TorontoJim's reviews

Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II DX AF-S Nikkor

This lens came with the D50 kit.

It is lightweight and build quality appears good. However, I don't think it will withstand the test of time and frequent use. It is clearly meant for the average consumer who will keep their camera in their bag, take some shots on a vacation or at a wedding, or carry around their neck. That's no slight at all to the people who photograph as such, but just to separate this lens from the genre of Nikon amateur/professional lenses. It's a kit lens, and you get what you pay for.

Images come out sharp at the middle ranges of the zoom at at higher f-stops. With the aperture below f-8, I found the images to be a bit soft. The zoom mechanism is not the fastest, but it is quiet and mostly accurate.

The manual focussing is a ridiculous little grooved ring at the outer end of the lens. Perhaps Nikon has assumed that users of this lens will use autofocus most of the time? One very irritating function is the retraction of the lens when you power-off. The inner barrel of the lens stays in it's positioned based on where it was focussing on. To really close the lens down to it's retracted position, you need to switch the lens from A (auto) to M (manual) using the little toggle switch on the side, then manually rotate the focussing ring to close the lens fully.

It's a Nikon lens, that is better than many other kit lenses of this zoom range. However, you should consider looking at just buying the body for the D50 and testing other lenses. If you already have a body and are considering this lens, you would be better off buying another zoom range that has a better quality.