Wide angle for Nikon D 90

Bigfoot424

Apologies if this is in the wrong section. First off I am NOT a professional photographer and I likely qualify as a less than amateur photographer. Hence the reason for posting this. I have been wanting to purchase a wide angle lens for my camera and am clueless on what to buy. A little info. I love taking outdoor photos, especially in the mountains. Bit I also take photos pretty much anywhere. I am not looking for nor can I afford a top of the line lens. Think budget here. I'm basically looking for someone to tell me which lens to buy where I can get some decent shots with my D 90 and it won't break my bank. I'd like to keep it under $300 if possible but can go over some if need be.

Thanks in advance.

ziggy53

Super-wide zooms are the usual recommendation. The following are all very good in this regard:

Sigma 10mm - 20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM
Tamron 10 - 24mm f/3.5-4.5 DI-II B.I.M. (Built-in Motor) LD Aspherical (IF)
Tokina 11mm - 16mm F/2.8 ATX Pro DX

There are others, but I think they are beyond your general price range. Used lenses are a very good option in order to save some money.

I have the above Sigma and, aside from a very slight decentering, I am very happy with the lens and I don't intend to replace it anytime soon. I use it for vista landscapes and some architectural, with a few indoor group portraits too.

For a crop camera, like the Nikon D90, you can also use a moderate fisheye prime lens. The perspective distortion is generally also moderate and you can correct for the distortion in post-processing. I do recommend the above zooms instead for greater versatility.

For vistas you can also use a panoramic tripod head and stitched panoramas. I use this technique a fair amount as it allos far more detail than a single capture. It works best with still-life scenes like pastorals and mountains/hillsides, and when the wind is subdued.

While a panoramic head is not absolutely required for stitched panoramic images, it does eliminate much of the parallax error that occurs from trying to stitch images shot from a rotation other that the optic center of a given lens, often called the "nodal point" of the lens (although it's not perfectly accurate to use that term for this purpose, but it's common parlance.) This is most important if you have foreground elements close to the camera position. If everything in the scene is at a considerable distance, it's not as important.

It is also relatively vital to keep the images level as tilted images will reduce the usable area of the resulting stitched panorama.

The RRS panoramic system is very nice (but a bit pricey). I use a Panosaurus system myself (with a few modifications, of course.)

Good software includes Autopano Pro (possibly the best overall choice) and, if you use Windows, freeware combinations like Autopano-SIFT and Hugin. While the latter is freeware the resulting quality can be very nice, but it is largely manual control and time consuming. I use Autopano-SIFT and Hugin, as well as using Microsoft's ICE (also free.)

Using manual exposure is absolutely vital and if the lighting changes between image acquision, you might have to start over. Blending dissimilar exposures is frustrating.

Do check out the best panoramic thread ever:

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=101529

Results:

http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=990541&postcount=274
http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=994328&postcount=293

Be sure to see what Baldy did here:

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1039964&postcount=362
http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1039966&postcount=363

angevin1

Bigfoot424 wrote: »

Apologies if this is in the wrong section. First off I am NOT a professional photographer and I likely qualify as a less than amateur photographer. Hence the reason for posting this. I have been wanting to purchase a wide angle lens for my camera and am clueless on what to buy. A little info. I love taking outdoor photos, especially in the mountains. Bit I also take photos pretty much anywhere. I am not looking for nor can I afford a top of the line lens. Think budget here. I'm basically looking for someone to tell me which lens to buy where I can get some decent shots with my D 90 and it won't break my bank. I'd like to keep it under $300 if possible but can go over some if need be.

Thanks in advance.

You didn't mention which lens/es you already own. But take a look here on the KEH website for some good used product from a reputable Used lens dealer.

Personally I like the 18-70mm that Nikon Kit-ed with the D200 a few years ago. Price is right, and it is a stellar cheaper lens.

System

I had the sigma 10-20 up until a couple weeks ago. I sold it because I bought an FX body. You sure can't go wrong with the sigma. There are two versions of that lens. One is the variable f/stop and the other is a constant f/stop. There is about a $200 difference in price.