I’ve always enjoyed reading what equipment other photographers use, so I thought I’d put together my own. I should point out that I’m currently shooting with the Nikon 5100 which, I believe, is considered the entry level DSLR. It’s a crop sensor, and while I’ve toyed with the idea of full frame, I doubt I’ll ever make the plunge. I’ve subscribed to the it’s-all-about-the-lenses philosophy, and have the focal lengths that work well with my crop sensor. I’d have to buy a whole new set of lenses for a full sensor, which would be really silly at this point given there there are crop sensor cameras of comparable quality. I do plan on upgrading to a mid range DSLR, like the 7000 series.

So here are the lens I currently own:

35mm f/1.8 ($200)
This has become my go to lens for indoor photography. On a crop sensor what you see through the view finder is more or less the same perspective you see with the naked eye. When the kids were small I’d use this lens so I could be physically close, and still capture everything I wanted to on frame. There can be a little bit of a distortion effect shooting so close, although I hardly ever notice it.

If you buy only one lens, and you have a crop sensor, this is the lens I recommend. It’s the most versatile.

50mm f/1.4 ($450)
This is the first ever lens I purchased, and one I really should use more often. It takes beautiful portraits (equivalent to the 85mm), but it can be really difficult to use in doors since you have to stand so far back. Almost all of my favorite photos were shot with the 50mm.

I also really enjoy the light shaping (bokeh) capabilities with this lens.

60mm f/2.8 Macro ($600)

Jewlery, bugs, flowers, this lens is great for all things tiny. It also works as a good portrait prime lens, though I generally prefer the 50mm for it’s wide aperture. This lens is the one I use the least out of all of them, but it’s also the most specialized. Pre-baby Sarah definitely got more use out of it than post-baby Sarah.

18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 (free, came with the camera)
Believe it or not, I use this as my “selfie” lens before I had a camera phone. At 18mm focal length, you can turn the camera around, stretch your arm all the way out and take a photo of your face. It’s great for travel when you don’t have a smart phone. There is a distortion effect, but I don’t mind. I actually think the distortion made my face look a little thinner.

It’s also a great lens for getting light stars. The slower the shutter speed (and thus longer the exposure) the better the stars. This kit lens is what I used to take my favorite newborn photos by the tree.

24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 ($500 new, $350 refurbished)

This is my go to lens for photographic the kids while playing out back, or at the park.

70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 ($500 new, $300 refurbished)

For wildlife and, maybe one day, soccer practice.

$1,900 over seven years not including the camera body? Photography is an expensive hobby. That works out to about $270 a year, or $23 a month.

Overall, I’m very happy with the lens choices I’ve made. They may not be the best, pro lenses out there, but I have full confidence that failure to get the shot I’m after will be more of a user issue than an equipment one. Short of other great falls, I don’t see myself buying another lens for a very long time.

The longer I wait for something in the mail, the more nervous I get that I ordered the wrong thing. After purchasing the new lens, I began to worry if 300mm wasn’t enough reach for me. Online calculators weren’t helping assuage that fear.

The first available daylight after the new 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 lens arrived last Saturday, I was outside experimenting with it. That happens to be shortly after dawn on a Saturday (kids generally get us up these days a bit before dawn). Shortly after dawn is not a very good time to try anything photography related. There just isn’t much light. Once I realized I wasn’t shooting with VR (vibration reduction) on, things got much better. When there was more light they were better still. I got the lens mostly for wildlife so I really wanted to test with wildlife. Wouldn’t you know that the mornings I got up with the kids we had no furry visitors but when Domingo got up with the kids there was a return of the deer, and a fox got trapped in the back yard? Twice?

When weekend rolled around again, I was pretty anxious to go to the zoo. It had been a while since our last trip, and the kids always seem to have a better weekend when we spend at least a little time out of the house. It was chilly and overcast as rain was expected thanks to the Typhone Songda, which meant the animals would be out.

Let me tell you the 70-300 did not disappoint!

I think the biggest advantage of the lens was it’s vibration reduction. The lens is a beast, easily my heaviest lens at 1.6 pounds. It’s 6 inches long when using the lowest focal length, and 8 when extended. That makes it’s center of gravity a bit out from you when you hold the camera to your face. I was shooting one handed, while balancing Alexis in my other arm. I was having a devil of a time keeping the camera level enough to get the framing the way I wanted it. The below photo was shot at 300mm, 1/250 a second with a very shaky hand, yet there’s no camera shake visible.

I was a little nervous about the depth of field, since the aperture of the 70-300 doesn’t open as wide as the 55-200 lens which was being replaced. While the difference in focal length to 300mm to 200mm might not translate to much in a photograph, it makes a big difference in terms of depth of field thanks to the distance to subject minus focal length (s-f) part of the depth of field equation.

And, of course, the lens is very sharp. It’s sharper than I ever remember the 55-200mm being. However, I am wondering if maybe I’m comparing apples to oranges. I had that lens for seven years. It’s possible the great fall wasn’t it’s first fall and the elements may have been slightly knocked out of alignment previously.

Regardless, I’m very happy with the new lens. Now I just need that fox to come back.

A few days ago I saw an adult male deer out by the fence. It’s only the second time I’ve seen a buck, so naturally I grabbed my camera, my telezoom (55-200mm) lens and raced outside.

50% crop. Click for non-resized version.

Sad Trombone. At 1/4000 a second, in full daylight the photo should have been sharp. I started taking photos of various things around me. Anything at focal length 100mm and above started to look blurry. That’s when I remembered the incident of the previous week. After spotting some wild turkeys I had rushed to grab my camera and distance lens. My hand slipped as I was screwing the lens in place. I lost my grip on it and it hit the stone floor hard. Hard enough I was amazed the glass didn’t shatter. I missed my chance at the turkeys, counted my lucky stars that I wasn’t sweeping up glass, and put the lens and camera back.

I don’t think my stars were quite so lucky after all.

The internet seemed to think it was just the focal elements knocked out of alignment. Not great, but not horrible. The lowest price I saw quoted anywhere for Nikon lens repair was about $40 plus shipping. I could save myself the shipping cost by going to a local certified Nikon repair place, but I’ve always found local labor tends to be a bit more expensive than national averages. (One of the perils of a high cost of living area.) I figured $50 was likely the cheapest repair price I could expect to pay.

The lens in question was a 7 year old kit lens that cost $150 new. You can reliably get one used for $100 off e-bay, and sometimes as low as $80. That also meant my lens, in working condition, would be worth at best $100. I was on the fence. After all, I’ve been thinking about a new Telezoom lens since 2014. My 55-200 was certainly serviceable, although not the lens I would have preferred. “Was” being the operative word.

That evening, after the kids were asleep, I decided to take the lens off my camera and have a look at it. A spring had become dislodged. Those things are re-attachable. No biggie. I thought. Except as I was turning the lens over in my hand, the head of the spring fell off! The spring was now in two pieces, and one of those metal pieces was dangerously close to the glass. I got out my trusty tweezers and very carefully removed the free floating metal spring piece. That’s when I noticed another metal piece had snapped and a band had come loose. The repair wasn’t going to be just realigning the elements. There were at least a couple pieces that needed to be replaced, and I couldn’t even be sure that the physical damage I could observe was the extend of it.

At that point I had pretty much decided against repairing the lens. If I did nothing, the longest zoom I had would be the 85mm, which would make some photos much more challenging. I also didn’t really feel like spending the money to replace it. Not the $100 for the same lens when I wasn’t fully content with it’s reach, nor the $500 for the 70-300 which I had been considering replacing it with for the past couple of years. I did find a factory refurbished 70-300 on adorama.com for $350, but that still felt like more money then I should be spending right now. It’s not like I need to be photographing the deer. Domingo’s opinion was to
go ahead and buy the new lens since Photography makes me happy. He spoils me. After a few hours I decided to go back and check on the refurbished lens. Someone else had already snapped it up.

I hate to let emotions dictate shopping decisions, but I was bummed. Really bummed. Even though I hadn’t committed to buying the lens. So bummed I couldn’t sleep that night. At around 3 am I started searching around for more refurbished lenses, eventually finding one on Nikon’s store for $299. Done. (Or rather done in the morning after I managed some sleep and could be sure I wasn’t letting my frustration get the best of me.)

As for the 55-200? Once the new lens arrives I’m going to have some fun taking the old lens apart and getting a better feel for how they work.

Incidentally, this is the second refurbished lens I will own. I highly recommend them if you want more lens but don’t want to spend the money. I prefer refurbished to used. A lens can have minor damage that’s hard to pick up on. If it’s factory refurbished you know you’re getting like-new.