13 Best Nikon Lenses for Night Photography: (2023 Guide & Reviews)

Today we’re going to get into a question that I hear come up all the time, what are the best Nikon lenses for Night photography?

So there are many good options out there as far as lenses go for Night photography.

Which one is right for you?

I tested and used several lenses for years, so my best picks for Night photography are here.

Let’s drive in:

Which are the best Nikon lenses for Night photography?

Here are my recommended top 13 best Nikon lenses for Night photography:

Samyang 14mm F2.8: (Best budget lens for astrophotography Nikon)

Why do I consider this to be an absolutely awesome purchase, and in many ways, why Astrophotography’s a secret weapon?

I’ve owned this lens for about 4 years, so I think I’m pretty well qualified to give an honest opinion on what this lens is actually like.

Instead, this will be a real-world review based on good, honest experience with this lens over the last few years.

This is 14 millimeters which is super wide-angle, and on a crop sensor, that equates to about 21 mils.

Now, I actually think this is so wide, making it a really highly difficult lens to use, particularly because it’s a prime lens.

You can’t change the focal length from this.

And, yeah, I think it makes shooting with this really difficult because you can get to it quite often, and it can just make lining up the composition really difficult.

This was purchased primarily for Astrophotography.

So I’m going to primarily focus on why I think this is awesome for Astrophotography.

The first strength to focus on this lens is that its price is super low and quite ridiculous.

So this is a very cheap and lightweight addition to any camera bag that opens up a whole world of possibilities for you in Astrophotography, but what actually makes it so good for Astrophotography?

Well, the key with any Astrophotography is to maximize the amount of light hitting your sensor, and this lens, in two ways, enables you to do that, firstly it’s F 2.8, which is really wide.

And I think that’s almost a necessity if you want to get good Astro shots, enabling your camera to pick up the maximum amount of light possible.

Sure, you could shoot wider like an F 1.8 or an F 1.4, but potentially your shot starts to get a bit soft, so I think actually F 2.8 is really the sweet spot, Astrophotography.

Additionally, the 14 mils of this lens enable you to shoot incredible night skies filled with stars with the Milky Way arcane across it; you really maximize the capacity to capture the night sky.

But also, at 14 mils, it actually enables you to shoot longer exposures without getting star trailing in your shots.

So I can actually shoot with this at about 30 seconds.

That’s about the max that I can get to.

Without capturing star trails, if I were shooting at something like 24 mils, it would be closer to about 20 seconds.

And that’s a big difference when you try to maximize the amount of light hitting your sensor.

Now another strength of this lens it’s so sharp.

Honestly, it was a phenomenal performance.

I’ve used various lenses over the years from different manufacturers of Astrophotography.

And this is the best lens I’ve used to date is phenomenal from corner to corner.

Even F 2.8 is really, really sharp.

It’s an outstanding lens.

It really is a star performer.

Now the final strength of this lens is it’s got an excellent comic performance.

This is the best one to date for that, which is a really important consideration for Astrophotography.

Another strength of this lens it’s finally worth pointing out is its build quality is actually excellent.

This is quite surprising for the price you would have fought.

Samyang would have cut some corners to try and get the price down.

But honestly, it doesn’t feel like they have owned this for years, and it obviously looks as good as new.

Generally, it’s never let me down, and it feels real, excellent, and robust.

Now, let’s look at some of the negatives of this lens; we’ve got to have some balance in this review after all.

This doesn’t have autofocus, which for me personally and for Astrophotography is absolutely no problem.

You don’t use or need autofocus faster photography, but it could be a problem for some people.

This only has a manual focus ring, so that’s worth keeping in mind.

The lens also has a fixed hood at the end that you can’t remove.

This could be problematic for some people also has quite a bulbous glass element at the end, which is typical for these wide-angle lenses.

So, you probably need to think again that from the lens, unfortunately, also suffer from a lot of vignetting.

Particularly when shooting F 2.8 on this, it’s quite bad times; bots were post-processing, so it’s fairly easy to remove that.

So, generally, it’s not something that’s bothered me too much so far.

But yeah, I could understand some people being upset with the vignetting performance on this.

Also, it suffers from a hell of a lot of barrel distortion; it really does.

But again, you can correct that in post-processing.

So for me, it’s not that much of a problem, particularly for Astrophotography.

Yeah, I don’t particularly feel the pain of that all that often.

And to be honest, distortion is just part of the game when it comes to wide-angle photography.

So, to be honest, I don’t personally see vignetting or the distortion of this as that big a deal.

Overall, I love this lens; it’s awesome.

I would fully encourage you all to get it.

Even if you’ve just got a slight interest in Astrophotography, you won’t regret it.

This is an absolutely awesome, awesome bit of kit.

 

Sigma 70-200 f2.8: (Best Nikon lens for night sports photography)

It comes in various amounts, so it comes in the sigma mount for Lumix which also comes in the Nikon F mount.

So the first thing I want to look at is the actual build quality of this lens, and I say all of the new Sigma lenses have amazing build quality.

This has got a magnesium and alloy construction, which means it is solid and great if you’re planning on wanting a lens that has a lot of weatherproofing.

This lens has got waterproofing along 16 different elements, which means that it’s perfect if you’re after a rugged lens that you can take in the great outdoors, so it is weather and dust-resistant.

So this lens also has got quite a few elements.

It’s got 15 elements in 12 groups, which means it’s perfect if you want to reduce the amount of lens flare.

Now it does mean this lens is quite heavy.

That’s by far our heaviest lenses, but the build quality and the actual design of the sense really, really like it.

So the next thing I want to talk about is the actual image quality of this lens.

I am always blown away by the image quality, and the colors represented within the lens I must say the optical performance is amazing.

Even the sharpness of this lens is by far one of the sharpest 70 to 200 mil lenses.

I have ever tested, and I have looked at the Canon 70 to 200 Mark ii and Mark iii, including the 2.8 and f4, and I’ve also looked at the Tamron lens, which is by far my favorite lens of this optical quality.

I also really like the roundness of the background blur in the Bokeh.

This is due to the 11 Blinded rounded aperture diaphragm, which means the background blur if you plan to use this lens at 2.8 is incredibly smooth.

The actual distortion of this lens is quite low, although there is a small amount of pincushion distortion at 200 millimeters.

To be honest, I don’t think you’d notice it unless you are shooting a very harsh light.

So, out of all of the kinds of 70-200 mil lenses I’ve looked at, the distortion from this lens is a lot lower than other lenses, including the costly lenses.

And even when you’re looking at the vignetting, even if you turn off peripheral illumination on your camera, you won’t notice much vignetting, even at 2.8, and you can completely remove all vignetting.

If you go ahead and shoot a film above f4, so this lens is a must-have.

If you want an optically perfect lens, either for indoor sports, weddings, wildlife, or even automotive photography.

So this is a must-have lens for anyone that’s after an optically performing best of 70 to 200.

So the next thing I want to talk about is the size and weight of this lens.

And to realize this where this lens really does kind of let itself down in the size and weight this lens is by far one of the heaviest 70 to 200 mil lenses.

It’s also one of the largest, coming in at 1.8 kilos.

So will see a much heavier lens due to that magnesium and aluminum construction.

So the next thing I want to look at is the image stabilization and focus motor.

What’s great about getting a 70 to 200 mil F 2.8 because both have great autofocus.

But it also has image stabilization missing from many prime lenses if you were thinking of getting one around about this focal length.

So, because of this image stabilization, you could actually shoot up to four stops of light, and darker, while still having great image stabilization.

This means you’re less likely to get blurry motion blur photos from holding the camera.

So you can even drop it down to around a 30th of a second and still get great sharp photos.

Because of this, image stabilization is actually got two modes.

So mode one is for general-purpose photography, so just shoot handheld if you’re out and about.

But option two is better for indoor sports, wildlife, and wedding photographers.

So if you’re planning or tracking a moving subject, you can actually use option 2 to be more successful.

So if you’re after a great lens for either indoor sports work, portrait work, wedding work, or even doing any kind of event photography or wildlife photography, then this lens is going to be perfect for you.

And last but most important is the price, and again this is where this lens really does shine versus the competition.

This lens is a lot cheaper than the Nikon and Tamron lens.

This is by far one of the cheapest 70 to 200 mil F 2.8 zoom lenses on the market, although it is a lot heavier.

It does still have optimum optical performance.

So what are my final thoughts on this lens?

To be honest, I think it is a cracking lens, and it is a must-have.

If you’re any type of professional photographer, and even a pro-amateur photographer, you’re going to get the most out of this lens because of the colors, the resolution, or really love the sharpness of this lens and also the incredibly smooth background blur.

So if you’re a sports photographer, portrait photographer, wedding photographer, event photographer, an automotive took photos of pretty much any type of photographer.

This camera lens is definitely deserving of a spot in your camera bag.

Nikon 24-70mm F2.8: (Best Nikon lens for low light photography)

So over the weekend, I got invited to be the photographer for a wedding of two really close friends.

So, I thought this would be a great opportunity to try out a new lens, so I headed over to a camera store and bought this one.

Why decided to go with this lens?

If you ever shot a wedding or any kind of event in an indoor area, you would know that indoor places, especially wedding venues such as churches, and reception halls, places that have very poor lighting inside at least poor in terms of photography.

However, it can be challenging for a camera because that light is too dark, which is where this lens comes from.

This lens has a very wide aperture, and the 24 to 70 is a standard zoom-like for many event photographers and pretty much any everyday photography.

So, perfect focal length and a very nice image, white, something that would be a bit more challenging, with just the standard 24 to 70 lens that most Nikon cameras offer as a kit.

First, I want to talk about what I really liked about this lens, and the number 1 thing on that list was the image quality.

This lens is sharp, is very nice to use, has excellent control of the contrast, and just makes the images really pop and stand out even when the light is not so great.

I’m not really surprised by that because this is one of the icons, very high-end lenses they’re like $2,000 plus lenses.

It also helps a lot that this lens has some image stabilization.

So, when you’re shooting in low light, that image stabilization helps kind of increase the sharpness of the lens a little bit by simply stabilizing.

So, just you holding the camera doesn’t blur out the picture.

My second favorite thing about this lens was the build quality.

This lens is built like a tank.

It feels excellent; the zoom and the focus rings are very smooth and require very minimal effort to turn, which is really nice when you’re shooting events.

The body of the lens feels very solid, it does have some plasticky notes on it, but it does feel very well put together.

There’s nothing that makes any noises, anything that wiggles around, or really anything; it’s just built like a tank.

I’m very impressed with the image quality of this lens.

And then the number 3 is the autofocus performance.

Autofocus performance can largely depend on your camera; this lens has a very quick focusing motor.

So, my camera with this lens was able to acquire the subjects very quickly, and the lens just shifted focus to where it needed to be.

So, overall, very nice autofocus coming out of this lens is very quick and very snappy, and it kind of helps that the camera’s autofocus system is pretty decent.

But if you’re using a newer Nikon camera, then you’re going to see even better performance.

Overall, it’s just awesome.

Now, no lens is completely perfect, and this lens does have one major drawback that I found for that, and that is its weight; this is a hefty beast.

So, if you’re using it on a smaller body or fear, just don’t like lugging around very heavy equipment, this lens may not be the best option because it weighs a lot.

It has very heavy, which I’m assuming helps with its build quality.

So if you’re a landscape photographer, a nature photographer, or a travel photographer, we can make a big difference versus getting something lighter.

When you’re lugging all that gear in your bag, it can really put a strain on your body after a while.

That’s quite a bit of a drawback, especially when comparing this lens to a similar lens from other manufacturers.

But not all of them are this big toward this heavy; a lot more of them part, poor compact, and weigh a lot less.

And that’s pretty much the only drawback I could think of with this lens.

Overall, it provided perfect images, and it was great in low-light situations.

Especially with image stabilization, the F2.8 aperture helped out a lot in that.

So, overall I really enjoyed it, but I did not enjoy the weight of it.

I really enjoyed using this lens, and I think it’s a perfect one to add to your collection.

Nikon 35mm F/1.8G: (Best lens for night photography Nikon D3300)

If you’re looking for something much better but on a budget, something that does create indoor light and has to take great pictures and videos in any condition.

Could this be the best lens to upgrade to?

So, guys, this is possibly one of the best lenses to upgrade from the kit lens in the Nikon family.

Now I know that’s a mouthful, but here is what it means, Nikon lenses 35 millimeters is the fixed focal length.

F 1.8 is the maximum aperture which allows us to conclude that it is a first-glance place.

Yes, it’s fixed, meaning you won’t be able to zoom in with it like you did the predicate lens.

But take this feature of a prime lens as an advantage, and not a disadvantage zoom in by moving closer to the subject, and trust me, it will really help take out the creative side.

Aside from this, the next best thing about this Lens is its aperture of F 1.8.

The aperture on this lens allows for much better low-light photography in temperate surroundings.

The wide aperture allows for more light to enter the camera sensor and gives a much better and more visible picture in a low-light situation.

Let’s come to that autofocus; it’s an NFS net, indicating the presence of a silent autofocusing motor inside.

I don’t raise any questions, but either silent wave or focus is supposed to be silent.

The focusing ring isn’t the best out there; it’s made for good rubbish material.

Honestly, it wouldn’t be like here if there were no hard stopping points on the lens for the ring to stop rotating.

You can keep rotating the focusing ring for as long as you want any voltage hard-soft at infinity.

This isn’t necessarily big trouble but definitely worth mentioning.

The good thing about this lens is that it also has an auto slash manual mode, meaning you can manually set the focus, even when the length is set to autofocus mode.

I find this very handy just in case the lens has problems focusing automatically.

Lastly, we come to lens compatibility; this is a DX  lens, which is fit for crop sensor cameras.

And this lens can also be used on full-frame cameras, but that would lead to a little bit of vignetting on the corners.

We are using the 35-millimeter lens instead of the 15-millimeter answer to crop sensor camera because this 35-millimeter lens would work like a 50-millimeter lens in itself.

And here’s why the Nikon cameras have a growth factor of just about 1.5.

So multiplying 35 by 1.5 gives us a focal value of 52.5 millimeters.

So, the field of view you get with a 35-millimeter lens on a crop sensor camera, especially from Nikon, would be almost equal to using a 50-millimeter lens on a full-frame camera.

If you decide to go with a 50-millimeter lens with a crop sensor camera, then you’ll have a very zoomed-in video or image because of that 1.5.

But if zoomed-in pictures are your game, then go for it.

Overall, the lens is a performance; only you can see the spaces where they’ve done the cost-cutting to get this lens, right under 150 dollars mark.

This is a superb lens overall.

So should you go in for this lens? I see no reason to refuse this for an upgrade kit lens.

Sigma 14mm f/1.8: (Best Nikon lens for astrophotography)

It is a suitable lens for our photography and especially for single pictures.

And in my case, precisely I bought it because I wanted to time-lapse with it and take advantage of the really wide aperture and shoot at 1.8.

The first impression of this sigma lens is an excellent yet very heavy lens for an ultra-wide-angle.

It weighs no less than 1.1 kilograms, so if you have a heavy camera to start with, it might make handheld shots difficult, or even if you fix your camera on the tracker mount.

It’s no real problem for us with photography as you will have a tripod, but it might be something to bear in mind for other situations.

With that being said, Finishing up this lens is just beautiful.

It really feels like a solid metallic lens; the hood doesn’t have any clicking buttons.

It just fits smoothly back on, which is a plus.

The glass itself is a masterpiece, with a neatly curved area and beautiful colors underlying the good quality of the material.

The focusing ring is a relatively big ragged band at the tip of the lens, but it really integrates with it and doesn’t make it impractical or awkward.

The ring turns smoothly, allowing you to focus correctly and rapidly, but the reasonable stiffness allows you to focus extremely precisely and prevents the focus from the budget.

It has a very wide field of view of 114 degrees, a minimum aperture of 1.8, and a maximum of 16, making it a candidate for ultra-high performance and quality cameras.

When shooting with it, the first impression of this lens is its ability to focus at night easily; I had no problem focusing precisely on the distant object at infinity.

With the manual focus, the autofocus works really smoothly too.

But remember to try and focus manually as much as possible, avoiding any focusing adjustment that would ruin your shot.

I was amazed by the brightness of this lens, it is an extremely fast glass for its focal length, and together with its wide aperture, it helps gather tremendous amounts of light and F 1.8.

The extra four stops in comparison to 2.8 for the next minimum aperture on most 14-millimeter lenses is a game-changer in itself, helping to bring in an appreciated 1.3 extra electron volts.

This extra-wide aperture can seem like it’s no big deal, especially for its price, but it can have several practical applications in reality.

Firstly, it can help reduce the exposure time at the 22nd exposure at F 2.8 can be reduced to only 10 seconds and F 1.8, it can be decisive if you’re shooting fast-moving objects like an aurora, or if you’re on a tight schedule shooting a time-lapse of the Milky Way.

However, the lighter won’t be moving very fast at 14 millimeters, and the point of the time-lapse is to accelerate things to see them moving.

It’s excellent news for time-lapse photography, and sigma has really made efforts compared to the 24 millimeters f 1.4 to reduce the coma.

They have really packed excellent quality glass in there.

This is also excellent news for Astro panoramas as you can really start stacking or stitching your picture using 2.8, which you couldn’t before with a regular 14 millimeters 2.8.

Flares definitely visible because of the corruption of the glass, and sources of artificial and natural light will result in more in the last frame flares.

According to sigma, the lens has a quote exceptional optical performance, ideal for ultra-high megapixel cameras.

It means that it can probably be used for 8k resolutions.

It is to be the sharpest 14-millimeter lens I’ve ever tried; stars are pinpoint sharp, even wide open, maximum, and a quarter to quarter sharpness is reached at F 2.8.

If you stay under an exposure time of about 10 seconds, you will get rid of any store trailing, and the celestial objects will appear in the best possible way.

I wouldn’t recommend the other 14 millimeters as 2.8 to get extra high-quality time-lapse of dark sky situations.

You would generally have to step down to at least f4 to get a more decent shot, but then use all the benefits of the low F stop this sigma; 14 millimeters f 1.8 is a game-changer in this matter.

Because now you can shoot wide open and get a much brighter, cleaner, and sharper image, we can almost shoot like you’re 24 millimeters f 1.4, but at 14 millimeters to get more of the Milky Way.

In conclusion, sigma has produced a monster for Astrophotography with a major improvement to the other 14 millimeters f 2.8.

It will surely enable you to get shorter but cleaner and sharper exposures.

I would not hesitate to recommend this lens for any amateur or professional photographer to replace the role 14 millimeters and get even higher quality shots.

I would definitely consider buying this astronomy servo lens.

This one is a monster that has a lens.

So, I really hope that you’re going to buy it and you’re going to try it because it promises to be awesome.

Nikon 50mm f/1.8G: (Best Nikon lens for night city photography)

This is one of Nikon’s best-selling camera lenses to date.

It’s for Nikon’s digital SLR cameras, full-frame, or APSC, although it will also fit their new set mount mirrorless cameras.

Everyone loves a fast 50-millimeter lens.

Well, most people, because a full-frame camera, gives you a lovely standard field of view, neither wide-angle nor telephoto, and with just a little emphasis on your subject for getting out of backgrounds.

If you’re shooting with an APS C or DX sensor camera, then it’s the full-frame equivalent of a 75-millimeter lens with a depth of field that will look a lot deeper.

That’s still useful for portrait photography, and many owners of Nikon’s APS c cameras will have discovered this lens already.

It does not come with image stabilization, but most new cameras are getting it built nowadays anyway.

And that tight maximum aperture of F 1.8 lets you get faster shutter speeds in darker situations.

Its built quality is a cut above average for a lens in this class, and its sizes are just a little bigger, too.

It’s mostly made of plastic, but it actually feels quite tightly constructed.

It’s based on a metal lens mount with a weather-sealing gasket around the edge.

He also gets us which for changing between auto and manual focus and a rubberized focus ring which turns averagely smoothly and has a useful distance scale that focuses swing can be turned at any time.

And the front glass element does not turn or extend as you change focus.

So that’s pretty useful if you’re using a polarizing or graduated filter; the autofocus motor works pretty quickly and accurately.

Although the quietest shushing clicking noises it makes might be picked up by your camera’s microphone when shooting video footage.

In fact, it will be picked up the lens displays some pretty notable focus breathing, with your image zooming in a bit when you focus more closely.

I suppose that’ll help you get a little closer to your subject, but it’s still a bit of a pain for video shooters.

The lens comes with a cloth pouch and a nice little plastic head as standard.

Overall, it’s a bit nicer to handle than the cheaper Canon and Sony 50-millimeter f 1.8 lenses, which I’ve tasted in the past.

Nikon really tried to make something of this little lens.

Well, let’s move on and look at its image quality.

I’m going to really challenge this lens by adapting it to my full-frame camera.

We see pretty good sharpness, but only a reasonable amount of contrast image quality in the corners is noticeably soft F 2.8 shows a bit more clarity in the corners. Still, the middle of the image looks great.

On the full-frame level, that full-frame image quality is good enough for the lens’s price, but nothing to really get excited about.

Its image coolers take quite a lot of stopping down to persuade them to become sharp, but at least there’s almost no purple fringing to it or chromatic aberration.

It’s a fairly impressive performance because normally, an inexpensive 50-millimeter lens on APS C will struggle a bit more than that.

It’s certainly a bit sharper than the canon 50-millimeter F 1.4 g lens.

This lens can focus down to about 45 centimeters, the average for a 50-millimeter optic, and not particularly close to your subject really at F 1.8.

Close-up image quality is very poor soft and ghostly stopped down to F2.8 very simple huge improvement, and F4 looks even a bit sharper.

Let’s talk about at lens’s pocket or the quality of its autofocus backgrounds.

It’s not perfectly soft in all situations, but to my eye, it does look a little smoother than the usual fair lens in this class.

In most of your pictures, it will be quite pleasing, and related to Bokeh’s longitudinal chromatic aberration.

So, it offers quite a bit more to it, the nice build quality and decent enough colors and contrast fairly soft bokeh.

It’s not the sharpest lens in the world on a high-resolution full-frame camera, but if you have a 24-megapixel full-frame camera, you’ll be pretty satisfied.

And its performance on APS-C cameras is definitely a little better than average.

So, it’s going to be well-loved by everyone who buys it; I certainly liked it. So it definitely comes recommended.

Nikon 85mm f1.8: (Best Nikon Z lens for night photography)

This is just for the concert mount mirrorless cameras.

It won’t work at all on that older digital SLR.

I really enjoyed testing this lens out.

I managed to get some quite interesting sample pictures with it.

A bright amateur 85-millimeter lens is an excellent choice for portraits, subjects, and event photography.

Letting in a lot of light into your camera and giving you quite strongly autofocus backgrounds, particularly when used on a full-frame camera. Still, it’s not such a long telephoto focal length.

Being F 1.8 means it can be less expensive, smaller, and lighter than lenses with brighter apertures.

First, the design of Nikon e-mount lenses has been pretty homogenous so far, and this one is no exception.

It’s quite large, and it’s designed as a simple business like it weighs 470 grams or just over a pound.

The rear of the lens and its mount are made of metal, and we get it then weather-sealing gaskets as a switch for auto and manual focus, followed by a metallic manual focus ring.

Its hands are fairly smooth, and it changes your focus quite responsively.

The lens’s autofocus motor works silently and quickly; the focus mechanism was accurate in my tests and very useful with the Eye Autofocus.

The rest of the lens barrel is made of plastic, which is solid enough, but it doesn’t feel as high quality as the rest of the lens.

Something else to notice is that this lens did not feature a control, just a manual focus ring, and it does not have image stabilization.

This lens can focus down to 80 centimeters with the close-up image quality, a little closer than average for an 85-millimeter optic.

Although it was still mistaken for a macro lens at F 1.8, the close-up image quality is a bit ghostly a little soft.

F 2.8 is a little better and does have for we finally see some good sharpness.

Now, let’s look at the quality of this lens Bokeh is a very important question for a portrait lens.

Overall, it’s really nice and soft, with even quite complex backgrounds, smoothly rendered without ugly highlighting.

And finally, related to bog is longitudinal chromatic aberration at F 1.8.

It’s surprisingly strong on this lens, considering the nice quality of its pocket.

In general, we see blue and magenta bokeh highlights around the plane of focus; those colors remain at F 2.8 and even f4, although at f5 since they are finally under control.

Overall, this lens has a lovely build quality ranking.

It’s a pleasure to use.

Its main image quality strengths are fantastic sharpness and very smooth Bokeh; those two attributes alone are often enough to make most photographers very happy.

And the low distortion and vignetting, are a nice bonus to the softer close-up.

Image quality and long-achieved chromatic aberration that works against the bright lines are a mile chain, and video makers might be bothered by that focused breathing.

But you can’t have everything.

And generally speaking, it’s a pretty gorgeous lens. It’s great value for money.

It’s also a lot sharper than other less expensive 85-millimeter lenses, and there aren’t really many other options in a concert system yet.

So, it does have to be recommended.

Nikon 35mm 1.8: (Best Nikon DX lens for night photography)

It’s an APS-C lens for Nikon’s APS-C digital SLR cameras, although it can also be adapted to various mirrorless cameras.

So potentially, it could be an absolute steal for you; as I’ve mentioned, it’s designed for APS C cameras.

It’s the full-frame equivalent of a 52.5-millimeter lens with a depth of field of about F 2.7 or so; that’s nice.

It’s neither wide-angle nor telephoto and offers some opportunity for getting out-of-Vegas backgrounds in your pictures.

The maximum aperture of F 1.8 is also very bright, meaning you can keep shooting with decent shutter speeds in darker situations.

So a lot of users might be getting this lens to get family snapshots and pictures indoors.

The lens itself is small and lightweight, tipping the scales at 200 grams, and its build quality is not bad when you consider enterprise.

It’s based on a metal lens mount with a generous weather-sealing gasket.

There’s a switch to turn between auto and manual focus, not something to be taken for granted.

These days, the focus ring doesn’t turn very smoothly at all, and there’s no focus scale on it, but it is rubberized, and you can safely turn it at any time, and the front element doesn’t turn or extend as you do so.

So those are all nice little features on a low-budget lens.

The autofocus motor works averagely quickly, making quiet, wishing to click noises.

It does so in normal guests that are not bothersome.

But if you’re shooting video, then your camera’s microphone will pick up that sound.

Occasionally, when shooting in live view mode, the accuracy was perfect.

This lens exhibits only a tiny bit of figure breathing.

Zooming in slightly when focusing more closely, It doesn’t fit it, image stabilization, but it does at least come with a dinky little lens that hit the sweet little bonus on such a low-budget lens.

Its filter size is a small 52 millimeters in diameter.

Overall, its build quality is actually very pleasing for an option at this price point.

But what about image quality and testing it on a Nikon D 5600 that starts at F 1.8?

The middle of the image looks nice and sharp, with a noticeable lack of purple fringing.

And the more difficult image corners, are not bad, really, there’s a fair bit of detail being retained there.

Although the contrast has gone a bit ghostly, stop down the aperture to any F 2.8.

And the picture quality there looks great with some extra contrast completing that sharpness, and the middle of the image looks stupendous.

In fact, the lens stays about this sharp down to F 11 and F 16.

The image starts to get softer though, from the physical effects of diffraction over the lens at this price point, the performance is pretty impressive.

It’s nice and sharp.

As for vignetting, the image corners look slightly darker at F 1.8 but they do brighten up a bit at F2.8, so nothing to worry about here.

This lens can get you as close as 30 centimeters to your subject, bringing the smaller things into close view.

Bokeh is generally quite nice and soft.

Overall, you can’t really ask much for a lens that costs under 150 pounds.

Brands knew that Nikon managed to do a great job here.

The lenses were built nicely enough.

It offers sharp images with soft outer figures backgrounds, and there were no very serious optical problems with it.

It’s also useful for focal length and maximum aperture, considering the very low price.

It simply has to come highly recommended.

Nikon 20mm f1.8: (Best Nikon lens for night sky photography)

Why the hell, am I still buying F mount lenses for my Z6, especially one that’s over 5 years old, and is it any good?

Let’s find out.

It features 13 lens elements in 11 groups with spherical elements to extra-low dispersion elements and Nikon’s Nano Crystal Coating.

These help with correcting aberration and minimizing ghosting and flare.

An AFS lens uses the silent wave motor, which provides fast and accurate autofocus performance.

Speaking of focusing, another feature I like about this lens is that it is a rear focusing system.

This means that only the rear lens group moves during focusing, so nothing on the front of the lens moves at all, which is great if you plan to attach any filters to the 77-millimeter filter threads on the front.

Inside we have a seven-blade aperture, with a maximum of 1.8, at a minimum of 16, and the angle of view on a full-frame camera of 94 degrees that drops to 70 degrees on a DX body.

Where this lens is the equivalent of a 30-millimeter F3.

Another interesting feature of this lens is its minimum focusing distance.

Which is 7.9 inches that’s measured by the camera sensor.

This means you can push this thing in really tight and take macro shots with the 20-millimeter F 1.8 G comes at just under $800.

So, why did I choose this lens, and what other options did I consider?

My main purpose for this lens was to get more involved in Astrophotography and nightscapes featuring the Milky Way.

I also wanted a good all-around lens for general landscapes.

The build quality is decent; the lens’s exterior is plastic with a metal mount and a rubber gasket to protect dust and water.

The large focus ring is easy to use.

Unlike other G series lenses, it supports a switch on the side to select manual focus or autofocus with manual override.

The lens weighs 12.6 ounces or 355 grams, so its pretty light autofocus is fast and accurate.

Even though the FTZ adapter is on my Z6 if you choose to focus manually, focus peaking works as well.

The image quality is excellent.

This lens is very sharp and has great contrast, it does have some vignetting, but this is easily corrected in the post.

There seems to be minimal distortion for a lens this wide.

I understand that for Astrophotography, there is a good deal of coma in the corners when shot, wide open at F 1.8.

But it seems this is corrected by stopping down to 2.8, which is still a full stop faster than the f4 offerings.

Coma is an aberration that can make stars look like smears rather than a crisp points of light.

We’ve got sharpness corner to corner, good contrast, and a good dynamic range; you can see all of the gradations in the color and the tones.

So this lens has performed pretty well, wide open at F 1.8.

It does have some softness in the corners, but it’s really not bad at all.

I’ll mention that this lens produces beautiful Starburst patterns when stopped down to smaller apertures.

I don’t usually like including the sun in my images, but I like the effect in nighttime street scenes, so that’ll be nice.

Overall, this is a great, super wide-angle lens with a fast aperture.

It produces crisp, sharp images and can easily accommodate filters, all at a pretty reasonable price.

It’s good for landscapes, night sky, nightscapes, Astrophotography, and environmental portraits.

With its close focusing distance, it can even pretend to be a macro lens.

It has a fair amount of vignette and can produce some coma in stars at a wide-open aperture.

But with that being said, I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed with this lens.

Rokinon 14mm F2.8: (Best Nikon lens for star trail photography)

Rokinon 14 millimeter lens best budget lens for starry skies.

This wide-angle lens is a full-frame compatible with all manual lens manual focus and manual aperture, relatively sharp wide open, and of course, offers F2.8.

A combination of the wide-angle view and F2.8, he does, in my opinion, make this the best budget lens for shooting the Starry Night Skies.

When the sun drops and the stars come out, this is a fantastic lens to use.

Why? The landscape is usually reduced to a silhouette a kind of distracting empty landscape that just becomes this simple negative space that acts as a nice balance for the beautiful stars.

Practically manual mark lines up very nicely, so I didn’t have to struggle to get focused in the dark f2.8 is sharp enough though there’s some distortion out of the edges.

And 14 millimeters on a full-frame, very wide, allows you to capture a really nice portion of the sky.

Following the 500 rule for Star photography, you can shoot for over 30 seconds before the stars start to blur from Earth’s movement.

Shooting for 30 seconds or more lets you keep your ISO lower to get a clear shot.

However, if you’re shooting on a crop sensor, 14 millimeters is only about 12 degrees wider than your kit lens and 18 millimeters.

So it’s not terribly wider, but it does, of course, offer that faster aperture of f2.8, and it is sharper.

So if you have a crop center and you’re serious about stars, it still is a good value.

So starry skies, as I mentioned, they’re not the only thing you can shoot with this lens in tears, and of course, some landscapes do work at this focal length.

Overall construction is solid with a metal build and base metal mount smooth movements to the focus ring easily adjustable aperture ring.

The build quality is excellent; the aperture rings get nice soft clicks to it, you get all of this for 300 bucks.

If you dream of taking wide starry skies, this is the best budget lens out there.

Nikon 14-24mm f 2.8: (Best Nikon lens for nighttime photography)

The highest performance, super wide-angle zoom lens on the market, beat against prime origin options among all brands.

The first thing we noticed and probably the only complaint we have with the 14-24 f 2.8 G is the size.

It’s one of the largest wide-angle zoom lenses on the market and also one of the heaviest.

This lens feels like it renders a super-sized screen to keep the edge’s performance effect.

You’ll be carrying a lot of glass for this level of performance.

The use abilities treat for joy external rings controlling both zooming and focusing near the camera for a better balance, which is relatively light to the touch.

You can really feel the metal tricks inside, guaranteeing it is a smooth operation.

And the realism ring goes counterclockwise from 14 to 24 millimeters in a very light 90 degrees movement that sometimes moves by itself from the widest angle.

The metal mount feels secure and uses the cheat lever to operate the aperture.

While we do this for a rubber gasket to seal it again, water doesn’t declare any form of weather resistance.

It provides the photographer with a fast way to work with our wide-angle thesis in a single lens.

Or with great optics in autofocus, one of the finest lenses of the Nikon lineup.

He has achieved 14 elements in 11 optical fiber groups with 3 aspherical pieces to correct research collaboration and has resolved extra-low dispersion.

ED lens to enhance clarity and the nanocrystal coat applied to the first element to enhance contrast and reduce flaring with the 14-24 f 2.8 G delivers optically is unmatched.

The best way to go beyond is our prime mark.

It is simply every field we expect for our best-in-class equipment; the highest resolution wide open are stuck down and 14 to 24 millimeters.

The best contrast between backlit is with the light position on the sides.

The chromatic aberration control resistance and geometry are with the best color possible from a zoom.

There’s simply nothing to compare the flexibility is awesome to photographs.

The images are breathing straight out of the camera with saturated colors and plenty of contrasts.

Perfect to photograph subjects around the street for everyday life photography.

So overall, this is the height regardless, as the images can even prove mandatory lifelong fees for the best.

Tokina 11-20mm f/2.8: (Best budget lens for astrophotography Nikon)

The Tokina 11-20mm f/2.8 is a budget lens for astrophotography Nikon that will fit just about any level of the photographer’s needs.

Lightweight and affordable, this budget lens will make groups of clusters seem much more significant than they are by simply zooming in on them!

If you are looking for a versatile lens with excellent range, sharpness, and star-gazing capabilities, the Tokina 11-20mm is the right choice for you!

When it comes to optics, Tokina lenses have no frills but get the job done well.

Like any traditional photographic lens on your camera body, choose a focal length before deciding which lens could be the best fit for you and your needs.

This brilliantly strong glass-molded aspherical element makes this one of the best lenses in its price range for these applications.

With an aperture range from f/2.8 to f/22 along with multi-layer lens coatings, your images will be beautifully framed without too much distortion or movement relative to subjects in focus, either near or far away!

If you want to have some wide-angle shots of the Milky Way and other objects in space, this is your go-to lens.

Its f2.8 aperture allows you to see your subject even when it’s dark outside, making it excellent for night photography as well.

With this prime lens from Tokina for astrophotography using Nikon, you’ll have no trouble taking great pictures, even on starry nights or during cloudy days.

This highly specialized lens is perfect for nighttime and astrophotography.

This has a quarter of the glass elements found in many lenses, which means more light reaches all parts of the sensor or film, producing a sharp image with very little need to use autofocus or auto exposure.

The wide-angle capability also means you capture more of Earth’s surface, meaning less time spent trying to find your landmarks among the stars.

This incredible piece of glass is perfect for anyone looking to capture more when you go up, down, and all around in our night sky!

Rokinon 14mm f/2.8: (Nikon d5300 astrophotography lens)

Ever wondered if you can use an inexpensive lens for astrophotography? The Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 is highly recommended for astrophotography with a Nikon D5300.

This lens is perfect if you want to get started in DSLR astrophotography without spending too much money!

If you’re interested in starting with DSLR astrophotography but don’t want to spend a lot of money on expensive gear, then the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 might be just what you need!

This is an affordable option compared to most lenses that are designed specifically for astrophotography.

I have been using this lens on my Nikon D5300 camera, and I’m happy with the results so far!

This manual focus, fixed focal length wide-angle lens provides an equivalent field of view to a 24mm lens on the Nikon d5300.

Due to its wide aperture and fast f/2.8 aperture, this lens is well-suited for astrophotography when coupled with the Nikon D5300 camera body’s low noise performance at high ISO settings.

It features an advanced optical design featuring two extra-low dispersion elements and three aspherical lenses, which help control chromatic aberrations and provide sharper image quality throughout the frame even at full zoom (14mm), without any noticeable distortion or vignetting in your images.

It’s not just an excellent lens for night sky photography but also for cityscape and landscape shooting during the day.

The fast aperture of this lens will make it easier to work with stars that are faint or don’t show up in shorter exposures, and its wide focal length will allow you to capture more of the sky in one shot.

It also has reasonable distortion control, so there won’t be any unsightly warping at the corners of your images.

This fast wide-angle lens will give you a whole lot of bang for your buck!

It also has some great reviews and customer feedback, so it looks like this may be your best option if you’re looking to get into astrophotography.

How do I take good night pictures with my Nikon?

Firstly, I took my Nikon camera and preferred a 1.6 Nikon 50mm f/1.8G lens for better performance. For night photography, I must permanently change the following camera settings after making sure my camera is securely fastened to the tripod:

• Switch to manual mode on the camera.
• Use long shutter speeds of between 30 and 60 seconds at any given time.
• Make the appropriate adjustments to the aperture to nearly equal f/11.
• Adjust the ISO to a moderately low number, between 100 and 200, then save my settings.
• Check my camera settings to ensure the white balance mode is automatic.

What lens should I use to shoot the moon?

Nikon 85mm f1.8 is the best lens I prefer for moon photography. Letting in a lot of light into my camera gives me strong autofocus backgrounds, mainly when used on a full-frame camera. Still, it’s not such a long telephoto focal length. Its hands are pretty smooth, and it changes your focus quite responsively. Being F 1.8 allows it to be more compact, lighter, and less costly than lenses with larger or brighter apertures. I can get fantastic moon images from my trip to Alaska. We all had plans to go camping at night. After my friends had all gone to sleep, I grabbed my camera and this lens, put them on a tripod, and took some nighttime photos of the shining moon, which is much more mesmerizing in a clear sky.

CONCLUSION:

Alright, guys, so that concludes all the lenses we will talk about today in this article.

Do you guys have any experience with these lenses? What are your thoughts on them?

Which are your best Nikon lenses for Night photography?

Is there a lens that I didn’t mention in this article that you love to use for night photography?

Please leave your thoughts and comments below.

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