Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I imagine for most people, this will be either the 2nd or 3rd lens they buy (counting the kit lens, if you got one). For me, this was my 3rd lens. The first were the kit 18-55mm Nikon VR lens and the 55-200mm telephoto Nikon non-VR lens. Both of those lenses are very good, and very versatile, but in terms of image quality they can't even remotely touch this one. First things first, it's a prime lens, meaning no zoom. Kind of obvious, but should at least be mentioned for those newer to the hobby. However, that doesn't mean that it can't take pictures from far away, on the contrary, it can take some stunning pictures from a distance, it will just be that you can't zoom in closer on things at a distance. It's actually very good at landscapes, especially late evening sunsets and night time skylines, for instance.Additionally, this lens is so sharp, that you can crop a LOT. Meaning that you can effectively get zoom after the fact by cropping your picture in photo editing software, and the image will still look very good, as long as you nailed your focus in the original picture (obviously the more you crop, the more you notice things being out of focus). Secondly, it doesn't have vibration reduction. However, this is a fast lens, which negates most of the need for VR in the first place. What photo nerds mean by a 'fast lens' that is that it lets in a lot of light, meaning that the shutter can open and close very quickly and still properly expose the image, meaning that blur, both from camera shake and moving subjects are DRASTICALLY minimized. It also thus better at 'freezing' moving objects, that would blur in a slower lens. The only time where VR would be a welcome addition is possibly extremely low light photography, but even then you should be fine without it. To be honest, I'm almost glad it's not on there, because I often forget to turn VR off when I don't need it, and VR does run your battery down faster. Now that those two caveats are out of the way, on to the strengths: This will enable photos that you just can't take with the kit lens. Especially if you're interested in concert photography (or any other form of photography that involves low light, but also movement). In most instances, this lens just takes better looking pictures than the kit lens. But in low light concert photography it will actually take pictures that a slower lens just can't take without extreme blur (or using the flash, which both kills the atmosphere and often times isn't allowed). For instance, a lead singer who moves his head back and forth some on a dimly lit stage. With the kit lens his head will just be a blur, which is sometimes a cool effect, but sometimes it just looks blurry. With this lens, you can get a nice crisp image if you want, or adjust your aperture, or your shutter speed and get the motion blur as well, if you want it. It's nice to have both options. The bokeh. Bokeh is a photography term that essentially just means 'blurry background'. This is what really makes portraits 'pop' as the subject's face can really be set apart from the background. It's also good when you have a busy background that would otherwise be distracting, even if you're not shooting portraits. Just go into aperture priority mode and set this baby to f1.8, get relatively close (a few feet) to your subject and fire away. Your portraits will take on that dreamy professional look. The closer you are to your subject, the more extreme the bokeh effect is (which is why this lens can effectively take landscape shots, because the effect is diminished greatly when you're shooting from a large distance). More control over your depth of field. This is basically the same strength as the previous point, but just more widely considered. With the kit lens, at any given focal length, your f/stop options are going to be pretty limited. Meaning you're basically stuck with the depth of field you have. However, with this lens, you basically always have from f1.8 to f22. This gives you extreme control over how deep your field is (essentially how large the range of 'in focus' is, and how gradually images fade from in focus to out of focus). You can create that nice blurred background we talked about above, or you can have an identifiable background as well. This is especially useful when shooting dogs, for instance, because sometimes (like when they're in profile) you want a very shallow depth of field, to give good bokeh and sharpness, while others you want a little more depth of field (like if they're looking straight forward at you and you want to keep the tip of their nose all the way to their ears in focus. Being able to control your depth of field is really the first step (of many) into going from a snapshot shooter with a nice camera to an actual photographer. Light weight, short length. doesn't seem like a big deal into you lug a heavy 15-300 zoom lens around on your neck all day long. It's also short, which is surprisingly helpful in a crowded environment, like a concert. While this lens is obviously not quite as versatile as a kit or telephoto lens, the images you get will blow you away. Yes, you will have to move around more to get the shot you want and/or crop more. But that's not much of a price to pay for drastically improved image quality. Since I've bought this lens, the 18-55 mm lens rarely comes out of the bag. I still use other lenses, but this is the default go to lens. The one that stays attached when the camera is in my bag, so that if I need to pull it out and snap off a shot in a hurry, this is the one that will be taking it.