I Think I Made A Breakthrough. Also, Anyone Have Recommendations for Nikon-Compatible Lenses? [View all]

[dballance]

Okay, so never underestimate the benefit of just sitting there with your camera and it's manual (or the third-party manual I got on sale at Powell's bookstore) and just clicking through all the settings. I knew the basics of what f-stops and shutter speed meant but never really fooled with them on my current DSLR. It's a Nikon D40 and I have the stock 18-55mm/3.5-5.6 that comes with and a 18-200mm/3.5-5.6 that I picked up refurbished.

I finally figured out how to adjust the aperture, shutter speed and ISO with the camera in full manual mode. Now I can start trying to be really artistic (after much practice). Full-auto has allowed me to take some excellent pictures but then I think "Why do I have a decent body and two lens for if I'm going to use it as a point-and-shoot?" Thank goodness it's digital so I don't have to waste a lot of film and processing $$ to try things out. My photography is pretty standard amateur stuff. No professional portraiture or anything like that in my future.

So I'm getting the idea I probably should have a 35mm or 50/55mm prime lens with as low an f-stop as I can afford. Nikon has a 35mm 1.8 I see online for under $200. I've never used third-party lenses with the camera. I'm not all that tied to the auto-focus and understand my D40 can't focus certain lenses even within the Nikon line. That's okay since I used to use a film 35mm without auto-focus I could live with it. When I upgrade I'll stay within the Nikon D-series.

Anybody had good luck with third-party lenses? Which ones?

Also, any advice, and "are you nuts - you don't know what you're doing" comments are okay too. I'm just now transitioning from using the camera as an expensive point-and-shoot to a real camera.

Here's a picasa gallery of photos I took I don't hate

https://picasaweb.google.com/111080945812562422368/DUPhotos#