Home > Consumer Reviews > Nikon 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED IF AF-S DX Nikkor Zoom Lens

I recieved my lens with my D70 kit and have used it for the past year and a half. The 18-70 is a great lens, particularly for outdoor photography. Indoors, it is a little more limited due to the variable aperture but works well when used with flash. The zoom range and the silent wave focus are the best features. Stopped down, the lens is also quite sharp.

My shooting with this lens was predominately landscape and event photography, and has really produced some nice pictures. I've since upgraded to a 17-55 f/2.8 lens due to the better low light performance, sharpness and build quality, but aside from a little barrel distortion and light fall-off at 18mm, the 18-70 is no slouch. I'd recommend it as a light travel lens or a good starter lens.

I bought my D50 at a local camera store in my town. I opted for the 18-70 lens after they recommended it instead of the 18-55 kit lens due to better quality optics and sturdier construction. The 18-55 has a plastic mount while the 18-70 has a metal one.

I've had the camera and lens for a week -- and, so far, I've taken over 400 photos. The lens has an excellent range. The wide angle of 18mm (equivalent to 27mm) is great for shooting interior rooms and group shots (no more telling everyone to sqeeze in!). It zooms out to a decent 70mm (equivalent to 105mm).

Compared to my five-year-old point and shoot, this is a night-and-day improvement. In focuses instantly--even in the dark. Image quality is excellent: it is easy to adjust the depth of field and blur out the background.

As most people I guess, I got this lens as part of the D70 kit. The D70 plus this lens make a great kit at a reasonable price. Things I liked -
* Wide to mid-tele zoom range: I find this lens zoom range good for 99% of the photo opportunties I have, which include family life and an occational travel.
* f/22 minimum aperture allows for night photography longer exposures without need for natural density filters
* Optical quality: Given enough available light, this lens is good, color and geometrical distortions are almot unnoticeable. As with all wide lenses, some goemetrical distorion is noticable at the wide zoom range (under 24mm)
* Silent focus and build quality: This is not the old Nikon almost military spec lens construction, it still however feels solid and nice to hold and operate

Things I didn't like -
* The included hood has somewhat cheap feel
* Aperture opening is limiting in some cases, for more capable indoor photography you'll want a fixed f/2.8 zoom, which cost ~3x, or better yet an f/1.8 prime lens and give up zoom altogether.

Why four and not five stars? there are better (and much more expesive) lenses - these would be five stars in absolute rank. In terms of bang for the buck - this is a five stars lens.

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 Nikon offers!

Got the 18-70 DX with the D80. also have the 70-300 ED and the 50 f/1.8 to round out my nikkor line (for now :)). this is a snappy, dependable lens that is a solid performer. i wasn't sure about it at first, but it's actually pretty sharp -- almost as good as the prime and the range is good for walkaround shots assuming you aren't walking around in the serengeti. it's no rock star like the 18-200 or any of nikon's pro lenses, but then again it's just as fast as the 18-200 -- 3.5 wide open. no VR, but if you need VR with a compact, lightweight zoom, you may want to consider using a tripod all the time. plus, the 18-70 is a lot cheaper than the 18-200 and makes a nice combo with the 70-300. only 4 stars because there are definitely times when it would be nice to have more reach and faster aperture speed, but for the money, it's not bad at all, especially for DSLR newbies (although a lot of pros use this as a backup).