The key here is avoiding "cheap." Beware that the OEM (Canon, Nikon, et al) put some pretty cheap and shoddy lenses on their gear under the rubric of "kits."The critical thing with either is DON"T BUY CHEAP THIRD PARTY LENS!
To say third party lenses are to be avoided in the mien is a mistake. There are some very fine and highly rated/regarded lenses make by Tamron, Tokina and Sigma. Do your research.
Those tend to not be, "cheap." Well, some of the Sigmas of past have been dogs in the DSLR market.Originally Posted by AE1PT
Nikon makes some cheap lens too. They are the "G" series. Chromatic aberration. $170 for an 80 to 300mm lens. What do you expect.
Just test drive a couple of models at a camera shop. The new DSLRs offered from even Pentax take some pretty crisp photos. I almost got a Pentax in 2006 but at the time they had battery life issues. I was headed that direction since I already have glass for my K1000. Matter of fact, I hoping someone made a totally manual DSLR like the K1000 SLR. It's all I knew how to use. Now you can get spoiled (and stupid) with auto and program modes.
The first DSLR I saw was at my evil twins work. Kodak made it. They used a Nikon body with a custom made back with what looked like the most overboard winder hanging off the bottom you ever saw. I think it was based on an F3 or F4 body. I don't remember which. It captured about 2/3 of the visible frame at something around 2 or 3 meg pixels. It seemed pretty amazing at the time. You could shoot bursts of three frames but then you had a wait about 30 seconds for it to write the files to the hard drive, Yes I said hard drive. It also had a built in modem so you could phone home with your pictures. Boy, that thing was battery hungry!
Back in those days they mostly still shot to film but, they would scan the negatives into the system and do any cropping, color correction, or dodging in software. If they needed hard copy, they would print using a dye sub printer. They didn't use optical printing at all. These days he can do simple editing on the camera itself and he tethers the camera to his cell phone to down load picture while he is in the field. I miracles of modern technology.
There I go again, Rambling on again....
Archie N8OBM
I will agree that it is true that Tamron and Sigma have made some first rate glass. I haven't had any experience with Tokina so I won't comment. It is also true that Tamron and Sigma made some pretty mediocre glass as well. Years ago Tamron made a really wonderful 300mm 2.8f lens that rocked! They also made a bunch of pretty lame 2 touch 75-200 zoom lenses that were sold under their name and Vivitar. Vivitar makes very little of what they sell. They have things made for them with their label. It used to be that some of the Vivitar Series One glass was wonderful. I have a one touch 28-90 Series One zoom that I used as my primary lens for many years. Sharp, reasonably bright, and a really useful range of lengths. I don't know if Series One is still being made or if it's still good.
A couple of basic rules about lenses:
1. One zoom can not do every thing! You do not want any zoom that has a greater than 3:1 ratio of lengths. Zoom lenses in general are a compromise. The greater the range of the zoom the greater the compromise. Can a 35 to 300mm be done? Yes it can but you either need to drastically compromise performance or it will be stupid expensive.
2. Fixed lengths are usually brighter and sharper.
3. Unless you are doing sports, wildlife, or spy photography you probably don't need longer than a 135mm lens. Long lenses compress space and they make your pictures look flat. It's usually better to get closer to the subject with a shorter length lens. For portraiture I use a 90 mm on an 35mm SLR body. I use a 135mm or 150mm if I'm using a 6cm x 6cm body. Don't waste money on expensive telephoto lenses unless you are certain you need them. Good ones do NOT come cheap!
4. You will almost certainly not go wrong is you use the same brand lens as the camera body. The worst Nikon Lens is still better than most third party El Craptar lenses. I've also seen some third party lenses jam on Nikon mounts. I had to get ugly with a dremel tool to cut off a junk lens off my Nikon 20/20 body. Also be careful who you loan you cameras to. Yes, the previous two items are related. Check with the different photo magazines. Over the years they have done very detailed breakdowns of just about any lenses performance. Do you research about a lens before you buy. Doubly so if you are at a big box retailer. If you are at B and H or some other specialty retailer, you can take the sales persons advice with in reason. If you are at best buy or the like....... My experience is that 80% of what they say is misinformation and the other %20 are just plain lies. You could fill books with what they don't know.
5. Long lenses live or die by their coatings. One of the reasons good long lenses are so expensive is the difficulty in coating. There is some similarity between lenses and antennas in that they behave differently at different wavelengths. The coating on the lenses do reduce internal reflections but they also serve to help all the parts of the visible spectrum focus on the same plane, either the CCD or the film. Be kind to you lenses coating. Use a simple haze filter in front of your glass to protect the coating on the front from the environment.
Just my two cents
I hope this helps
Archie N8OBM
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