Nikon Kit lens 18–55mm VR: I would never sell or discard it!

Sep 8, 20202 min read

Updated: Aug 30, 2021

After a very big disappointment (previous blog) about the DSLR usages and learning more about photography I understood that the basic kit lens 18–55mm might not be much useful. For name sake I had DSLR. I used it only because I bought it. Using only kit lens for next 2 years, I took more than 5000 photos. Being unware of other lenses usage, I managed with kit lens and found many ways to use it to make my photos better than DSC-T100 Sony Cybershot. There were many blogs, videos says “As soon as you buy any DSLR camera sell the kit lens”. This made me feel more bad about photography. Why should I sell my kit lens? If manufacturer is making this lens then there should be many positive things, else why would they make it. Nikon or Canon or any other known brand would not want their new customers to deviate immediately after they buy the camera. If there is a lens provided with the kit, then it must be of some use. I made myself clear that I will not sell the lens and will use it and extract maximum out of it. I did not sell my kit lens. I am using it from last 6 years. Even now it gives me much better results than other lenses. This Nikon 18–55mm VR lens is the best lens to start with and also to take better photos than digital point and shoot cameras. Here is the list how best I used Nikon’s 18–55mm VR kit lens. Auto, manual, scenes, use any settings from your camera you can take a good photo.

Indoor photography — Small events, family functions, get together.
Landscapes
Macro photography — buy a reversible ring / adapter and use it to capture / see the world which is not explored much.
If outdoor photography and have with sufficient light, and the subject’s background is more than 100 meters then keep your zoom level anywhere between 18–55mm, 3.5–5.6 aperture and use it. It will be similar to the prime lens (expect large bokeh effects)
If you know image editing in photoshop, then you know more what you can do using any average photo.

I always made sure to capture the subject as close as possible to get a very clear shot without noise and there is no need to crop the image while processing. This habit of mine came along from the days of point and shoot cybershot camera. I never wanted the image to be cropped. This made me to earn some cents by selling it in online stock libraries. These are some of the photos I took using my kit lens. One among this is doing good business in Shutterstock. All these images were captured in 24MegaPixel. Do not sell your kit lens ever. You can use it for all types of photos. It is sharper and it can be used as prime lens between 18–55mm range. Choice is yours!