I am looking for a wide angle lens for my Nikon D40 camera. I am not great at photography so the more automatic the better. I would like to be able to take some pics like this, any suggestions on lenses?

You need to get hold of RoadGlue. He takes awesome pics like this for a living.

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I have been taking pictures most of my life but never seriously until the last few months where I have been emerged in photography. I like wildlife shots and what I have learned most in the last few months is shoot and edit in RAW. I believe the D40 has RAW but I use a Canon so can't help much


The lenses I have been using most is a 70-300 and a 17-55. The 17-55 should be plenty wide for the shot you posted.

The nice thing about a good camera is if you shoot too wide you can easily crop to the size you want and not suffer on image size.

Here are a few shots shot in RAW and converted to JPEG. First the 70-300......

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more.....

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The 17-55

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For a DX (crop) Nikon, the 17-55 is fabulous, unless you want an ultra-wide in which case you would want to look at the lenses that start at 10 or 12mm. I just sold a Nikon 12-24 f/4 with which I took some of my favorite shots, but I did not need it anymore.

For a smaller budget, the many 18-xxx 'kit' zooms are capable as well.

BTW check out www.nikonians.org for info, forums and podcasts about all things Nikon plus general photography

Those are super photos, I will check out the Nikon site.

Thanks for the help.

Question for Andy or others.......The pictures I posted get smaller and clearer when you click on them (and more like the originals) and essentially working backwards. Is this due to the quality that was uploaded?

Those shots are Super photography. Thanks for sharing with us.
What is RAW?
On your web page, what lense did you use for this under the 914 shot in the link?
http://www.sayegh.org/Paul/914/914pics/EOS_944.JPG
TIA
MikeCool

I had three suggestions but I see Paul has already shown you some of his work. McMark is also a pretty good amatuer. Randy Wentzel is a pro and pretty good.

For the money, you can't go wrong with the Tokina 11-16 2.8 DX lense.

You can pick them up used for $500-$550 or pay just a little more for a new one. As good or better than Nikon glass for 1/2 the price.

Check out my flickr/noprocessing page for some examples. all the pics were taken with the Tokina.

It also gets a great review on the kenrockwell.com site.

Best of luck.

RAW is an image that is unprocessed or a "digital negative" Most cameras shoot and immediately convert or "process" to JPEG and during the conversion you are stuck with how it converts. A RAW file in my camera is about 3 times the size of a JPEG or about 25mb each and requires large hard drives if you shoot lots of pics. If you have editing software to process RAW the pictures can be adjusted (or manipulated) far better. Once close, you then convert to JPEG. Most new DSLR's will shoot in RAW, just go to the menu. I shoot in RAW/JPEG and gives me both. However even my point and shoot (Canon S-90) will shoot in RAW

The picture in question was my old (and inexpensive) Canon Rebel shot in simple JPEG with a kit lens 18-55. The pictures above were shot with a new Canon T2i. I used a 17-55 2.8 and a 75-300 4.5/5.6.

Spending the money on a good lens is money better spent than on a more expensive camera. My 2.8 lens cost far more than the camera!