First of all, I completely agree that 24mm isn't going to satisfy me. But I think I want a separate lens for anything less. My dad is getting a 20mm soon (he has a D80...and he used a 35mm f/2 pentax back in the good ol' days, which is now mine for my pentax film body). I use his 18-70 a lot. I just can't find a good lens at 18 that goes to something else. I would get the 18-135 but it's a kit lens (which means plastic mount and lots of error messages because it's too heavy for its mount, from what I've read). Otherwise that would be a perfect lens for me. I can definitely get a 24-120 VR on ebay for about $300; I just watched one go for $312 in excelent condition. I tried out the 24-85mm f/2.8-4 at a Ritz today, and it doesn't have its own silent-wave motor, so I don't want it. I had to use it manually with one of their D40's. I'll use the camera's internal motor when I have to (like on the 50mm f/1.
but the noise of it is just so much louder and more irritating. The 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 is very similar to the 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5, but hey...I don't know. It's only a bit cheaper and I wouldn't mind owning the same thing as my dad.
So basically I mostly have my heart set on the 24-120 VR.
-The 24-85 f/3.5-4.5 is basically the same as my dad's lens, but less wide and more zoom. I wouldn't mind having it and I can find it fairly cheaply on eBay. But not my first choice.
-The 24-85 f/2.8-4 is nice and fast, but expensive (Ritz has it for $600, although I can find it for $200-300 less online), big, clunky, old, and no silent-wave motor. I actually perfer the G lenses to the ones with the aperture ring because it seems to use less space without it, and I'm never going to use these lenses on old Nikon film cameras. So this one's a definite NO. Although the macro feature would be nice and it seemed to work well from the manual focusing I did in Ritz.
-The 24-120 VR looks the best so far. Definitely under $400 on ebay (which I trust...mostly), VR, cheaper than the 18-200 VR without the lens creep and the low availability, and honestly, pretty much the right focal length for what I'm looking for. Thank you for your help! Really appreciate it.
Oh, and don't EVER link to kenrockwell.com.
Haha...well, I already read that review. But I hate most of his opinions.