I want something with a good zoom range that I can use as the main lens for short trips.

Price: at the budget end of the scale, please. I’m happy with secondhand.

What sort of zoom range do you want?
How compact do you want it to be for a travel lens?
What is your budget?

I’ve got the 18-135mm Nikon lens that was sold as the kit lens with the D80. It’s a decent lens, while not being outstanding. It’s a good buy for the money.

If I was buying now, I’d probably go for the 18-105 VR lens as my ‘normal lens’. I have VR on my 70-300 & it really helps in low light. I sometimes miss not having it on the 18-135.

You could also consider a used Nikon 18-200mm VR. I borrowed one from an old colleague once & it’s a great lens – decent performance throughout the zoom range, but it’s heavy & quite a large lens for something to travel with.

Aye – 18-200 VR on my D5000. Does most things pretty well. As above – it’s not sepecially light (and unless you have the VR2 version with the lens lock it does tend to auto extend when wandering around), but if you were overly bothered by weight, you probably wouldn’t be dragging an SLR round with you.

I’ve bought 2 second hand lenses now (including this one) and they were both mint – unable to tell they’d been used.

An excellent lens at budget price is the 18-70 that was the D70 kit lens. I replaced it with the “pro level” 17-55 and was hard pushed to tell the difference. Obviously less zoom range than the 18-200, which is the ultimate “travel” lens (or was before mirrorless took over) but it is much more carry-able.

I use a 28-300 as my travel lens (but also tend to have a 10-20mm lens with me just in case which misses the single lens target)

Are any of the Tamron, Sigma etc variants worth looking at?

I only have the 18-55 kit lens at the moment and I’m looking for max zoom of 200, maybe 300mm.

There’s plenty of reviews out there if you look about, comparing lenses from the main manufacturers with the Sigma/Tamron etc. equivalents.

I bought a Tamron 90mm macro, which is a great lens. Build quality isn’t as good as the Nikon lenses that I have, but for a macro lens I didn’t feel that this was too big a deal.

bump!

I’m a big fan of the 18 105 kit lens, they’re good and readily available for not huge money often barely used 2nd hand. Has its issues but cheap, not too big and light weight.

That and a cheap 50mm prime is what I tend to carry when travelling, all fits in a small case nicely and I wouldn’t be bothered if I lost or damaged anything. I have a posher big zoom up to 300 which I really want to use more but I never like taking it out as I’m too rough with the kit and it becomes a bit big.

The 18 200 mentioned above is a good bit of kit too but a bit big for travel I think unless you’re a photo traveller and take it seriously.

Wierd, I too have the 18-200vr but have never considered it big really. If I can be bothered to carry an slr within limits what’s strapped on the front makes little odds to the faff. Recently I got a bit obsessed with shallow depth of field in photos and used a 50mm1.8f prime more than anything and now find the 18-200 a bit slow. Sadly a faster lens with similar reach is beyond my budget (and even bigger). Also lusting after a 35mm fast prime too as I reckon that’s a better size for the DX sensor than the 50mm for generally walking around with.

I use a Nikon 24-85mm AF-S G. Cheap, light and remarkably sharp. If you want to go smaller and lighter and cheaper you could go Nikon 50mm f 1.8 or f1.4 which are very sharp, let you play with shallow depth of field and are excellent in low light. The lack of zoom is allegedly good for your photographic skills. Now for a few hundred you could get a Sony rx100 mk1 or mk2 with a slightly smaller sensor, a 24-85mm zoom lens and it fits in your pocket.

None of these have a massive zoom range mind.

Ideally, I’d like a 50mm prime, a wide angle and a zoom, but unfortunately the funds don’t stretch to that at the moment.

I do love landscapes, so I’d like something that goes fairly wide, but also with a decent zoom capability.