 Harold F. Bonacquist |
Best lens for night photos Anyone have suggestions for a lens for city shots at night (buildings, people). I have a Nikon D70 and want a faster lens than the kit lens. Thanks!
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robert G. Fately |
Well, the fastest auto-lenses that Nikon makes are the 50 f1.4 and the 85 f1.4. The latter is a big hunk-o-glass and is somewhat costly (but it's a great lens!), but the 50MM shouldn't set you back too much. They also have both a 28MM and a 35MM f1.4, again, not cheap, but fast. I think Sigma has a 30MM f1.4 as well, and for a lot less money (though I've found Sigma lenses to be quite good). You might also want to consider a tripod of some kind.
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Justin G. |
I wouldn't be too worried about fast lenses with cityscapes at night. With all due respect, you should probably be shooting cityscapes at f/8 - f/11 or more if desired. When shooting lenses at f/1.4 you're overall image wont' be all that sharp. Now the 50 and 85 are probably good lenses, get one or both if you can but I wouldn't shoot them at 1.4. keep around 8, 11, or 16 possible more depending on the size of your city and how much you want in focus.
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John G. Clifford Jr |
As Justin noted, fast isn't necessarily important. What are you trying to capture? If you just want a nice cityscape, then pick the same lens you'd shoot to capture the shot during the day, set it to f/5.6 or f/8, and the shutter speed accordingly to get good exposure. Yes, you will need a tripod.
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Harold F. Bonacquist |
I have a tripod for composed shots. I'm interested in a lens for grab shots on the street -- close ups of faces, architectural details, etc. -- using available light. Seems like the 1.4 might fit the bill. Thanks everyone for your thoughts.
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Justin G. |
well in that case yeah get it and it will also do you fine for the cityscapes when you stop down.
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John G. Clifford Jr |
I have to tell you... I have a 50mm/1.4 lens and while it is a VERY sharp lens depth of field is extremely shallow at f/1.4. I find that many of my shots wide-open are off focus enough to make the shot worthless. I generally use it at f/4 or above and find it is incredibly sharp at f/5.6 and above... the sharpest lens I've ever used. Of course, f/5.6 to f/8 gives decent depth of field making exact focus less critical.
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Michael H. Baroli |
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Kerry L. Walker |
For street photography, I would suggest the Nikon 28mm 1.4 lens. With the digital crop, the 50mm translates into the coverage of a short telephoto and you need a wider lens. The wide angle lens (which gives you the angle of coverage of a short normal lens in digital) will give you a little more DOF too. Now, if you want some help paying for this expensive lens - talk to your bank or Santa. It is expensive.
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Justin G. |
Michael I'm going to have to disagree with you on a couple things. First the lens does matter. Each lens has its own idiosyncrasy to it. Some lenses have major distortion, and some correct it. Some have bad contrast and some correct it. That's why you have so many different prices and "levels" of lenses from amateur, to pro-am, to pro; so yes, the lens does matter. the pic and f-stop do matter. If you have a 50mm lens and you are 1/4 mile from the city shooting it, everything from 168 feet and beyond will be in reasonable focus. so the 168 feet in front of you will not be in reasonable focus. if you close down to f/16 then everything from 16.9 feet in front of you will be in focus and if you close down even further to f/32 then everything from 8.49 feet will be in reasonable focus so this concludes my statement that DOF does matter. next if you shoot at 1/30 with any aperture as you stated you'll get different exposures. the person needs to meter the scene in evaulative mode. if you shoot a cityscape at f/22 with slow film (ISO 100 or lower) you're going to have some SLOW speeds. I've shot a cityscape before with velvia 50 and at f/22 i've had shutter lengths of 30seconds! so if you shot that at 1/30, yo'ure going to have a blank slide. Harold, meter your scene and then bracket off of that at -1 stop and +1 stop if you're shooting print. If you're shooting chromes, meter the scene and shoot a series of -1 stop, -2/3 stop, -1/3 stop, metered value and mybe +1/3 stop if you want. Good luck. Have fun too! P.S. I don't know what city you'll be in and where in the city you'll be but just as a precaution, if you're shooting at night on your lonesome, take a second every couple minutes and peep over your shoulder. It's a cold world out there and if you're stuck in your viewfinder you can easily get tunnelvision and become unaware of your surroundings. Know where you're at, keep an eye out for yourself, and keep as much stuff as possible INSIDE the bag in case you need to run. Not trying to scare you but you never know who you'll run into and who will be watching your with hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars worth of equipment.
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