lens for Nikon D5000

[gorlummeeguvnor]

If I may quiz you on behalf of my daughter who rather annoyingly seems incapable of posting her own question.
She has a Nikon D5000 and wants a fast lens for low light band photography. She has a limited budget. What she has found is this:-
Sigma-30mm-f-1-4-EX-DC-HSM---Nikon-Fit
and so she/I would appreciate any appraisal or insight into the lens or any other at this sort of price that you feel would be suitable.
Cheers

[loydall]

Well - I shoot canon but that lens is available for canon and nikon fit.

It's a fine lens - I've owned it and loved it. She does know it's a prime right? So no zooming - just moving backwards and forwards with your feet? 30mm is a great length - not quite wide but not quite portrait length but somewhere in between - great for capturing scenes.

Image quality is great. In fact it's amazing with this lens. A little soft at 1.4 but you kind of want that anyway.

She'l become a pro quicker with that lens than buying a standard 18-70 or something like that and not really thinking about her shots.

Hell yeah - buy it and love it - just remember that you need to learn to use it properly. It will give you amazing results.

[loydall]

Check out the flickr group for this lens: http://www.flickr.com/groups/sigma30mm/

[frex]

another suggestion would be the Nikkor 5o / 1.8 which is a prime too...no zooming!
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search...tialSearch=yes

The 18-70 is a nice everyday glass but the low light usage is restricted by it's 3.5 lowest f-stop

using a tripod and boosting the ISO often helps in low light and low budget lenses

[gorlummeeguvnor]

Thank you both very much for that. She has gone ahead and ordered it. I am intrigued by "just remember that you need to learn to use it properly". I'm guessing you mean more than "make sure its on the camera the correct way round".

[loydall]

Well - it opens up to 1.4 which is a very narrow depth of field so you need to make sure you get stuff in focus - the temptation will be to shoot loads at 1.4 so, if you do, make sure you focus on the subject's eyes (if you're shooting people) and make sure it's the nearest eye to the camera - at 1.4 the eye will be in focus but the tip of the nose will be out of focus.

But remember - it's even sharper at a smaller aperture - so at f/4 (which is great for portraits) you'll get an ultra sharp shot.

And - focusing might be a bit difficult at f/1.4 - if you focus and recompose you may have lost that wafer thin focus so consider making the most of all you focus points rather than centre one and use continuous focus to maintain focus.

[gorlummeeguvnor]

Thanks for all that, I shall make sure she takes note of what you have said.