Nikon AF-S 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G DX

Nikon AF-S 18-70mm

As Nikon users, we were given a wonderful gift in the Nikon 18-70mm DX lens. It is mostly sold as part of a kit with the D200 and D70s/D80 camera’s. It is available separately for a very reasonable amount of money however, and it is probably the only lens from any manufacture that is part of a kit but worth buying separately. It covers a very useful range equivalent to 27-105mm in film terms and has a relatively bright f/3.5-4.5 aperture. When this lens came with one of my D200’s because I couldn’t find the camera on its own at first, I thought it would be put into a bag and never thought of again. Boy was I wrong, this has great sharpness almost to the very corners. It is fairly resistant to flare, comes with a lens hood and unbelievably for this price is weather resistant as it has a rubber seal around the mounting (which is metal, not plastic).

In all honesty, I don’t often use this lens below the 20mm setting as it has rather extreme distortions at that range but things even up nicely by about 24mm. It comes with an AF-S motor, so the auto-focus is very fast and quiet and the build quality isn’t half bad, and very good when the price is considered. I haven’t found this lens to have much of a problem with CA which was a nice surprise and even light fall-off isn’t bad, except at 18mm, which is surprising for a DX lens due to the smaller size. This is a great lens, I would certainly get it with any camera it is offered with when starting a lens collection. If you are looking at the D40/D50/D80, I would personally buy it camera only and put the savings towards getting this lens instead of the lesser 18-55mm as the two are not comparable.