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Lens Options

Let's talk about the lens options that are available on this camera. So we have DX lenses and FX lenses that we can use. The camera is using what is known as a DX sensor and so the DX lenses are perfectly matched to that sensor. And so what's happening as light comes through a FX lens it creates a very large image circle designed for the full frame sensor. As light comes through the lens for the DX sensor, it is a smaller image circle which is designed for the smaller image sensor in the camera. Where things get a little interesting is when you start switching lenses back and forth. You can take a DX lens and you can mount it on a full frame Nikon camera, but it's not going to cover the entire sensor area. A lot of those full frame cameras will have an auto DX crop and will automatically crop the image in so that you're getting a full image area but you're not getting a full sensor area, which means you're going to get less pixels on your final image. You can use all of the FX lenses o...

n the D7500 camera. The do produce a large image circle - not really a problem - you're just capturing the information that is in the middle of that particular sensor, and so if you have this camera, you can use the DX lenses or you can use the FX lenses. You can see this pretty clearly when you have the lenses. The FX lenses are the kind of standard line of Nikon lenses. Now, unfortunately, they don't actually say FX lens on them. The way that you identify them is if they say DX, they are a DX. If they don't say DX, that means they're FX. There is one third - there is a third category, which is the Nikon 1 series of lenses. These are auto-focus mirrorless lenses, designed for a completely different system of cameras. And so you can't use those mirrorless on the D7500 in any way, shape, or form. As you look at the lenses, most of the lenses are going to have filter threads that come in one of many different common sizes. That'll be indicated by that circle with the diagram through it. Diagonal through it. There'll be some little notches on the front of most of the lenses, and this is for the lens hood. One of the things you do need to be careful with, I would highly recommend using the lens hood as much as possible. The one major exception is when you are using the built-in flash. It will sometimes block the built-in flash depending on what lens it is. And so that's a good time to not use the flash. Zoom lenses will usually have a pretty big zoom ring, with their focal length indicators pretty clearly visible right there. Most all lenses are going to have a nice big focusing ring for you to adjust focus if you want to manually. The better lenses will have a distance scale on them so that you can adjust focus by looking at the top of the lens and seeing where the lens is focused at. All lenses will have a little bit of lens information that I'll tell you more about here in the next slide. And then the lens mount mark that we looked at before from mounting it up properly on the camera. Most of their lenses will have an auto-focus or manual focus switch. There are two different common types of switches. The most common is one with just M and A, and this is pretty simple: manual focus, and auto focus. And it's pretty clear what's going to happen with the lens in that case. The other option is manual focus or auto focus with a manual focus override. And so any lens that has the M/A option on the side of it with the switch means that you can grab the focusing ring, the manual focusing ring, and override auto focus if you want to. Typically, the way that'll work is you let the camera focus, and then if you decide, "Nope, that's not exactly what I wanted, focus," grab the focusing ring and readjust it. And that's because those lenses have a special clutch motor in it. And those are usually the higher-end lenses that have that option. When using this camera, you want to be very clear about what lenses you are using on your camera, and there is a big difference, and this is going to get a little bit of alphabet soup in here. Difference between the G and the E lenses, which are their newer lenses, versus the older lenses, which either have a D or nothing by them. In general, they are non-G, or E lenses. And so it's very easy to identify these. If you look at the aperture on the lens, the maximum aperture, is there a letter after it and what is that letter? G and E lenses is what I would mostly recommend with this camera. The other way to tell about it, is does the camera - or does the lens - have an aperture ring on it? And so the original auto focus lenses from Nikon had this big ol' aperture ring on it. It's now controlled electronically in the camera and, while you can use these older lenses, there is limited compatibility on it. And so what's going to happen is you're not going to get auto focus, but you can still use the camera as far as exposure goes. So let's take a look at some of the recommended lenses that I would indicate for this camera. The 18 to 140 is often packaged with it, which is a very large zoom range lens, which can be very handy and practical for a lot of people. The lens that I would prefer to have on there myself is the 16 to 80. It's a little bit less range but it does give you a little bit more wide angle, and it is notably faster, which means it lets in more light. So for working under low-light conditions, it's very nice. It's also - might be just a tad bit smaller. It does have the focusing indicator on there and is probably a little bit more expensive as well. Another couple of lenses that might be interesting... If you want even more range, there is an 18 to 200. And there are, just to confuse you, two 18 to 300s. Now, there is a slight difference in the size and the aperture between the two 18 to 300s. Now, the more zoom you have in one particular lens, generally, the lower the quality of the optics of the lens, just because you're asking it to do so many different things well. But if you want one lens that does everything, the 18 to 140 is a great place to start. If you need a little bit more, Nikon definitely makes it. One of the things you'll notice is that Nikon - and a lot of the other manufacturers - use a lot of letters to indicate the different things that their lens can do or characteristics that it has. So here's a shortcut to some of the different features that we're talking about in these cameras. So FX and DX, that's the size of sensor that those lenses are designed for. They have different focusing systems that they'll have indicated, and different ways of communicating with the different lenses. If you wanted a fast zoom lens - this is letting in lots of light, it's very fast at acquiring light - Nikon makes a 17 to 55 that has a fixed maximum aperture of 2.8. It's a really well built lens, and it's a somewhat expensive lens as well. If you want a fast lens, there are some other good alternate choices out there. Tamron makes a very good lens that also has vibration control on it, so it has a stabilization feature built in that Nikon does not. If you really want the fastest zoom lens out there, the Sigma 18 to 35 has an aperture of 1.8, which is letting in a ton of light. They also have a telephoto version, a 50 to 100 version of that. To be honest, the Sigmas don't have quite as much zoom range as the Nikons, but you're getting a lot more speed out of them as a trade-off. If you're looking for a telephoto zoom, which I imagine most people will be after a bit of shooting, Nikon makes a variety of different telephotos that are at different price levels and different qualities. The least expensive, the 70 to 300 AFP lens, is kind of a minimalist telephoto lens. It's decent quality but it's not built with a lot of any extra features on it. The - kind of the main one that I would recommend is the 70 to 300 AFP 4.5 to 5.6 E lens, and this is going to be a really well-built lens. It's a good middle-range purpose lens. And then, if you want something even higher quality, a little bit less range, is the 70 to 200 F4 lens. I like this lens. It's not too big, but it is a really really high-quality lens. And for those of you going on safari, you can look at the 80 to 400. If you want wide-angle, Nikon makes a number of different wide-angles. The least expensive is the 10 to 20. If you just want to dabble into the world of ultra wide-angle, that's going to probably be the best choice. If you want to get a little bit more serious, want to get a little bit higher quality lens, built a little bit to higher quality standards, take a look at the 10 to 24 lens. There are some other good lenses from different manufacturers: Tokina's 11 to 16 is a really nice lens. I like that because it has the faster aperture of F2.8. One of the more affordable good options out there is the Tamron 10 to 24, and if you want something a little bit faster because you shoot under low-light conditions, take a look at the Tokina 14 to 20 F2. That is going to be the fastest of the wide-angle lenses that are available out there. Getting into a prime lens is going to allow you to get to some very fast apertures without spending a lot of money and without having a lot of bulk on the lens as well. And so all of these are some really nice lenses for this camera. The 35 1.8 would be a good normal lens on this camera, kind of a lifestyle lens you might say. The 50 millimeter 1.8 and 1.4 would be very good for portrait photography, and if you really get into portraits, the 85 1.8 is going to be a really good portrait lens, but you're going to need a little bit more space for working distance. So that would be something that would be good if you were going to be going down to a local park or the beach and you just have more working distance between you and your subject. If you're photographing in your house, probably the 50 millimeter is going to be a better option for doing portraits in that case. And so lots of different good options with Nikon. Nikon makes a ton of lenses; I could go on all day about them. In fact, I do have an entire class on Nikon lenses so if you want to know more about the lenses and how to use them and what to do, kind of a buyer's guide just for the lenses as far as understanding all the technology and how to use them, you can take a look at the Nikon Lenses The Complete Guide here at Creative Live It'll take you through all the details of all the great Nikon lenses.