Brand:
Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3
Congratulations to Javier Sotomayor, November 2023 PFRE Photographer of the Month! The theme this month was "Open." Javier Sotomayor - Entry #879 Dave Koch - Entry #877 Peter Wingfield - Entry #874 Here's what Javier has to say: Hello First of all I wa ...
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
The Nikon D3100 is a crop-factor DSLR equipped with a 14.2 megapixels sensor. Since the quality of the lens impacts the image quality more than the camera body, equipping yourself with the best lens for Nikon D3100 can help you take professional-quality photos with this entry-level DSLR.
Quick Navigation
The best lens for Nikon D3100 features a versatile zoom that spans both wide-angle and telephoto perspectives. The following lenses have flexible focal lengths that suit interior and exterior
|
Brand:
Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3
|
Brand:
Rokinon 8mm f/3.5
|
Brand:
Nikon 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3
|
|
|
|
|
Lens Type:
Telephoto
|
Lens Type:
Fisheye
|
Lens Type:
Telephoto
|
|
Focus Type:
Auto Focus
|
Focus Type:
Manual Focus
|
Focus Type:
Auto Focus
|
|
4.8
|
4.4
|
4.5
|
The Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 is a premium lens with an aperture of f/5-6.3, which is ideal for photographing the property's exteriors with a deeper depth of field.
This lens utilizes Fluorescent Light - Daylight (FLD) conversion filter and Low Dispersion elements that help reduce color fringing and chromatic aberrations when capturing in strong lighting conditions.
With a wide zoom range of 150-600mm, this lens allows you to zoom in and out when taking moving subjects, ensuring the subject remains prominent in the frame. Like the Nikon 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3, this unit features image stabilization that helps reduce the camera vibrations common with zoom lenses.
This ensures the production of stable videos and sharp images. However, unlike the Nikon 85mm f/1.8, its weight of 4.25 pounds might exhaust your hands when using a gimbal.
The Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 is an ultra wide-angle prime lens with an equivalent focal length of 12mm when paired with the Nikon D3100, making it a great option for taking interior photos in cramped spaces.
The lens features a minimum focusing distance of 12 inches, which allows you to move close enough to capture macro photos and reveal the details of tiny subjects such as insects.
Unlike the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3, this lens comes equipped with a built-in petal-type hood which helps to prevent stray light from entering your lens at certain angles, reducing the chances of flares and ghosting, especially when capturing in strong lighting conditions.
The lens features ten elements in 7 groups. These elements allow you to capture sharp photos with minimal aberrations.
Besides, the lens has a super multi-layer coating ideal for reducing flares and ghosting when shooting in harsh lighting or backlit situations. However, unlike the Nikon 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3, it lacks zoom capability, limiting your ability to vary the angle of view when taking videos.
The Nikon 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3 is a telephoto lens with a shorter minimum focal length of 18mm, allowing you to capture exterior images with a wide angle of view.
The 300mm maximum focal length provides you with a narrow field of view, allowing you to magnify distant subjects and make them more prominent in the frame.
Unlike the Rokinon 8mm f/3.5, this unit features a four stops image stabilization system that suppresses the blur that occurs due to camera shakes, enhancing the production of stable videos and sharp images.
It also features three aspherical and extra-low dispersion glass elements, significantly reducing color fringing and spherical aberrations. The super-integrated coating in this lens helps combat ghostings and reflections caused by strong ambient and artificial lighting, resulting in high-contrast pictures.
Note that this lens's f/3.5-6.3 wide aperture performance in poor lighting is a no match to wider aperture lenses such as the Nikon 85mm f/1.4. Generally, this aperture excels in shooting photos with a deeper depth of field in good ambient lighting.
The Nikon 85mm f/1.8 lens is a telephoto unit that provides you with an equivalent focal length of 127.5mm when paired with the Nikon D3100 due to the crop factor of 1.5x. This makes it ideal for capturing scenes without the distortions common in wide-angle units.
Unlike the Nikon 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3, this lens features a wide maximum aperture of f/1.8, allowing you to capture crisp images even in places without sufficient ambient lighting. The lens comes with a super integrated coating that reduces ghosting and flares that can ruin your photos when working in backlit situations.
The lens features a silent wave motor that enhances high speed, accuracy, and silent focusing, allowing you to record videos with high audio quality.
Although the 7-blade aperture diaphragm might not result in a smooth blur like that of the Rokinon 8mm f/2.8, a bright aperture allows you to blur the background when capturing portraits and close-ups.
The downside is the lack of image stabilization. This makes the camera prone to shakes that can introduce motion blur in the photos.
The Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 is a versatile wide-angle zoom lens that provides a wide angle and normal focal lengths, making it ideal for sports, landscape, and real estate exterior
Like the Nikon 85mm f/1.8, the maximum wide aperture of f/1.8 makes this unit perform exceptionally well in conditions with poor ambient lighting. The bright aperture also allows you to achieve a beautiful out-of-focus effect when shooting with selective focus techniques.
This makes it great for close-up and portrait
It features a minimum focus distance of 11 inches and a magnification ratio of 1: 4.3, allowing you to capture detailed images of small subjects such as bees hovering over a flower.
The Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 is an ultra-wide-angle lens that achieves an equivalent focal length of 21mm when paired with the D3100. If you combine this focal length with its wide aperture, this lens allows you to capture wide exterior images and crisp interior pictures in poor lighting.
However, unlike Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3, its wide aperture and wide-angle perspective might cause vignetting at the edges of the photo. The lens comes with ten blades aperture diaphragm that helps you produce a beautiful bokeh effect when using the shallow depth of field technique.
Besides having 18 elements in 12 groups, this unit employs a super multi-layer coating which helps minimize surface reflections, enhancing color fidelity and contrast when taking pictures in backlit conditions.
Unlike Sigma 18-35mm f/1.4, this unit features a lens hood that helps reduce lens flare, improving the overall image quality. The weather-resistant design offers extra lens durability even when working in adverse weather conditions.
With a minimum focus distance of 10.8 inches, this lens is suitable for close-up and macro
The Nikon D3100 is an entry-level Nikon DSLR full of features and functionalities that you can use in professional real estate
With the following features, you won't have trouble choosing a lens to pair with the 14.2 megapixels sensor of this camera to capture crisp and bright photos. The table below further summarizes the key features, such as weight and vibration reduction mechanisms.
| Lenses | Diaphragm blades | Weight (pounds) | Image stabilization? |
| Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 | 9 | 4.25 | Yes |
| Rokinon 8mm f/3.5 | 6 | 0.98 | No |
| Nikon 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3 | 7 | 1.21 | Yes |
| Nikon 85mm f/1.8 | 7 | 0.77 | No |
| Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 | 9 | 1.79 | No |
| Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 | 10 | 1.22 | No |
In camera lenses, the perspective is divided into wide-angle, normal, and telephoto. The wide-angle perspective is when the lens has a short focal length that results in a wide field of view. A lens is categorized as ultra-wide-angle when the focal length is shorter than 16mm.
The best all-round lens for a Nikon camera is categorized as wide-angle when the focal length is around 16-35mm, normal perspective when it is around 50mm, telephoto when it is 70-200mm, and super telephoto when it’s longer than 200mm.
When you are taking interior photos, such as the closets in a tiny bedroom, you might need an ultra-wide-angle lens, such as the Rokinon 8mm f/3.5, that can feature the entire subject from a short subject distance. Note that the APS-C sensor will narrow the angle of view to around 12mm.
Low light refers to situations where the available ambient lighting is not sufficient to allow you to capture well-exposed photos under the standard camera settings. This situation is common when taking interior photos, especially when the property has tiny rooms and small windows.
The D3100 offers different settings that can help improve the brightness. One is by cranking up the ISO, and the other is by reducing the shutter speed. However, these options have downsides. Increasing the ISO results in higher digital noise, and reducing the shutter speed increases the risk of image blurring.
A viable solution that won’t degrade the image quality is to brighten the photos by opening the aperture wider. Since the aperture is a hole, opening it wider allows more light to enter. Simply get a lens with a bright maximum aperture, such as the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8.
Real estate
Even with a telephoto lens that can magnify the solar panels, you might still capture the roof. This can make the viewers focus on the roof design rather than the intended subject; the solar panels. You can naturally prevent this by blurring the roof when taking photos.
However, this requires a lens with a longer focal length and a bright maximum aperture, such as the Nikon 85mm f/1.8. The perspective compression that results from the long focal length and the shallow depth of field resulting from the wide aperture creates a beautiful bokeh blur on the background.
Vibration reduction is basically an image stabilization system; only Nikon decided to call it differently from other major camera manufacturers such as Canon and Sony. The system helps to smoothen the video footage and enhance image sharpness by reducing unnecessary camera movements.
This system is handy when shooting handheld, as the small shakes of the hand will be eliminated, and the resulting video and photos will be almost like those taken with a tripod. In cameras, image stabilization can either be built-in into the camera body, come with the lens, or both.
For the Nikon D3100, the camera doesn’t come with built-in image stabilization. That means if you are photographing a handheld and you want to take advantage of this feature, you need to get a lens that comes with a vibration reduction function, such as the Nikon 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3.
Distortions are the abnormalities that appear in a photo where the straight lines look curved or bent. In lenses, distortions result from the curved design of the optics. Just like in real life, a subject nearer to the lens appears to be more magnified compared to its faraway counterpart.
Since the curved design of the lens captures a wide field of view, the elements around the edges of the field of view are physically far away from the elements around the center of the frame. As a result, the elements around the center area are more magnified than those around the edges.
This causes barrel distortion, where the straight lines around the edges look curved. This effect is more in ultra-wide-angle lenses due to their extremely curved design. If you want to avoid this distortion, get a lens with a narrower angle of view, such as the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3.
Generally, a camera lens incorporates an array of lenses that help to refract light and bend it toward the camera sensor. The light is made of different wavelengths, which are generally the colors that the sensor will capture. For the sensor to accurately reproduce the colors, the wavelengths need to hit the sensor at the same point.
However, there are imperfections in the lens design that makes the wavelengths mismatch at the focal point, resulting in color fringing, also known as chromatic aberrations. Usually, this happens around the edges of the image and is more common in telephoto zoom lenses.
Most lens manufacturers try to solve this stalemate by including lens elements to prevent excessive color fringing that might be noticeable in the final image. As a result, if you want to take photos with more accurate colors, consider getting a lens with many elements, such as the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3.
When shopping for the lens, don’t forget to consider your shooting conditions and the camera equipment you will be using. The Nikon D3100 is versatile, and you can use it to shoot handheld, with a monopod, with a gimbal, or with a tripod.
If you are shooting with a gimbal or handheld, it means you will hold the camera with your hands. In this case, you can avoid muscle fatigue and exhaustion by equipping the D3100 with a compact and lightweight unit such as the Nikon 85mm f/1.8.
On the other hand, if you are using a reliable monopod with a base or a standard tripod, a heavier lens such as the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 is preferable as the heavyweight can translate to better stability. Remember to consider the maximum payload of the tripod when using a heavy lens.
The minimum focus distance indicates the shortest distance at which the optics can achieve a sharp focus. When you draw the lens closer to the subject more than this distance, the subject and background become soft, and rotating the focus ring might not improve the results.
Technically, you can consider the minimum focus distance as the smallest subject distance the lens can shoot from. In real estate
For you to focus and take a sharp photo, you need a lens with a small minimum focus distance, such as the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8.
The Nikon D3100 takes around 0.28 seconds to autofocus using the center focus point. The autofocus is slower and takes around 1.5 seconds when using the Live View mode. When using the flash, the autofocus takes around 0.3 seconds. The autofocus depends on the lens autofocus motor, as the D3100 doesn’t have built-in autofocus motors.
You can blur the background on a D3100 using the aperture priority mode instead of the program or auto mode. Consider using a telephoto lens with a wide maximum aperture. Use around two to three f-stops from the widest aperture for better image sharpness.
Yes, you can use FX lenses on the Nikon D3100. Although these lenses are not designed for DX-format cameras, they have large diameters and fit the APS-C cameras without causing vignetting. The 1.5x crop will make the focal lengths equivalent to 1.5 times longer.
With the best lens for Nikon D3100, you can take bright pictures in poorly lit indoors or closeups with a pleasing background blur. If you take photos in cramped rooms, get an ultra-wide-angle lens. Get a zoom lens if you need a versatile lens for general-purpose use.
