Lenses for indoor shots

[sth]

Hello everyone!


I have Nikon D90 with “AF-S 18-105/3.5-5.6 VR”, “AF-S 35/1.8” and “60/2.8D AF Micro”.



I have the following inconveniences with these lenses for indoor usage:


35/1.8 – Too narrow for most indoor shots.
18-105 – Kit lens The image is not great. Not usable indoors. Too short for out doors.
60/2.8 – Great image, good for micro and portraits.


What lenses will you recommend for my indoor shots ?

[Wingman]

The answer to your question would depend on what type of indoor photography you have in mind. For instance, if you are looking for general family shots, your 18-105 with shoe mounted flash should give you good results. If you are looking to shoot indoor sports, you may want to get a "fast" (i.e. f/2.8 constant aperture) lens.

I use a Tamron 18-270on a D90 for general use which when used with my SB-600 flash gives me great results indoors. I also have a 70-200 f/2.8 VR which I use when I shoot indoor sporting events, high school band concerts etc. The slower lenses just would not work since given the subject to lens distance a flash would be ineffective.

[TCav]

There are large aperture, standard zoom lenses that will let you get away without flash, but the good ones aren't stabilized, and the stabilized ones aren't very good, but they're as good or better than the 18-105.

See:

Nikkor AF-S 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED DX VR

... versus ...

Tamron AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di II LD Asph. [IF] VC
... or ...
Sigma AF 17-50mm f/2.8 DC HSM EX OS

[rjseeney]

Originally Posted by sth

Hello everyone!


I have Nikon D90 with “AF-S 18-105/3.5-5.6 VR”, “AF-S 35/1.8” and “60/2.8D AF Micro”.



I have the following inconveniences with these lenses for indoor usage:


35/1.8 – Too narrow for most indoor shots.
18-105 – Kit lens The image is not great. Not usable indoors. Too short for out doors.
60/2.8 – Great image, good for micro and portraits.


What lenses will you recommend for my indoor shots ?

What kind of shots are you looking for?? The 18-105 is a pretty good lens..it's sharp and stabilized. Not good for indoor, without flash action, but with a flash it should be very good. As far as outdoors, what's it too short for?? Sports I can see, but it should be good for most other applications.

The 35 is another good lens, and should be usable in all but the smallest rooms or with large group shots.

As was mentioned, what kind of indoor shots can't you do with the listed lenses??

[sth]

I'm trying to shoot kids in a relatively small room. I'm trying not to use flash. Also group of people (incl. kids) again in not soo big space. 35/1.8 seemed to be not enough wide and 18-105 not so fast and not sharp.


About TAMRON I tried 17-50/2.8 but the front focus was terrible. I could not compensate it on D90
Also people complain that the TAMRON VC was not enough sharp.



I do prefer NIKON solutions.

[JohnG]

Well, you're not going to get decent group shots without flash. It's going to be extremely difficult to take a group shot at f1.8 - there isn't enough DOF - you need to be at f5.6-f8.

[rjseeney]

Originally Posted by JohnG

Well, you're not going to get decent group shots without flash. It's going to be extremely difficult to take a group shot at f1.8 - there isn't enough DOF - you need to be at f5.6-f8.

John is right...no way to do this without flash. You mention the 18-105 is not sharp. I have a feeling the lack of sharpness is from subject motion and shutter speeds that are too slow. If the room really small, adding a flash will allow you to bounce the light, and get really even lighting and freeze action without resorting to high iso's. You could get away with the 35 indoors without flash, but you'll need to shoot at 1600 or even 3200 to get fast enough shutter speeds for moving subjects.

I think you're lenses are fine...you just need more light, and learning how to use flash will help your photography more than new lenses at this point in time.