D90 Portrait Lens

[lazimutha]

I have a D90 and I'm looking for a nice portrait lens. Budget is around £200. Not sure what that will get me. Can go 2nd hand if needed.

[Whiternoise]

I use a 28-70mm f/2.8 Sigma, nice lens, decent low light performance and around £270 RRP - a bit over budget, but they can be picked up for under £200 on eBay (new or used).

There are the nifty 50's, the 1.8 is a perennial favourite costing well under £100 being super duper sharp - and is fast to boot.

(I have a D90 too so i can verify that both work fine)

[brammers]

Pedantic mode to start - I've taken portraits with a 17mm wideangle on full frame. Are you sure you want one lens for this - can't the long end of your zoom do it? If you're after the typical head and shoulders look, then you probably want to look between 50 and 100mm - 135 on crop starts getting a little long, and isn't cheap.

I don't do Nikon myself, but a 50mm f1.8 would be a decent start, a 50mm f1.4 will generally give you better build and bokkeh and an 85mm f1.8 would be wonderful - but such large aperture, uncorrected lenses can suffer from CA. If there's a 100mm f2 that would be good too, a 3rd party 100mm macro lens is always good, even if the AF can be a bit slow, and finally a 55-200 or 70-300 telephoto can do double duty, will be very cheap and due to the lack of special glass and unambitious design will be reasonably sharp in certain areas with a lack of nasty side-effects. Ebay for 2nd hand prices on all of those. Basically, anything prime from 50-100mm or a slow telephoto zoom will do the job and will be round-about your budget, esp 2nd hand.

Personally, I'd go for the 85 1.8. You'll probably need a 2nd hand version, and I have no idea on the prices. After that, 50mm f1.4 - again, probably 2nd hand, and assuming you like it a bit more intimate.

[vicar]

Nikon nifty 50's cant go wrong with them.

[lazimutha]

Thanks for all your help. Only one thing...what are the nifty fifties?

[Saracen]

Thanks for all your help. Only one thing...what are the nifty fifties?

Common slang for small, relatively budget 50mm lenses.

I can't speak of Nikon as I'm a Canon user, but the Canon "nifty-fifty" is a 50mm f1.8 at about £90. And while it isn't pro-grade construction, optically it is regarded as VERY good for the money.

Or you can step up a grade to 50mm f1.4 at about £350-ish, or you can step up a lot to 50mm f1.2 at £1000 plus.

Obviously, the Canon lenses are no use to you, but I imagine that much the same options are available in Nikon, and the "nifty" one will be the cheap (but still very good ) one.

In other words, "nifty" as in cheap-but-cheerful, and "fifty" as in 50mm.

This for example.

[Whiternoise]

If you get the old AF-D model, it'll be substantially cheaper than the new fancy AF-S ones. The 85 1.8 is going for about £250 used, pretty expensive, but it's a great portrait lens. 55-200's can be picked up very cheap (around £130-140) - they're the bog standard telephoto, give great shots in my experience and have VR to boot. Seriously consider getting one of those and a 50mm if you've only got your kit lens

The Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AF-D is under £100, the 50mm f/1.4 AF-D is nearing £250-300 and the new (droolworthy) 50mm f/1.4 AF-S is around £350-400.

Personally i've got my sights set on the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 but it's a tad steep at £407 (onestop digital any good?)

[Moby-Dick]

Common slang for small, relatively budget 50mm lenses.

I can't speak of Nikon as I'm a Canon user, but the Canon "nifty-fifty" is a 50mm f1.8 at about £90. And while it isn't pro-grade construction, optically it is regarded as VERY good for the money.

Or you can step up a grade to 50mm f1.4 at about £350-ish, or you can step up a lot to 50mm f1.2 at £1000 plus.

Obviously, the Canon lenses are no use to you, but I imagine that much the same options are available in Nikon, and the "nifty" one will be the cheap (but still very good ) one.

In other words, "nifty" as in cheap-but-cheerful, and "fifty" as in 50mm.

This for example.

looking forward to my nifty 50 in my christmas stocking

[menthel]

looking forward to my nifty 50 in my christmas stocking

Same here!

[Blastuk]

(onestop digital any good?)

As far as grey imports go, I used them without problems.. if you can find a similar price somewhere, tell them and they might give you a little discount.
(I didn't get hit with customs though)

[tfboy]

The Sigma 50 f/1.4 is a gorgeous lens and the bokeh is lovely. But I don't know if second hand prices come down that much. On a crop body, it gives great portraits and you get the benefit shooting low light too.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would definitely go for the Nikon 50MM 1.8 AF-D especially since the D90 should be able to autofocus and meter with it unlike cheaper Nikon dSLRs. It offers good image quality for the price and will equate to around 80MM in 35MM terms which is a good portrait focal length.