Nikon D7100 Digital Field Guide

Chapter 4: Selecting and Using Lenses with the Nikon D7100

By far the most important accessory that you can buy for your D7100 is a good lens. Your lenses have a tremendous effect on your image quality, especially with the high-resolution sensors of dSLRs today. The D7100 sensor resolves high amounts of detail and therefore it is important to put high-quality glass in front of it. The lens not only impacts image sharpness but also affects contrast and color. A quality lens is a valuable investment as your lens will likely be in your kit through a number of camera bodies.

A key feature of the D7100 is that the lenses are interchangeable. You can use lenses to achieve visual effects. You can use a wide-angle lens to distort spatial relations and lines, a telephoto to make far-off objects appear closer, or a macro lens to get close up and show detail that can’t be perceived by the unaided human eye.

A high-quality lens is an investment that should outlast many dSLR camera bodies.

Deciphering Nikon Lens Codes

One of the first things that is apparent when shopping for lenses is that there are a lot of letters in the names, such as AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR. That’s a pretty big name for the kit lens that comes bundled with the D7100. So, what do all of these letters mean? Here’s a straightforward list to help you decipher them:

• AI/AI-S. These are Auto Indexing lenses. ...