 70-200 2.8 VR Nikkor. Easily the best glass I have. I also love the Nikkor 10.5 Fisheye I bought last year.

[megatop412]

That's kind of a loaded question Fred, because the answer highly depends on the application. If your question is 'what's your favorite telephoto lens' it would make things a bit less apples and oranges.

That said, I love my Nikkor 70-300mmVR. I'm not looking to cut glass with the sharpness of my photos so @ f/8 it's pretty damn great.

[gonzalu]

Actually, William, that's a good point. Most lenses will suffice for web publishing applications at slightly smaller than original crop size.

Where lens quality really starts to make a difference is when having to crop a lot or printing large.

Sharpness may not even be as important as Fringing and Chromatic Aberrations. Also edge coma on point light sources (and the correction of such) plays a huge role. However, whenever any of those is addressed, resulting glass formulas usually yield superior sharpness

Finally, contrast and resistance to flaring are very important too. My primary reason for switching from Canon to Nikon in 1985 or thereabouts was due to the superior contrast of Nikon lenses at the time (my opinion and direct observation) and I have not turned back. I am willing to be the best glass from any company matches that of any other manufacturer's high end glass.

[Gintaras B.]

I wouldn't get into this hobby if I haven't bought ZD 70-300 lense. I started with birds, airplanes came later.
And I have 2 kit lenses that I never use and ZD 14-54 & 35 1:1 Macro lense - later 2 rarely used.

And a question to Manny: where do you print your photos?
I've tried to print @ Adorama - I do like their quality and I have printed there large size - 20x30 besides 11X14, etc...I do want now to print some of better my airplane pictures - some 8x10, 11X14 and some to try 20x30.
I've even tried to print on metal(kinda pricey) and have one - 20x30 metal print hanging on my wall - photo of NYC taken from Empire State Building.

[gonzalu]

And a question to Manny: where do you print your photos?

For printing I do it myself up to 8x10 on Epson R800 (well until recently since the printer finally died and was sold ) Looking to upgrade to R4800 or similar.

When I need large, I usually go to West Coast Imaging who are professionals and use only Fuji or Epson printers on a large selection of fine art papers. Expensive and worth it. Each print is hand processed by a human, not batched.

Recently, Costco introduced Epson 7800 printers in their stores which are superb printers. If you do all the editing yourself and send the image files directly to their printers without any retouching on their part, I have been liking the results a lot. So much so that the value is insane. They cost next to nothing for such high quality.

Dry Creek Photo does hardware calibration for all Costco stores and they freely distribute those profiles. That is just insane. You can simply install the profile for the particular printer for your local Costco and edit in Photoshop directly to that printer. West Coast offers the same but at a higher price.

If you like Adorama (I do not like their printing) you may want to visit Duggal on 23rd St. as they offer much higher quality printing. They have been doing mainly that for many many years and used to be my local choice for Kodachrome or Ektachrome processing (dunk tank) and printing at the highest quality. I haven't used them in a while but I am sure they still do a great job.

[Zee71]

I have a variety of glass and really depends on what glass is being used at the time. Below is a listing of my favorites:


- Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 - awesome and sharp lens for those wide angle shots
- Nikon 28-70mm f2.8 - an old lens but sharp as a tack
- Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VRII - epic, fast and crazy sharp even with a 1.4 Teleconverter
- Nikon 105mm f2.8 Macro - one of my favorite
- Nikon 300mm f2.8 - no words can describe how outstanding this glass is
- Nikon 500mm f4 - simply wow!

[Joe]

Merry Christmas guys!

I only have three lenses, they are:
Tokina 11-16mm f2.8
Canon 24-105L f4
Canon 100-400L f4.5-5.6

With these lenses, I have the majority of the focal range covered. I really do not have a favorite as they are used for different purposes;
the Tokina serves for very wide shots, such as panoramas - land or the night sky. I make model trains part time (it was full time for the last 5 years or so) and this lens
is my main workhorse, while it can fit full length 85' cars in frame from not too far a distance, it tend to have barrel distortion at 11mm, at 15 or 16mm, this distortion is
all but gone, so I just have to be slightly further back. I have had access to many shops to get underbody pics of the real cars, this is where the lens has been invaluable.
I take images every few feet and then stitch them together at a later time. The combination of the wide angle and the f2.8 generally make quick work of each shot, anywhere
form 5 to 20 second exposures, depending on the amount of lights in the pits.

The Canon 24-105; this lens spends the most time attached to my 7D. Ideally, I wish that it had slightly more range, especially on the zoom end. The f4 work well, 2.8 would
have been nicer, however, the 24-70 f2.8 doesn't cover enough range in my opinion. I really do not have a lot of detail to provide on this lens, even though I have taken thousands
of images with it. I don't have any real complaints with it.

The Canon 100-400l; This lens get used a lot more than I expected it to when I purchased it two years ago. It has seen equal use for aviation as well as wild or zoo animals. It has
a good focal range, and is relatively sharp. As with the previous lens, F2.8 would be very nice, however, well out of my price range and you are limited to a fixed focal length.

I have had other lens in the past, but have sold them when I upgraded to the current set. They were:18-55mm, 28-135mm; this used to be my go to lens, the 24-105 is a much
better lens, however, the extra 30mm on the zoom side is missed, 75-300mm, and the 50mm f1.8. I sold the 50mm because I never used it- if I had taken more than 5 images with it
over the year or so that I had it, it would be a lot.
Joe

[jerslice]

70-200 2.8 II FTW, for me. 24 1.4 isn't far behind. Both are my go-to's.