INEXPENSIVE LENSES ESSENTIAL FOR NIKON D7100?

I recently bought Nikon D7100 to be my hobby. I'm totally zero knowledge when it comes to photography. But I'm determined to learn and to be a good, if not a professional photographer, someday. I have 18-105mm and 55-300mm Nikon lenses and I noticed that my indoor shots are not really that good. I read about aperture and exposure thing and became interested in buying 35mm f1.8 prime lens. I would like to ask if do I really need to shell-out another $200 for 35mm lens to achieve one of the most important art of photography which is what they call "bokeh". I have read in lots of reviews that 35mm f1.8 is really useful specially when it comes to indoor photography, though it is not a zoom lense-fixed distance.

Go for it. It will help you achieving bokeh effect.

"one of the most important art of photography which is what they call "bokeh"

Bokeh is just the subjective pleasantness of the blur of the out of focus areas. It's not an art of photography at all, merely a property of the chosen lens.

Most people wouldn't be able to tell apart the bokeh of two different lenses anyway. It's not something that you need to concern yourself with as a beginner.

The real value of a 35mm /1.8 will be its low light capability. You can shoot with it without needing a tripod or without racking up the ISO too much in indoor situations. And yes, it also can achieve shallow depth of field with a blurred background - but your current lenses can do this as well, especially at the long focal lengths (e.g. At 300mm).

I would rather get a 50mm/1.8 lens than a 35mm one though. The former is perfect for portraits, while the 35mm one is quite a compromise on focal length, IMHO. I use my 50mm prime about ten times as often as my 35mm one.

The 35mm 1.8 is definitely a good addition and it is fairly cheap. I use mine all of the time as a general purpose lens.

For bokeh, it is okay. Bokeh is better at longer focal lengths, so a cheaper 50mm 1.8 AF-D would be better in that regard. The 50mm is also a good portrait length on a crop body. Your 55-300mm will produce more creamy bokeh at 300mm than either of these lenses will, even with a slow 5.6 aperture.

For indoor shots, 35mm is a bit tight. Unfortunately, there are no Nikon prime lenses that are faster than f/2.8 that carry a decent price tag (the 28mm, 24mm, and 20mm f/2.8s are about 3-400$ used).

Remember that it is only a couple stops that fast glass gives you. You can shoot the 18-105 at 1/8 or even 1/4 of a second with VR and a steady hand on the wide end, which gives you nearly the same performance as shooting a 35mm at 1/30.

When a person says they are "totally zero knowledge when it comes to photography" then I say buy or borrow a book from library on the Basics of Photography. A good book on the basics would cover different lenses and what they're used for.

The D7100 is a high-performance camera and deserves high quality lenses. If you don't get high-end glass, you will not get everything out of the D7100 that you paid for.

I own a D7100, and I use the following three lenses as my every day go-to lenses:

Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8
Sigma 17-50mm f2.8
Nikon AF 80-200mm f/2.8

The 35mm lens is too short to get really good background blur. In fact, your 300mm lens would be better, if you can get close enough to properly compose the photo.

http://www.althephoto.com/concepts/selectivefocus.php

If you can't get great indoor shots with your lenses now, you won't either with any other lens. Both of your lenses can do bokeh if you know exactly how to do it. You can get the 35mm f/1.8 as you insist and hope you learn more about photography with it than those two other lenses you already have.