Cam and Cheese

The Nikon 50mm f/1.8D is the cheapest lens in Nikon's line up. Everyone was saying it was a must have in everyone's camera kit at only about $130 brand new. With the price you get a standard focal length and large aperture lens for creamy bokeh and fast shooting in low light.

This lens comes with a front lens cap and a cheap white plastic rear lens cap that you just pull off. The front lens cap is the one where it it has the front pinchers so you can easily remove the cap if you had a lens hood on. Unfortunately, the 50mm f/1.8 does not come with a lens hood, but at $130 or even cheaper, you can't really complain. If you wanted to purchase a hood, it uses the Nikon HR-2.

The lens is very light and short, consisting of mainly plastic so it won't weigh your camera down at all. This lens only weighs 5.5 oz. or 155g and is only 1.5 inches long when mounted on the camera. There's only one moving ring to control the focus. It's not dampened (with manual focus) but still has a good feel to it. Their is no internal focusing, so the front of the lens goes in and out as you adjust the focus, but it does not rotate. That being said, you can purchase a 52mm filter for the 50mm f/1.8.

This lens comes with a Super Integrated Coating on the lens to reduce flare and ghosting from the sun.

The minimum focusing distance is 1.5 feet which is pretty far, but since it is not a Macro lens, it is respectible.

The minimum aperture as listed on the website is f/16, but there's also an f/22 on the lens and my D80 can get up to f/22 also. It has 7 aperture blades.

So given all the specs, the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 seems like a very good lens for the price. But honestly, for me, I don't really like this focal length on my crop camera. At 50mm, this lens is really equivalent to 75mm (due to the 1.5x crop of the Nikon D80). That being said, it's actually a pretty hard for me to use on a daily basis, as I like shooting landscape and scenery. This lens is good for taking portraits (half body). I don't use this lens much, unless I want awesome bokeh with the f/1.8 aperture. And siince it's only $130 (or less) it still is a good investment to have in your bag if you ever needed to use it.

I can't wait til I can get my hands on the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 which is a lot wider, and even faster. Though it does cost over 3 times the price.