Wedding Zoom lens for my Nikon D70?

Question

Can you please recommend a zoom lens to be used with my Nikon D70 for WEDDING photography (indoor, outdoor, group portraits, close-ups, and low-light are all situations that will be encountered). I can only spend between $100 and $200. Thank you in advance to those who have first-hand experience to share with me! I am looking to order a new lens today or tomorrow at the latest! Thank you!

Answer 1

Well if you only have a D70 then I would recommend getting another camera body before spending money on glass. if you are charging money for your services then you need to provide a professional level of cover. A single camera body and cheap glass is no way to do this.

http:///www.pixcellence.co.uk

Answer 2

Since you're going to be indoors and probably aren't going to get that far away from people, an 18-55mm lens should do the job. Again, since you're indoors, you'll DEFINITELY want some VR to help eliminate blurry pictures. Nikon has a great new fast lens like this for only $170 at Adorama here:

http://www.adorama.com/NK1855VRU.html?se...

If you're wanting more zoom, I wouldn't go outside of the Nikon lens. The D70 is a wonderful camera, and the point of buying a Nikon is to use Nikon's fantastic lenses. If you were to buy a much cheaper Sigma or Tamroc lens, you would save some money, but you'd be downgrading your image quality. :(

The best zoom is always going to be your feet :)

Answer 3

If you're a wedding photographer, and make money for your pictures, you should expand your budget. You can't get a high quality zoom lense for that price ( with great results ). Just spend a little more, and get the 70-300 millimeter lens :P

Nathan Grammatico.

Answer 4

You need a bigger budget, the Nikon 17-55dx f/2.8 is $1199 at B&H.  The fact is, an inexpensive zoom lens is doable for outdoors under good conditions, but inadequate in low light,  and also can't produce the nice out of focus areas like a wider aperture.  For your budget, you can get a 50mm f/1.8 which will be great for low light and bokeh, but on the D70 it will be like a 75mm lens.  Great for portraits, but too long for most wedding applications.  What do you use on your other camera body?  (You DO have another, right?)  The best cheapest solution would be two primes, the 50mm (about $100) and a 20mm f/2.8 which you might be able to find used for under $300.  On Fleabay, you might run across a 20mm f/2 for a decent price, but still puts you over $200 for a workable solution.   Another possibility might be the Tokina 12-24 f/4 which I've never used, but I hear good things.  It's about $500.

If you are planning to shoot weddings often, eventually you will find yourself in a situation where you will not be able to produce acceptable images with a consumer zoom.  Make sure your insurance is up to date, and be careful of the jobs you accept until you get quality equipment for shooting an important event like a wedding, especially if you are charging for your services.  I am not trying to be rude, but sometimes you have to have good equipment to get the job done right.  Best wishes and good luck.

Answer 5

I'd strongly recommend the Nikon 55-200mm vr as it will compliment your kit lens with a nice short telephoto range.  The VR (vibration reduction) feature will also add stability to your shots, especially important if you're taking any without flash and in low light.

http://kenrockwell.com/nikon/55-200mm-vr...

Here's some I found on Ebay for under $200.

http://search.ebay.com/Nikon-55-200mm-vr...

Hope this helps.

Answer 6

With a budget of $100 to $200 for a new lens, you either should stick with the standard 18-55mm lens or the 18-70mm that most D70's came with.  I would then add a 55-200mm VR lens for telephoto shooting.  This is not the best solution for low-light/available light shooting.

However, since you want to shoot low-light and portraits, what you could do is use the Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF lens, which brand-new is about $125.  This lens is not a zoom, but you can "zoom" with your feet.  It will be incredibly sharp.  You can use the wide aperture for dim light.  It will work great outdoors, indoors, for close-ups and low-light (both with and without flash).  For groups, you will have to back up to get everyone in, but perhaps for the groups, you can use the lens you already have (like the 18-55mm or 18-70mm).

Zoom with your feet means you step closer to get more magnification or that you step back to get wider.

I do not recommend photographing a wedding as the sole photographer until you actually know what you are doing, because otherwise you might ruin someone's happy memories.

And really good zoom lenses will cost you $500 to $2500 each so you need to really think about what you are doing.

The best bargain is the 50mm f/1.8D lens, so I would highly recommend that.

EDIT:  with the additional information you provided about wanting to be further back, then the ONLY option within your price range is the 55-200mm VR lens.  Get it new for 199.99 at us1camera.com or $209.95 at buydig.com.  The 50mm f/1.8 is a good lens, but since you want to be further back, it's not enough.