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Nikon D3100 with 18-55mm Lens + Close-Up Macro Lens Set

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Posted by moonlight1811: Sat May 19th, 2012 16:09

1^st Post

Hello everyone,

I'm very very new to the DSLR World and the photography world in general. I just bought my Nikon D3100 a couple of weeks ago. The only lens I have right now is the 18-55mm lens that came with the body when I purchased it.

I don't have the cash for an additional lens right now, so my mom thought she would do something nice and got me a "Close-Up Macro Lens Set 55mm" from amazon.com. Now, I don't know if I'm just an idiot or what the deal is...but none of the lens attachments in the lens set seem to fit. I thought you would just need to screw them onto the top of the camera lens. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong?

If anyone would help that would be really awesome. Thanks.

-Melissa

____________________
-Melissa

Posted by blackfox: Sat May 19th, 2012 16:33

2^nd Post

hi melissa ,simple mistake for a newbie ,the 18-55mm on your lens equates to its focal length i.e from 18mm wide angle to 55mm zoomed out .what you should have ordered ( but there not much good anyway) is your filter thread size ,very easy to find if you take off your lens cap the thread size will be stamped inside .
if in doubt ask on here before buying and explain that your new to photography and nikons ,be careful buying lenses for your camera as a lot of older lenses will not work on the d3100 as it has no internal motor to drive the focus .
any lens you buy must be suffixed by AFS

Posted by moonlight1811: Sat May 19th, 2012 16:40

3^rd Post

Hi!

Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate it.

Well, that makes sense now that I looked at the lens cap. Luckily, I didn't waste any money purchasing them since they were a gift.

But you're saying a set like that isn't much good anyway? Would you mind elaborating on why? :)

____________________
-Melissa

Posted by Robert: Sat May 19th, 2012 17:41

4^th Post

Hi Mellisa, Welcome to the forum.

The 18-55 is a zoom lens, the close up lenses are intended to screw onto the front of your camera lens just like a filter. There are many different sizes of thread, 52mm, 55mm, 62mm, 67mm, etc. You can get adaptors from one size to another. I think your lens has a 52mm thread, so if I am right, all you need is an adaptor from 52mm (lens) to 55mm (filter). You should get one cheaply in any local friendly camera shop.

As for the suitability of screw on close up lenses, OK, they are't perfect, the quality may not match the rest of the gear, lens and camera, but as a starters kit it is a good and inexpensive way to have a go at close up photography. A set usually comprises of 1, 2, and 3 diopter lenses and sometimes a 5 diopter, which can be a bit extreme for most needs.

You CAN fit older lenses on the D3100, I regularly use my old 55mm Micro Nikkor on the D3100 BUT ONLY in fully manual mode, which as a beginner might be a bit much for you. I have even used my 300mm f2.8 MF lens on my D3100, and been surprised by the quality of the images.

For close up work I recommend a good solid tripod, focus is critical when you get close in. With the D3100 you have a secret weapon... Turn on live view by turning the lever top right of the screen, then zoom in on the detail with the magnifier button (I don't mean zoom the lens!) if you turn off the autofocus (AF) you should be able to focus exactly on what you want because you can zoom right in to the detail on the screen. Focus the lens manually and you should see the parts you want sharp snap into focus when you rotate the focus ring on the lens. All this is much easier with a tripod. And easier to do than explain!

The main thing is to relax and have fun. This digital film is free, if you mess up it didn't cost a dime. When you get it right it's very rewarding.

____________________
Robert.

Posted by moonlight1811: Sat May 19th, 2012 19:23

5^th Post

Hi Robert,

Thank you for the kind welcome!

Would something like this suffice as an adapter to make the macro close up lenses work?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002E3WJU/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=A1WFSHX6J483SX

Went ahead and posted a link to amazon since I would rather be sure it's right this time! The closest thing we have to a camera shop here is Best Buy...and they're not the most friendly and usually aren't very knowledgeable either.

Thanks for the tip on the secret weapon! I think I understand what you mean with the tripod and turning off the AF. I read somewhere that if I were to use these macro lenses from the kit that I won't even be able to use auto focus and will have no other choice but to use manual focus. Is this true?

I have definitely been having a lot of fun! I just wish I could devote even more time to it.

____________________
-Melissa

Posted by Doug: Sat May 19th, 2012 19:29

6^th Post

Robert wrote:
Hi Mellisa, Welcome to the forum.
This digital film is free, if you mess up it didn't cost a dime. When you get it right it's very rewarding.
Welcome Melissa, what Robert says is not quite true. :banghead:

If you were to capture 1000 shots each week your camera would be very likely to need major repair or replacement inside 2 years. :sick:

That's still very much cheaper than film ever was :-)

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Posted by moonlight1811: Sat May 19th, 2012 19:43

7^th Post

Doug wrote: Robert wrote:
Hi Mellisa, Welcome to the forum.
This digital film is free, if you mess up it didn't cost a dime. When you get it right it's very rewarding.
Welcome Melissa, what Robert says is not quite true. :banghead:

If you were to capture 1000 shots each week your camera would be very likely to need major repair or replacement inside 2 years. :sick:

That's still very much cheaper than film ever was :-)

____________________
-Melissa

Posted by Constable: Sun May 20th, 2012 00:27

8^th Post

moonlight1811 wrote:

Would something like this suffice as an adapter to make the macro close up lenses work?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002E3WJU/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=A1WFSHX6J483SX
.
Hi Melissa

Welcome to the forum. That step-up adaptor is exactly what you want.
The depth of field is very shallow with one of the close-up filters. Tripod is probably needed although you can get away with handolding when there is plenty of light ( like in Texas ;-)

).

AF might be OK.

Watch out for distortion at the edges ... This is a fact of life wit these things unless you buy expensive achromatic versions.

Have fun and post some pics

Ed

Posted by Robert: Sun May 20th, 2012 03:00

9^th Post

If your lens is 52mm and the close up lenses are 55mm then yes that is exactly what you need.

In a way your mom may have done you a favour, getting the 55mm close up lenses means if you do get another lens for your camera, they have a better chance of them fitting directly, provided of course it has 52 or 55mm threads.

The depth of focus for close up images is always very shallow, no matter what the method. The greater the magnification the shorter the distance which contains an acceptably sharp image becomes.

The only way to get closer without loosing depth of focus is to crop the image and enlarge the displayed image but that still has severe limitations.

____________________
Robert.

Posted by Robert: Sun May 20th, 2012 03:46

10^th Post

moonlight1811 wrote:
Doug wrote: Robert wrote:
Hi Mellisa, Welcome to the forum.
This digital film is free, if you mess up it didn't cost a dime. When you get it right it's very rewarding.
Welcome Melissa, what Robert says is not quite true. :banghead:

If you were to capture 1000 shots each week your camera would be very likely to need major repair or replacement inside 2 years. :sick:

That's still very much cheaper than film ever was :-)

Really? Well, that's not so good. What happens to it?

I don't think I've captured 1000 shots per week since I've had it. Maybe about a third of that though.

Now I feel like I should be worried! This new camera is like my baby! lol

Well when I made that statement I was referring to the the cost of the film media, not the wear and tear on the camera hardware, which I think is fairly clear in my text.

If Doug wants to introduce the wear and tear aspect then I suppose that is a factor. But, I suspect if Mellisa is so keen and takes 1000 exposures a week over two years that will be over 100,000 exposures. from her own estimate of 300/week that will be 31,000 over two years.

If Mellisa takes that many images, I suspect after two years she may feel a replacement with a more capable camera may be justified at that time? Perhaps a D7200?

As a matter of interest I checked out the shutter failure rates for the D3000 and D5000 (Not specifically the D3100).

This data is not verified so take it with a pinch of salt, ignore the extremes. Remember most people just take pix, they don't usually take the time to report non failure. The camera has a 12 month guarantee, if it survives the first year of fairly busy usage I would venture that it will be OK for a lot more clicks.

http://www.olegkikin.com/shutterlife/

I feel I use my D200's pretty intensively, they have <15,000 clicks. It's rare on this forum to hear of a shutter failure in a consumer camera. Occasionally one of the pro users has a problem but that will usually be with a heavily used pro camera.

____________________
Robert.

Posted by moonlight1811: Sun May 20th, 2012 22:53

11^th Post

Constable wrote: moonlight1811 wrote:

Would something like this suffice as an adapter to make the macro close up lenses work?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002E3WJU/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=A1WFSHX6J483SX
.
Hi Melissa

Welcome to the forum. That step-up adaptor is exactly what you want.
The depth of field is very shallow with one of the close-up filters. Tripod is probably needed although you can get away with handolding when there is plenty of light ( like in Texas ;-)

). Ed,

Thank you. I went ahead and ordered the adapter =] I'm excited for it to arrive so I can see what all of these things do! I'll have to think about a tripod next it seems like.

I posted one picture in my introductory post in the new members section if you're interested in taking a look at it =]

____________________
-Melissa

Posted by moonlight1811: Sun May 20th, 2012 23:01

12^th Post

Robert wrote: If your lens is 52mm and the close up lenses are 55mm then yes that is exactly what you need.

In a way your mom may have done you a favour, getting the 55mm close up lenses means if you do get another lens for your camera, they have a better chance of them fitting directly, provided of course it has 52 or 55mm threads.

The depth of focus for close up images is always very shallow, no matter what the method. The greater the magnification the shorter the distance which contains an acceptably sharp image becomes.

The only way to get closer without loosing depth of focus is to crop the image and enlarge the displayed image but that still has severe limitations. Robert,

I will just view it as my mom having done me a favor! She was really just trying to do something nice for me.

I think I will just have to play around with them once the adapter arrives in order to properly understand everything you've said. I think I'm more of a visual and kinesthetic learner =]

Also, thanks for clearing up the thing about the clicks. Had me freaked out for a second there!

____________________
-Melissa

Posted by Doug: Mon May 21st, 2012 00:24

13^th Post

In the film days it cost about $0.25 to $1.00 a shot
Anyone who could afford to burn $25,000 to $100,000 in the course of a couple of years certainly wasn't worried about wearing out their shutter

Today with digital it is all too easy to rattle off a thousand frames at an event, which can be good when you're learning but you should be aware of the cost

If your camera body cost $1000 and it breaks down after 25,000 shots then it has cost you about $0.04/shot
If your camera body cost $1000 and it breaks down after 100,000 shots then it has cost you about $0.01/shot

In your case I think that the body (without lenses) has a value of around $500 which translates to a cost of $0.005 to $0.02 each shot

Cameras in this price bracket are usually replaced by their owners when this happens since the cost of repair is often uneconomical running into hundreds of dollars

Click the following link and scroll down to read 'disadvantages'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal-plane_shutter

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Posted by jk: Tue May 22nd, 2012 12:16

14^th Post

The professional Nikon DSLR camera shutters are rated at MTBF of 150000-250000 releases. The prosumer ones are 100000-125000.

It is another good reason to work with two cameras as you reduce redundancy and also reduce single camera MBTF likelihood as shots are spread between two cameras.

Depends of depth of pockets and the like but for me having two cameras on the go means that I can shoot on one camera and if my buffer fills up then I can instantly switch to the second camera.

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Posted by Robert: Tue May 22nd, 2012 13:19

15^th Post

Especially good using two bodies because you can use a longer lens on one and a wider lens on the other, with different settings to suit the two lenses.

Football, motorsport, track events, probably most sports, I even use two bodies when photographing flowers, one to take the actual images I want, the other to give me a general image of the location and more importantly to capture the GPS location and a pic of the plant name plate with the latinised name and bio details. I frequently need flash to capture the name plate because it's often hidden under foliage so the D200 pop up flash is very handy under those circumstances.

____________________
Robert.

Posted by moonlight1811: Tue May 22nd, 2012 14:03

16^th Post

Y'all are using big words now! MBTF? I'm just now starting to properly comprehend aperture! lol
I will have to make due with my Nikon D3100 for now. I will just have to take extra care with it and make it last for as long as I can. Besides, for now this is only a hobby and something I just take a great amount of interest in. I don't intend on making it a career =]

____________________
-Melissa

Posted by Robert: Tue May 22nd, 2012 14:31

17^th Post

Mean Time Between Failures!

JK was a scientist... Everything can be broken down to numbers (by scientists) LOL.

To you and I, it should last a long while.

____________________
Robert.

Posted by moonlight1811: Tue May 22nd, 2012 21:19

18^th Post

A scientist?! Oh my. I can't keep up with that. Thanks for putting that into normal people language lol

I'm a musician, no scientist! :P

____________________
-Melissa

Posted by richw: Wed May 23rd, 2012 05:22

19^th Post

moonlight1811 wrote:
Y'all are using big words now! MBTF? I'm just now starting to properly comprehend aperture! lol
I will have to make due with my Nikon D3100 for now. I will just have to take extra care with it and make it last for as long as I can. Besides, for now this is only a hobby and something I just take a great amount of interest in. I don't intend on making it a career =]

You'll be fine. My wife and I have owned quite a few NIkon cameras between us and the only one that broke suffered a fall onto a tiled floor from a kitchen cabinet (knocked off by a young niece so we grinned and bore it). Genuine mechanical failure is covered by your Nikon warranty year 1, take lots of shots and if it makes past this you're good for a while. Whilst Doug's point is technically true most amateur photographers change cameras because they get upgrade lust rather than the camera wearing out. Many cameras don't get measured in the failure rate because the stop getting used before they fail (like my D70 and I'm afraid to say D200).

In a nutshell if you wear out your shutter you will either be very unlucky or be very, very unusual in the amount of shots you take as an amateur.

Don't let it fall onto a hard surface, but don't worry about taking shots.

There is some merit in not becoming 'click' happy for a different reason though, - if I just grab a camera and go mad I rarely take a good shot. My best shots are always taken with a bit more thought and purpose.

Posted by moonlight1811: Wed May 23rd, 2012 10:07

20^th Post

richw wrote: Whilst Doug's point is technically true most amateur photographers change cameras because they get upgrade lust rather than the camera wearing out.
In a nutshell if you wear out your shutter you will either be very unlucky or be very, very unusual in the amount of shots you take as an amateur.

There is some merit in not becoming 'click' happy for a different reason though, - if I just grab a camera and go mad I rarely take a good shot. My best shots are always taken with a bit more thought and purpose. I will take good care of it! I already call it "my child" and even gave it a name lol. Yes, that probably makes me a little weird, but I'm okay with that.

Upgrade lust, eh? Well, I guess I should make sure that any additional lens I might purchase will work with other Nikons. I'm guessing Nikon is friendly enough to allow lenses to work with more than just one body. Purchasing body and lenses all over again would be very costly.

I wouldn't consider myself "click happy", but I do need to work more on the thought and purpose part of it. I have a friend who is going to be a test subject for portraits in a few weeks, so that may help!

Thanks for the reassurance :)

____________________
-Melissa

Posted by jk: Wed May 23rd, 2012 19:14

21^st Post

moonlight1811 wrote:
A scientist?! Oh my. I can't keep up with that. Thanks for putting that into normal people language lol

I'm a musician, no scientist! :P
Well I can only play chopsticks on the piano and not very well at that.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses.
MBTF. Mean Time Between Failure!

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Posted by moonlight1811: Wed May 23rd, 2012 22:13

22^nd Post

jk wrote: Well I can only play chsticks on the piano and not very well at that.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses.
MBTF. Mean Time Between Failure! Ah, I am no pianist! I am a singer =]
You are correct though, we all have our strengths and weaknesses...and there will always be someone out there that is better. At least I think so.

____________________
-Melissa

Posted by jk: Mon May 28th, 2012 06:47

23^rd Post

moonlight1811 wrote:
jk wrote: Well I can only play chsticks on the piano and not very well at that.

We all have our strengths and weaknesses.
MBTF. Mean Time Between Failure! Ah, I am no pianist! I am a singer =]
You are correct though, we all have our strengths and weaknesses...and there will always be someone out there that is better. At least I think so.

I agree absolutely.
Sometimes I do wish that I had learnt to play an instrument but then again that would be another expensive hobby!

____________________
Still learning after all these years!
https://nikondslr.uk/gallery_view.php?user=2&folderid=none

Posted by Constable: Mon May 28th, 2012 15:36

24^th Post

Melissa

Assuming you are the same moonlight1811, did you ever get into music college with that German song?

And don't be so hard on scientists, we're normal people too, we just sometimes need to talk a little $$&%‡=45RT*9 sometimes

Ed

Posted by moonlight1811: Tue May 29th, 2012 00:25

25^th Post

Constable wrote: Melissa

Assuming you are the same moonlight1811, did you ever get into music college with that German song?

And don't be so hard on scientists, we're normal people too, we just sometimes need to talk a little $$&%‡=45RT*9 sometimes

Ed Ed,

I actually just graduated from college with a bachelors in vocal music performance. I'm just working on auditions now. The next one is in two weeks for an opera company and I've been madly prepping for it! I want to be on big stages =]

Scientists are normal people, yes! They just sometimes speak a language I don't understand! lol

____________________
-Melissa

Posted by Constable: Tue May 29th, 2012 12:00

26^th Post

Hey congratulations. A difficult afield to break into.

Posted by Robert: Tue May 29th, 2012 14:39

27^th Post

moonlight1811 wrote:
I actually just graduated from college with a bachelors in vocal music performance. I'm just working on auditions now. The next one is in two weeks for an opera company and I've been madly prepping for it! I want to be on big stages =]
Well the very best of luck Mellisa, I hope you are successful.

____________________
Robert.

Posted by moonlight1811: Tue May 29th, 2012 15:33

28^th Post

Thank you! It's not easy. I have a youtube channel to try to get more exposure, but it's just a hard field to get into. I sing wherever I can. Sadly the place I live in right now really has no opportunities and I'm trying to move to a bigger city...but I need a job in a city first! Perhaps this audition will work out!

____________________
-Melissa

Posted by jk: Thu May 31st, 2012 16:28

29^th Post

Good luck in your singing.
Very competitive field and some luck is always required to supplement the talent.

____________________
Still learning after all these years!
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Posted by moonlight1811: Wed Jun 6th, 2012 16:18

30^th Post

jk wrote: Good luck in your singing.
Very competitive field and some luck is always required to supplement the talent. Thanks! Audition this Tuesday! Eek!
I think a lot of luck is required to be honest. A lot of it is about being in the right place at the right time. We shall see how this goes! :D

____________________
-Melissa

Posted by Robert: Wed Jun 6th, 2012 17:02

31^st Post

Best of luck Melissa, I think probably one of the most important things is knowing the right people.

All my life I have always walked straight from one job to another as a builder, because I knew the people and more importantly they knew I could do the job.

____________________
Robert.

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