speaking of san diego, i need camera advice

[vqdriver]

so there's been some discussion of dslr lately and there's obviously people here who are much more adept at this than i. so i'll ask....

i'm going to the san diego bike show and would like to take along my camera.
i've been using the slr primarly to take pix of my kids around the house. honestly, i probably wouldn't have even bought an slr if i wasn't missing so many shots due to lag and blurry shots from tiny lenses. so here's what i've got:

nikon d80
50mm 1.4 - this is what's ALWAYS on there
kit lense, i think it's something like 28-200 - my bang around tourist lense

i'd like to take shots at the show, but have to back up pretty far with the 50mm - not ideal in a convention setting. altho it's fantastic indoors. my zoom lense is admittedly lackluster in shot quality but is far more flexible.

given this choice of lenses what would you take? any particular settings i should pay attention to to optimize my results?

i'd prefer not to use a flash.

alternatively, i have a pretty well-stocked shop close to me and can rent lenses. is there a particular one i should look for?

[majl]

50mm is a great prime length and long considered the staple of any 35mm photog. Your D80 has a 1.5x crop factor though, so why not look at the Nikon AF-S 35mm/f1.8 lens? Would be a better match for your camera body in that it offers a "normal" field of view for cropped sensor cameras, comes in a small, lightweight package, and still gives you the option to open up the aperture real big and shoot with no flash.

Here's a source: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/606792-USA/Nikon_2183_AF_S_Nikkor_35mm_f_1_8G.html

[vqdriver]

what???
where was that lens when i bought the 50?

[maunahaole]

I would take a super wide angle zoom. Something like the sigma 10-20mm, but there are other choices - I think there is a Tokina or Tamron of similar focal length that is f2.8, which is a big factor to consider if you are going to shoot indoors w/ no flash. Wide angle stuff gets you close and still gives a reasonable DOF. Consider using a flash on your hot shoe i.e. a SB600, SB800, or SB900 with a diffuser. If you try to shoot close, the flash will blow stuff out, especially the highlights and places where you get reflection

[flickwet]

consider the possibilities of crowds and the fact that you will be close to what you want to photograph. Also consider that for your D-80 you do not own a wide angle lens. Your 28-200 is really a 42-300 when you take into consideration the inherent 1.5 crop of the DX sensor. The real question is...How much do you want to spend? I wont go into the whole Nikon vs off brand thing, nor the issue of excessive quality concern. I would recommend you look into (starting least wide) a 24mmf2.8, which gives you a 36mm angle of view and is considered one of the greats, nice match up with the 50mm also. 18-55 a-fs,VR f4.5-5.6, this is a cheaply made wonder lense which gives you an effective angle of view of 27-80. The VR works really well, but the lense is slow, it too would complement what you currently have. You can go still wider and faster, its just money, as for me I buy used and would own either of those lenses, but currently have the 18-70 AF-S, F3.5-4.5, they are all good, also I have tried off brand lenses, Tamron etc., they're fine lenses I just preferred the Nikkors, happy shooting