Nikkor 18-70 ED DX lens review

I recently had the good fortune of buying a ‘as good as new’ Nikkor 18-70 from a local seller at a reasonably low price. I was really tired of the ‘amateur’ 18-55 VR. Though its not a bad lens and produced some not so bad results, I was longing for a professional (atleast looking) lens for my D200.

I read a lot of reviews for this lens before buying it and most of them were positive. Some called it Nikon’s mistake. It’s selling around $300 online.

My gripe with the 18-55 was that it had no ED. Inspite of the fact that how much difference it made to the final image, having ED etched on the lens barrel makes it look better. It also came with a hood. I shot both casually and professionally with this lens and it has delivered decent results.

Build quality is much much better than the 18-55 VR. The front element diameter is 67mm. Its 3.5 at wide end and 4.5 at the tele end. It weighs substantially more than the 18-55.  

I also read that this lens was supplied with the D70 as a kit lens a while back. As far as I know the lens is not in production anymore.

I used this lens exclusively for a product/merchandise shoot for a Mumbai based client a few weeks back.  Here are some pics from the lens. All shot with the D200.