2 Of The Best Portrait Lenses For Nikon D5100 Cameras On The Market!

In this article, we will be taking a look at what we feel is the best portrait lens for Nikon d5100 cameras currently available on the market right now. We have published similar portrait photography based articles for a number of cameras and noticed some people reaching out for advice on the d5100 so we thought we would publish this to help any of our readers in this situation.

We would like to quickly point out that we have chosen lenses that we feel will fit the budgets of the majority of our readers while also offering them the best overall mix of functionality, performance, build quality, and price. You can click here if you would like to see a full list of lenses that will fit your Nikon d5100.

Although we had a number of different lenses on our short list, we eventually settled on two that we feel are solid choices for portrait photography with the Nikon d5100. They both have a budget-friendly price tag, great performance, and a solid reputation.

Although many people do choose to select a low to a mid-range zoom lens for their portrait lenses we feel that a fixed prime lens is better, especially when chosen specifically for portraits. Both of the lenses on this list will also natively fit your d5100 without the need to purchase any third-party attachments or mount converters.

Click Here To Check For Prices On High-Quality, Budget Friendly Portrait Lenses For Your D5100!

Table of Contents

The Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G Lens

In our opinion, the best portrait lens for Nikon d5100 users on the market right now is by far the Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G Lens (Click here to check for product prices and availability). It is a massive upgrade to your lens collection over the standard kit lenses available when you initially purchase your d5100 and offers some great performance for a low price tag. Over the years this has opened the market to let the Nikon 50mm lens grow rapidly and earn itself an excellent reputation amongst the community.

The build quality of the Nikon 50mm lens beats that of the majority of the competition at its price point and holds its own against lenses at higher price points too. Made from light metal and high-quality plastics the lens is robust while also being lightweight allowing it to take its fair share of knocks without breaking.

It is a prime lens with a fixed focal length that is perfect for portrait photography that will offer a great image quality with minimal effort. The autofocus on the lens will natively work with your Nikon d5100 to making your job even easier. That said, the manual focus ring on the lens is easy to reach, responsive, and sensitive allowing you to easily tweak the focus level of the lens as and when needed with minimal effort.

A great example of the type of portrait photograph that you can capture with the Nikon 50mm when mounted on your d5100.

The f/1.8G aperture on the lens offers great performance in a number of light conditions even low light. If you are planning to use your outside of a studio then this can be a godsend as you never know when the lighting conditions outside will change with minimal notice. The shallow depth of field on the lens also allows you to easily get the subject of your portrait to stand out from their background helping to further improve your portrait photography capabilities.

The Nikon 50mm lens has a 58mm filter thread allowing you to easily find lens filters to allow you to further customize your portrait photography. If you do want to pick up some lens filters for this lens then we would highly recommend that you check out the Gobe 58mm filter range (Click here to check for product prices and availability).

All in all, we would highly recommend that any of our readers who own a Nikon D5100 and are looking for a portrait lens seriously consider the Nikon 50mm. The functionality it offers for its budget-friendly price tag really is a steal and it should be able to meet most, if not all of the needs of our readers.

Click Here To Read Independent Third Party Reviews Of This Product!

Click Here To Check For Prices On This Product!

The video below offers an additional third-party, independent review for the Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm to offer our readers an independent opinion of the product.

The Nikon AF-S DX 35mm F/1.8G Lens

Next up on our list of what we feel are the best portrait lenses for Nikon d5100 cameras is the Nikon AF-S DX 35mm F/1.8G Lens (Click here to check for product prices and availability). It is a very similar lens to the 50mm variant covered above but this time comes with a 35mm focal length that offers a slightly different style of portrait. It has the excellent build quality that you would expect from a Nikon lens as well as the performance to match. Over the years this has lead to the Nikon 35mm becoming a very popular lens amongst the community with an excellent reputation.

The fast f/1.8G aperture offers you excellent image quality no matter the lighting conditions allowing you to use it as a walk around lens for various outdoor locations too. The Nikon 35mm lens enables you to easily capture some beautifully blurred backgrounds for your photographs no matter the conditions. You can use this to your advantage isolate your subject or just to capture some truly unique portrait photographs.

A great example of the type of photograph you can take with the Nikon 35mm lens when mounted on your Nikon D5100.

The manual focus ring of the lens is texturized allowing you to quickly locate it no matter the conditions as it feels totally different to the rest of the lens. This allows you to quickly and easily tweak the focus of your image before capturing it so you can customize it to perfection every time.

All in all, we feel that both of these lenses have the ability to massively improve your portrait photography without the need to break the bank. Although there are slight differences between the 50mm and 35mm variants they are very similar lenses at very similar price points that and we feel that you should consider picking one up.

Click Here To Read Independent Third Party Reviews Of This Product!

Click Here To Check For Prices On This Product!

The video below offers an additional third-party, independent review for the Nikon AF-S DX 35mm F/1.8G Lens to offer our readers an independent opinion of the product.