Cheap price Light weight Good colors & sharpness fast auto focus

Focusing ring way too loose

Its amazing what you can get for this amount of money , a lot of people keep saying that this is a bad , cheap lens . well . . . I found this lens pretty sharp nicely built with fast auto focus, yes it is made of plastic but that doesn't mean its cheaply built !! what do you expect for 75$ lens ? if you are tight on budget just go and buy it and you can get along with it for a while at least till you can afford a better lens and I doubt that you will need to upgrade after using it, the thing is you cant go wrong with a 75$ lens It has a plastic mount (actually Polycarbonate) but I don't see this very bad , since its very light weight there is almost no heavy load on the mount so I don’t think the mount will wear that fast and maybe not at all One bad thing about this lens is the focusing ring , it is very loose when you use the manual focus, it can even slips downward if you point the lens upward !! and using a polarizer filter is very hard unless you use it as an Auto focus lens after all if you still unsure about this lens you can buy it , use it , return it to store or sell it on eBay with a good price , this is not a Pro lens and as you are reading reviews about this lens that means you are not a pro so don't fool yourself, just go ahead and buy it if you like photography but can't afford the expensive lenses and I am sure that you will get the best lens for this money.

Customer Service

Not needed yet

Similar Products Used:

Nikon 70-210 4-5.6 D lens different Pentax zoom lenses

Very affordable Nikon optics Excellent optics Light weight

Loose feel of the focusing and zooming rings Plastic mount Cheap feel Lack of distance scale

Got this lens as a kit with the F65. Excellent optically, with little distortion and flare. If you look inside the lens, you could hardly see any reflections - shows that the coating really works. Tried to compare this with the Nikon 50D F1.8 - couldn't see any difference at 4x6 print. Then, I scanned the negatives and see it on my 17" monitor - small difference at the corner. Highly recommended for casual shots and general photography. Remember that it is not the camera/lens that counts - it is the guy behind it that counts.

Customer Service

No needed

Similar Products Used:

Nk 50D F1.8 Tamron 28-200 XR Tamron 19-35 Sigma 70-300 APO

Light weight Convenient zoom range Excellent Image quality

Build quality may be a little weak but then I don't go throwing my equipment around and smashing it on rocks, either

Don't let the lens snobs fool you about this lense. Just look at the recent review in PopPhoto Magazine. It is an excellent lense, very sharp, with great contrast, and more than worthy of the Nikon name. The G series of lenses have been knocked for really no good reason. They are excellent lenses that just happen to lack the aperture ring, a feature that isn't needed on Nikon's newer cameras.

Customer Service

haven't needed it yet

Similar Products Used:

none

Sharp Light-weight Adequate focusing speed

Dark colors Poor manual focusing ring (almost non-existent) Zoom ring is rough and jerky

Unlike some of the previous reviews, I have never had a problem with the sharpness of this lens. Images are crisp and sharp when the lens is stopped down 1 or 2 stops. I have managed to consistently get wonderfully sharp pictures with this little lens. However, colors are rendered slightly deep. My golden retriever has showed up very dark yellow in the pictures. That said, this is a good thing if you want deeper colors from your pictures of flowers etc. Overall, a fine performer at this unbeatable price. Just be careful of the color characteristics.

Customer Service

Never used

Similar Products Used:

28-105 f/3.5-4.5D Nikkor, 50 f/1.8 Nikkor, 18-35 f/3.5-4.5 ED-IF Nikkor, Tamron 70-300 f/4-5.6 LD

Cheap

A fatal lack of sharpness at all apertures and focal lengths.

I have never had a complaint about Nikon products before, but this lens is not worthy of the Nikon name. For my purposes, the plastic construction of this lens doesn't bother me--apart from its very cheap look. What does bother me is the lack of sharpness in my pictures. I keep reading that this lens is good/sharp for the money. That has nothing to do with it. A lens is either sharp or it isn't. If you have to qualify its sharpness by the price, you're saying the sharpness isn't what it ought to be. No matter the focal length or the aperture setting, the pictures lack sharp edges and detail--obviously, its resolution is the pits. The ONLY use I can see for this lens is for portraits--no need to worry about blemishes or wrinkles showing up with this thing on the end of your camera! Nikon should be ashamed to pair this lens with their camera bodies as an everyday, general purpose lens. What will first-time Nikon buyers think after hearing about Nikon's legendary quality and then looking what this third-rate lens delivers? Nikon needs to set the right tone by bundling their best with camera bodies instead of seeing what they can get by with.

Light weight Image quality

Focus ring a bit loose

I got this lense as part of the N80 kit (price ?). For the money you can't beat this lense. Since it is made for the newer Nikons, the lack of an aperture ring is a moot point. You don't need it. Mounting ring is as strong as you need unless you are going to smash the thing on a rock. The build quality is excellent as far as I can tell with the exception of the focusing ring. A previous reviewer mentioned that it moves while the camera is in autofocus mode and this initially distressed me. However, it does require a little bit of pressure to do this so it's not a real problem. In manual focus mode the focus ring is pretty loose but I don't use manual focus all that much anyway. Once again, not a major problem. In conclusion, for less than $100 you can't beat this lense. The quality of images I have been getting from it are excellent (up to 11 x 14 enlargments). And, if you drop it in a stream (which I've almost done) or on a rock and it is ruined, you can replace it without going in the poor house.

Customer Service

Dunno

Similar Products Used:

Tamron 28-70 manual focus (adaptall)

lightweight

lack of aperature ring

I have to agree with the last reviewer. This lens performs quite well for the price. I purchased this lens with my N80 about two months ago and I can say I am very pleased at the overall quality of the pictures. For the price, I am absolutely satisified of the overall performance. I also agree why someone would rate this lens as poor. At first, I thought I'd buy this lens as an interim until I could decide on which way to go in terms of size and quality ( i.e prime vs. zoom). After about 8 rolls of print later, I am sold on this lens as it's a solid performer.

Customer Service

not used

Similar Products Used:

Vivitar Minolta Canon

Price, lightweight but with good sturdy feel, good auto-focus

None for the price

A lot of the negative reviews in here are funny to read. You can purchase this lense for between $80 and $150, yet people are comparing it to professional grade lenses costing 5 times as much. For the price, this is an excellent lense. I can't speak for the durability because I haven't had a chance to abuse it yet, but the construction feels solid even though it is lightweight. It feels very comfortable mated to the Nikon N65. The autofocus work nicely - it's fairly quiet and rarely searches for focus. No, the lense mount is not metal, but is made of a strong, resiliant polycarbonate material that you are not going to be able to damage with normal use. If you are a beginner or intermediate, this is a nice quality lense - better than some of the third party lenses in this price range. Due to how lightweight it is, I would also argue that it is even good for more avid photographers that are on the go. So stop listening to the photo snobs that come here to berade the less costly lenses. They only do so they can justify the thousands they've spent on their lenses. :)

Customer Service

Not yet needed, but staff at Ritz very helpful.

Similar Products Used:

Various Canon, Minolta

Useful zoom range, sharp.

Manual focus ring is not a well dampened as other lenses.

This lens is a good value, it is surprizingly sharp for a 'consumer' grade standard zoom lens. I find it's 28-80mm zoom range to be very useful and most of the time I am using this lens. The lens is kind of 'slow' with a maximum aperture of f/3.3 at 28mm and going down to f/5.6 at 80mm. While it is true that there are zoom lenses with a larger maximum aperture opening on the market. This lens is by no means as limited as a typical point and shoot camera zoom lens and ISO 100 film is totally usable even on overcast days. I find the build quality to be pretty good and the plastic lens mount does not bother me as I know that parts of cars and airplanes are made out of similar material. What does bother me is that the manual focus ring can be moved when the camera is in autofocus mode or off. Also, when the camera is in manual focus mode the focus ring is very loose and will move by itself when the camera is pointed upward or downward.

Similar Products Used:

Nikon AFD 28-70, Nikon AF 28-85, Canon EF 35-80.

Lightweight, good optics, good all-around lens, especially for newbies.

Plastic. The barrel also rates when focusing, which makes it tough to use filters (polarizers and grads, typical in most outdoor photography). There is a disturbingly large amount of lens wiggle (and corresponding image shft) above 60mm. It can also be really difficult to accurately focus for MF cameras. have not tried it on AF. But for an entry level lens, it is good.

This is a fairly good lens. Not the greatest, but for 100 bucks it is tough to beat. Images are usually sharp, but the lighting should be fairly bright.

Customer Service

N/A

Similar Products Used:

Nikkor 105mm.