Here follow the opinions of a former yearbook photographer, hobbyist, and undergrad in physics. I have probably sold off or given away more camera equipment than most people will ever own. Every lens and body came from a pawn shop or eBay. Best photography lessons on the internet are probably John Lind (ref 1) and Bob Atkins (refs 2-5, many of his older articles are on photo.net)
Best pro tip I could offer is that if you think you're serious and going Nikon, spend the money to get a body with a built-in autofocus motor. That makes a vast number of great older AF lenses available to you on the used market, some of which are superior in very important respects to their current counterparts. This could save you tons of money. For example, I just got a 300 mm f/4 AF-D off eBay for $320 (after shipping). List price new: well over $1000. In the 1990s. The critical detail is that it's big enough that the lens is what you mount on the tripod, not the camera. The mounting collar on the new VR 300 is just a touch loose, but when you're moving this thing around to get that shot of a yellow-breasted Pacific flycatcher, a few minutes of wiggle is not acceptable.
I will also suggest not sweating the f-stops on lenses. "Fast" lenses were defined in a time when pros were making tradeoffs between film resolution* and speed at ASA values of 100-800. Any sensor you buy today will get to ASA 3200, probably 6400, without trouble, and with higher sensor resolution* than those lenses were ever sold for.
A great example: I'm very happy my first zoom was a Nikon 70-210 f/4, a budget version of their famous 80-200 f/2.8. Now I carry half the weight and still have way more speed (in terms of total available exposure value) than guys with a 2.8 had 10 years ago.
You gain a bit of depth of field with the smaller objectives, (so your background with the aperture wide open is more focused, which is not desirable in some circumstances) but 95% of taking pictures outside a studio is being there, and that's far more likely if your camera bag weighs less or has an extra lens.
Also: lens quality. Friends, lens quality and geometry was perfected 100 years ago. There was an advance in the 60s when they started depositing some salt layers on the glass but otherwise, you'd be hard pressed to get a meaningfully better lens today, optically, than you could in 1985.
* I use "film resolution" as I don't recall if there's a particular term that otherwise nicely describes the important point when trying to compare film grain and pixel density. There's yet another issue of quantum uncertainty when the wells start getting very small, but I leave that to Bob Atkins to explain (above).
Best pro tip I could offer is that if you think you're serious and going Nikon, spend the money to get a body with a built-in autofocus motor. That makes a vast number of great older AF lenses available to you on the used market, some of which are superior in very important respects to their current counterparts. This could save you tons of money. For example, I just got a 300 mm f/4 AF-D off eBay for $320 (after shipping). List price new: well over $1000. In the 1990s. The critical detail is that it's big enough that the lens is what you mount on the tripod, not the camera. The mounting collar on the new VR 300 is just a touch loose, but when you're moving this thing around to get that shot of a yellow-breasted Pacific flycatcher, a few minutes of wiggle is not acceptable.
I will also suggest not sweating the f-stops on lenses. "Fast" lenses were defined in a time when pros were making tradeoffs between film resolution* and speed at ASA values of 100-800. Any sensor you buy today will get to ASA 3200, probably 6400, without trouble, and with higher sensor resolution* than those lenses were ever sold for.
A great example: I'm very happy my first zoom was a Nikon 70-210 f/4, a budget version of their famous 80-200 f/2.8. Now I carry half the weight and still have way more speed (in terms of total available exposure value) than guys with a 2.8 had 10 years ago.
You gain a bit of depth of field with the smaller objectives, (so your background with the aperture wide open is more focused, which is not desirable in some circumstances) but 95% of taking pictures outside a studio is being there, and that's far more likely if your camera bag weighs less or has an extra lens.
Also: lens quality. Friends, lens quality and geometry was perfected 100 years ago. There was an advance in the 60s when they started depositing some salt layers on the glass but otherwise, you'd be hard pressed to get a meaningfully better lens today, optically, than you could in 1985.
(1) http://johnlind.tripod.com/science/
(2) https://www.google.com/search?q=bob+atkins+site%3Aphoto.net
(3) Very important: http://photo.net/equipment/digital/sensorsize/
(4) Hard to find: http://photo.net/learn/optics/pixel_peep/pixel_peep_part1.ht...
(5) Hard to put in context without (4) http://photo.net/learn/optics/pixel_peep/pixel_peep_part2.ht...
* I use "film resolution" as I don't recall if there's a particular term that otherwise nicely describes the important point when trying to compare film grain and pixel density. There's yet another issue of quantum uncertainty when the wells start getting very small, but I leave that to Bob Atkins to explain (above).