New Camera Time - SLR??

[CarMad]

Lenses are a little cheaper but not much much cheaper. I've off there early next year and I'm in two minds about getting anything. Oh that's without and potential duty issues.

On the lens you can indeed get different speeds of lenses it depends on the Nikon range if there is more than one at that speed. You might want to check, an approx 70-200 lens on Canon can be sub £300 to £1200 depending on which exact one you get.

Give this a click to find the best prices, its not perfect but can be very useful.

Camera Price Buster - UKs cheapest camera gear

[GCab]

AP: I really don't see the point of getting a cheap 18-55 and a cheap 55-200 separately. I could see the benefit if one was going to be a premium lens (my 17-55 is a £620 job and that was second hand) and the other was to fill the gap.

Also when you get into premium territory, the smaller range of zoom does mean the optical quality is higher, so at the high end, people do carry around (with Nikon) something like 12-24, 24-70, 70-200, all at f/2.8. These are legendary lenses worth about £3000 between them, and no single zoom could compare or perform as well, so it's worth the hassle of switching them around.

Or, if you want separate lenses, then you could go back to carmad's advice and get a couple of nice prime (non-zoom) lenses and really get to know your camera with them.

But compared to all these, carrying around a pair of 'starter' zooms instead of one which covers the whole range, makes little sense and seems like the worst of all options.

There's the hassle factor of switching lenses to switch subjects/photo types (with my 18-200 before I broke it, I could photograph my nephew fooling around on the beach with a nice wide ocean view behind him at 24mm, a jellyfish he found at 80mm, and then point up and shoot the fighters at the airshow at 200mm, and then go wide and take a landscape view of the cliffs at 18mm - would you have wanted to change lenses twice to do that?). There's also the risk of getting dust in the sensor every time you do it (I'd never have taken two lenses to a sandy beach for that reason - I'd just never dare change them).

If you must do it, though, one of the things to look for is VR (IS on Canons) - image stabilisation. There are both 18-55s and 55-200s with and without VR, and I'd strongly recommend getting "with", especially for the 55-200. It makes a huge difference. You might find that with this added, there's not much cost difference to the 18-200 in HK.

But if you don't want to spend the difference, do at least get VR on the longer of the two lenses.

Edited November 7, 2008 by GCab

[GCab]

I have a more useful suggestion for you, perhaps, rather than pestering you to get a > £400 lens (which the 18-200 is, I'll admit):

I found a review after your first post, where they compared the 18-55 (probably the version you'd get), the 18-70 (£165 on Carmad's website above), and the 17-55 (mine). They thought the 18-70 was much better built and nicer to use than the 18-55, and not much more expensive. A lot better value than mine, too (). So that was their recommendation for "standard zooms" for a Nikon. Can't remember the mag now, but it was a good 'un.

Try that first, and then if you want to add something play long-range zooms, there are even some cheap 70-300mm around frmo Nikon and Tamron (<£100 in some cases).

But steer clear of the 18-55. Honestly.

[AudiPartner]

Cheers Gcab, will look in to the 18-70 VR then.

[GCab]

This wasn't the review I mentioned, but compares the same lenses discussed here:

Nikkor DX kit lens group test: 18-55mm vs 18-70mm vs 18-135mm vs 18-200mm VR Cameralabs verdict