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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clovishound" data-source="post: 834370" data-attributes="member: 50197">Normally, the price you pay for a longer zoom ratio, the difference between minimum and maximum zoom, is poorer image quality. My recommendation is to get a 70-300mm zoom lens. The good news for these is that they were the included lens in a lot of kits, and are available quite inexpensively used. There are better quality zooms available in that range, such as the AF-P NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR. It is an excellent telephoto zoom, although being designed for full frame cameras, it is a bit larger and heavier, but it is optically superior, IMO, to the 70-300 DX lens, and more robustly manufactured.  It is also more expensive. My daughter has both lenses and I have handled the lenses and seen their results. I can say, that for the money, the 70-300 DX kit lenses are excellent performers, albeit, their construction quality won't stand up to the abuse that a more expensive lens will. On the other hand, they are very small, light and easy to handle. I would opt for one with VR, which will narrow the field available and up the price. FYI, there are several full frame 70-300 zooms available, but from what I have read, the AF-P NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6E ED VR is much better optically than the others. Maybe someone with experience with the 18-300 can chime in with their opinion of the quality.</blockquote>