This lens is one of the older Nikon zoom lenses and I got it recently as a replacement of an other zoom by Nikon I had used before. The lense has a fast autofocus and is very sharp. It is well made and you feel that when you attach it to your camera: the Lense is quite heavy. It takes 67mm filters and has a plastic lense hood, which is not the best quality but does the job. A nice feature is, that you can attach the hood backwards, which makes it less bulky for carrying. Now the most important: the picture quality is very good and in my opinion better than the 18-135mm, especially if you compare prices. I like this lens a lot and it is my standard travel lense.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Normally I tend to write positive reviews and make a good mark for companies so they can get more of a customer base. However, today I'm writing to state that what I purchased does not match the photo. DOES not match the items place holder image! And most certainly is not a Nikon brand!
Verified purchase: Yes
I am not one to pay too much attention to the technical specs and MTF's of a lens so this is a purely subjective user's review based upon camparison of this lens's performance to similar ones that I have used in more than fifty years shooting pictures with 35mm cameras. The build is substantial, a solid feel to it without excess weight, important to those of us that have been around long enough for Arthur to set in. It neither has the plasticky feel of some lenses available today, just comfortable to this 'ol man. I have faith that it will serve me well for many years to come. Image wise, I have found no faults to date. Granted the winter weather has limited the amount of shooting that I have been doing lately, but I cannot fault it, at least not with the usual family holiday photos taken todate. The focus is extremely fast, albiet this is my fist self driven focussing lens, but it noislessly and seemingly instantainliously jumps to focus. I can hardly wait until this summer so I can see how it performs on my outdoor excursions. All things considered, this is a great lens, kit status or not, it meets all of my needs for a carry around lens on my D200 and I would diffenetly recommend it to any one in need of a DX "normal" focal length zoom whether an advanced amateur or pro. The icing on the cake is that right now these marvelous little gems can be had at very resonable pricesRead full review
This is a good affordable wide to mid-zoom lens for Nikon digital cameras. When I first bought my D50 body I thought that I could use the lenses I had from my N80 35 mm body, especually my 28-105 mm Nikkor. Unfortunately, as I learned, the much smaller sensor size of the D50 makes that 28-105 effectively more like 50-150 mm lens, no wide angle at all, and it shows. Hence the need for a reasonably priced replacement, hence the need to go shopping on eBay to reduce the $300 new cost of this lens. I got mine with a 1A filter and hood/pouch for $220 and am very happy with it. I'd much rather have the stabilized 18-300 Nikkor glass, but that little puppy goes for 3X as much. More than my camera plus this lens cost. Ouch. Anyway, combined with the 70-210mm zoom I already have from the N80, that is enough lenses for me. Like the reviews say the 18-70 is a good lens with some minor flaws, most notable at full aperture. Plenty good enough for a hobbiest and with enough range so you will not be switching lenses a lot and risking futzing up your naked sensor.Read full review
I bought this lens because the price was right and I needed something that went a bit wider than my 35-70 f/2.8 without sacrificing too much speed. I knew this was a plastic lens and was not expecting it to be as solid as it is. It's not a pro-build by any means, but it does not feel like it is one minor bump away from the trash heap either. The autofucus is very quick and quiet compared to stadard AF-Nikkor lenses. What surprised me the most with this lens was how sharp it is in the corners at all focal legnths. There is some loss of sharpness at the 18-24mm range at f/3.5 but at f/8 it is not noticeable. There is some loss of edge detail at f/22 also but that is a limitation inherent to even the finest optics. This lens is as sharp as my 35-70 f/2.8 at f/8-f/11 from 24mm-70mm. The lens hood works OK, but make sure the Nikon logo is on top or you will get vignetting. Also, make sure it locks when you twist it on or it will fall off when you are carrying the camera. The lens cap is the pich type and can be easily placed on the lens even with the lens hood on. The lens hood can be placed on backwards for storage. Overall this lens is a great value. I'd much rather have it than the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-S because of the extra 20mm 1 stop of speed on the long end.Read full review
This is the second 18-70 I've owned. I got the first as part of a kit with the Nikon D200. I found it to be too slow for the type of shooting I usually do, so I replaced it with the professional 17-55 f/2.8, which is a much sharper, though much larger and heavier lens. With the recent purchase of a D7000, however, I've found that I can push the ISO higher and still get excellent low-light results, so the 18-70 is a viable alternative for those times when I want to travel light or not stand out in a crowd. I would have preferred the larger range and VR feature of the 16-85 Nikon, but since I only use the 17-80 when I pack light, it more than meets my needs at 1/3 the price of the 16-85. I pair the 17-80 with the excellent 70-300 VR Nikon for a nice lightweight travel kit that easily fits in a small shoulder bag or waist pack. That's tough to do with the 17-55 and 70-200 f/2.8 combo. If I really need the low light capability, I'll throw my 35 f/1.8 or 50 f/1.4 in the bag.Read full review
Excellent lens for the digital Nikon when traveling light. However, I recommend the AF 28/2.8 or AF 35/2.0 prime as your normal if you can only afford one lens to start. The prices are almost the same. This 18-70mm is the fifth in my kit and takes the place of the AF 35-70/2.8 which was the one most often on my N8008 film body. This lens is light, fast to use and fairly sharp. Quite versatile, but it does not match the the AF 35-70/2.8 in sharpness, contrast or color on the same camera. The petal lens hood is a pain. It takes excessive force to fasten and unfasten on the lens. I use the Cokin P hood instead. I would rate this lens Good Plus.
Lens is compact, decent build, metal mount, AFS fast. This is my walk around lens for my D200 and D2h, there are wider and longer lens but for the most part are heavier and bigger. For a general purpose lens its hard to beat and feels much better to me than a "kit lens". I have found it to be very sharp, focus is quick and for the price build quality pretty good. This is my second one I liked it so much (first one broke after misuse, long story) I looked for another lens but for its size, weight, it's a Nikon, metal mount, sharp, fast, price; I ended up with the same lens and I'm glad I did. There are some very good deals out there for used and demo lenes in this model, I have not compared this to the new products that are available, I did compare it's size, weight and price to new models. This lens has more reviews than most and ranks very high in most, it should make it to any short list of a lens to consider.Read full review
I must say, this lens rocks. It's very contrasty and color redention is great. And very sharp, too. Many zoom lenses don't perform well at their longest focal length, especially at the widest aperture. But even at 70mm and f/4.5, it can still hang with the big boys. There's a little bit of light falloff in the corners at 18mm wide open. However, that's no show stopper because it's not bad and rarely will you need a wide open aperture at that focal length. There's some barrel distortion at 18mm, but will not be noticable in most shots. In the real world we don't take pictures of pieces of paper with grid lines, do we? The f/3.5-4.5 is a little faster than your typical f/4-5.6 zooms. So you get slightly faster shutter speeds and better autofocus performance in low light. And the autofocus is fast and accurate, especially for a lens in this price range. The focus ring has a nice smooth damped feeling when focusing manually. But the focus ring is in the back and zoom ring in the front, which takes some getting used to. Build quality is great for a lens of this price point. And there's even a rubber seal on the lens mount-I've never had a lens with a seal. The lens hood was hard to remove and install, but if you grab it by the sides and not top and bottom, it makes it easier. But I still found it a little tight, so I sanded the plastic stops on the hood. You may want to do this to yours. The filter thread is 67mm-filters of this size are a bit pricey, but not nearly as bad as 77 or 82mm. Overall, the 18-70 is about the best bang for the buck that Nikon offers.Read full review
I buy this lens to use with my D100, I have 20 2.8, 28 1.4, 24-50, 50 1.4, 70-180 micro (All Nikon) to used before but it's unconvenient to change a lens when you need other focal length and when you change a lens a dust may come in to your camera's CCD. AF-S is really fast and you can shift a manual focus all time. Lens is sharp, at 18 or 20 of this lens have more distortion than 20 2.8 but it's sharpest than 20 and it's less of chromatic abberation. compare with 50 1.4 sometime it's sharpest than my 50 1.4 (AF-D), but fast lens is easy to use in low light situation. this lens can beat my 24-50 but cannot beat my 28 1.4 in picture quality that it have 5 times or more in pricing. All of cosmetic is great I love Nikon design. It's not like a cheap 18-55DX or EF-S 18-55, it's build solid. Closet focus is enough to talk some close-up shot, but with 70 mm you may get too close. Compare with my 70-180 micro, 18-70 get a lower magnification than 70-180 micro in a same close-up shot. Buy it!! if you need real all-around lens but not have more budget to get 18-200VR. SHARP, FAST, CHEAP, CONVENIENT as your want. I recommend!!Read full review
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