Today, I'm going to do something a little bit outside the norm of my writing here and talk a little more about the gear I use. I love talking photography gear, and that's one thing that really drew me into photography, to begin with. There's a lot of science and technology balancing out the artistic aspects of photography.

I'm only going to hit on lenses that I have personally used in one way or another, so bear that in mind as we delve in.

For Macro work: I absolutely love my Nikon 105mm AF-S f/2.8. I use this lens all the time for macro and product work in addition to using it for portraits on occasion. For hobbyists, the price tag can be intimidating, but it truly is a great lens and is one that I'll be keeping around. The autofocus is relatively fast, though when doing macro work, I generally manually focus anyway. Additionally, while 2.8 isn't quite fast enough for me to shoot concert work or low light work with, it is enough to create nice bokeh for portrait work.

Zooms: I've had quite a few zoom lenses over the years, and none of them have blown me away except one. Firstly, the 18-55mm kit lens for DX sensor cameras is great for starting out and can be had for a dime. However, once beginning any serious work, most photographers will quickly outgrow this lens. I've also used the 55-200mm and 55-300mm variants similar to the same line and were not impressed. Same story.

The big brother of the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 (in my opinion) is the full frame 24-120mm f/4. This is a serious upgrade, and while I considered keeping this lens, I was not blown away by the sharpness that it offered even after calibration. The constant f/4 is relatively nice, but again it's not fast enough for low light work. That being said, if I was going on assignment somewhere and could only bring one lens, (Spoiler: except the next lens on this list) I would consider the 24-120mm.

So what zoom lens has impressed me thus far? *Drum roll* The Sigma ART 24-35mm f/2 HSM. This lens is crazy good. It's like having several sharp primes all rolled into one body. I seriously considered purchasing this lens, and while f/2 is respectable, it wasn't quite fast enough for the majority of my shooting. In terms of sharpness, this lens rocks. It's the best zoom I've ever used. (The only real competition that I've used would be the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 but it's hard to compare those two.)

For concert work: So I almost bought the Sigma ART 24-35mm but didn't. Why? Because I instead purchased *drumroll again* the Sigma ART 20mm f/1.4. I love this lens. Every time I shoot with it, I remember how great it is. It's the sharpest lens I've ever shot wide open at f/1.4. The ART line is great all around, but I particularly love this super fast 20mm. It's my concert go to anymore, and I couldn't be happier.

On a budget for portrait work: In my opinion, the absolute best full frame lens you can buy FOR THE MONEY is the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AF-S. This was the first full frame lens I purchased, and I still use it to this day. It's light, durable, fast, and sharp. Not to mention cheap. I would 100% recommend this lens to any photographer shooting full frame bodies. The good old Nifty Fifty.
It's also worth noting that I loved the 35mm af-s f/1.8 DX lens as well when I was shooting more cropped sensor bodies. I have since moved over exclusively to full frame for my Nikon work, and thus sold off my cropped sensor lenses, but if you're still shooting DX, then I highly recommend this lens.

In a future article, I'll run down my favorite lenses for Micro Four Thirds cameras - particularly for the Leica M mount and usable with the Sony A series of mirrorless bodies. There you have it - my brief rundown and thoughts on which lenses I love shooting on both Nikon full frame and cropped sensor bodies. I hope you find this helpful, and while not an extensive list, it will give you some real-world shooting opinion on the good, the bad, and the ugly lenses available today for Nikon F mount!