Which lens to buy - Help!

WASHTOWER

I currently have 30 mm and 50 mm lenses (both f/2.8) mounted to a D300 and have been happy with 80% of my photos because the other 20% have one in focus subject and one out of focus subject. I know that I want a wide angle zoom on my new lens, but should I buy one with fixed f stop or a range to increase my depth of field. I suppose the question is - is there a f/2.8 depth of field trick that I failed to learn in order to keep more of my subjects in focus?
Any suggestions on lenses is greatly appreciated as well.
Thanks in Advance for Your Help

Kyle Washington
washtowerphography.com
D300, 30 & 50 mm, 18-55mm, 70-300mm

dancorder

Ok, first things first. You do know that the f2.8 on your current lenses is only the maximum aperture and you can stop them down (probably to around f22) don't you?

The only fixed aperture lenses I'm aware of are mirror lenses and I doubt you've got those at 30mm and 50mm.

When a zoom lens is marked with an aperture range it's still only the range of maximum apertures. For example the Nikon 18-55 f3.5-5.6 has a maximum aperture of f3.5 at 18mm and f5.6 at 55mm (and various others at other points along the zoom range) you can still stop down the aperture to smaller than f5.6 at any focal length.

If you do know all that then I'm not sure what you're asking. There are a large number of depth of field calculators out there that you can play with and see what kind of depth of field you can get. f2.8 will generally give you a fairly shallow depth of field. The depth field for any given aperture will get larger if you move to wider lens though (as long as you don't move the camera closer to compensate for the wider field of view!).

If you must shoot at f2.8 then you can try asking your subjects to stay fairly still and take two pictures, one focused on each subject and then blend them together in photoshop. Episode 54 of the D-town TV podcast has an example of how to do this.

cab.in.boston

richy wrote: »

I'm sure nikon have a prime in the 135-200 range that you could use at say f/4 get both in focus and still get a creamy background.

Indeed, 3.

1) AF DC-Nikkor 135mm f/2D - MSRP $1400 (Defocus Control, IDK how that works, but I'd like to play with it sometime.)
2) AF Nikkor 180mm f/2.8D IF-ED - MSRP $1000
3) AF-S Nikkor 200mm f/2G ED VRII - MSRP $6000 (or $5100 for VRI version)

If anyone is looking for a present for my birthday this week, I'll take any of the 3, but preferably the 200 VRII.