Recommended Lenses - 3rd-Party
The “Third-Party” Lens Choices
Of course, Nikon aren’t the only lens manufacturer out there. Tamron, Tokina and Sigma are also brands to watch out for if you’re looking for a bargain. Most of these lenses come in at less than their Nikon counterparts (substantially so for the “pro” quality glass), though do bear in mind the old adage of “buy cheap, buy twice”. In other words, if you think you’ll eventually want the Nikkor, it might be worth saving for it now. That being said, these lenses will most probably outlast your DSLR so can never be considered a bad investment!
Standard Pro Zoom: Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical (IF)
Tamron hit on a winner with this lens; it’s sharp and contrasty, whilst remaining small and light. It loses out to other manufacturer’s lenses on the wide end - they often go to 24mm - but gains 5mm on the long end.
The name is Tamron’s usual strange mix of alphabet soup (not that Nikon are much better) - suffice it to say that this lens is from their pro range (”SP”), has autofocus (”AF” - though not AF-S), is designed for digital (”Di” - Digitally Integrated), is small (”XR”), has low dispersion glass (”LD”), aspherical elements, and internal focusing (”IF”). Phew.
Alternatives: Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro or 28-70mm f/2.8 EX DG.
Telephoto Pro Zoom: Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 II EX DG APO Macro HSM AF
Sigma have a long history of making lenses for other people’s SLRs (as well as their own), with varying degrees of success. This is one of, if not their best. It features speedy “hypersonic” HSM focusing (similar to Nikon’s AF-S), though is lacking Vibration Reduction (”OS”, or “Optical Stabilization” in Sigma terminology).
With the current concerns about the Nikkor 70-200mm corner performance (described above), you might want to check this one out. It’s been a while since we had our hands on one (which was actually the earlier non-II version), but very much enjoyed using it.
Alternatives: It’s between this and the two Nikkors (70-200 and 80-200mm).
Quality Walkaround Zoom: Tamron SP AF 24-135mm f/3.5-5.6 AD Aspherical IF Autofocus
Another Tamron, and for good reason. This lens is pretty sharp wide open, getting excellent when stopped down just a tad, has a nice wide 24mm angle and a Nikon 24-120mm-beating 135mm at the long end. It’s not the fastest in terms of aperture, so it’s a good job the D700 has such excellent high-ISO capabilities, but does use screw drive so can take advantage of the powerful in-body AF motor. Build quality is good, and the IQ in the corners isn’t bad either for an FX lens at this price point.
To be honest, when we’re not shooting professionally, this is the lens that stays on our D3 - and I see no reason why it won’t live on the D700 either.
Convenience Do-It-All Zoom: Tamron AF 28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 XR Di VC LD Aspherical (IF) Macro
Another alphabet-soup Tamron makes our list - and they’re not even paying us to write this! You may feel some qualms about putting a lens like this on your new FX camera (if that’s the case, but you still want a walkaround, the previous lens is for you), but as superzooms go this ain’t bad. It has an internal focus motor (in order to be compatible with Nikon’s lower-end motor-less cameras such as the D60) so it won’t take advantage of the powerful one in your D700, and has a slow maximum aperture of f/6.3 starting from around 200m which can cause hunting in low-light conditions.
However, this puppy does have built-in VR (called “VC”, or “Vibration Compensation” in Tamron-speak) which is amazingly effective - more so than Nikon’s implementation in our experience - if a little… whirry. Add that to what amounts to fairly good image quality for a lens of this range, and we think it’s the best of the superzoom bunch.
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September 1st, 2008 at 8:34 am
How about the Sigma AF 24-70 f2.8? It’s fast, it’s good, it’s sturdy and has a useful range? Better yet, it’s still in production.