Nikon 18-105mm lens Build Quality?

Is the this lens any good i've been looking at reviews and so on saying its very easy to break and is not built very well.

I own one and have not found any problems with it. The mount is plastic not metal and as such you should not drop it. Same with the body of the lens. This is done to keep the cost down. If your going to use your lens as a hammer or tend to drop things then keep this in mind.

You can break everything if you try hard enough. I find it typical for the dx kit lenses. Yes it is plastic including the mount ( I never did understand the problem people have with that, a plastic mount is likely to save your camera's mount in case of accidents) but it's well made plastic. Everything fits tight and there's no wobbles. It's almost as good as the 18-70 and a lot better than the first two versions of the 18-55.

Build quality is tops. Glass quality, no. It's not Nikon's fault. It's photographers like you who demand super zoom lenses that drive camera and lens manufacturers to them.

It's all about Physics. Glass do not produce the best pictures possible in zoom lenses. Period.

Plastic construction, including the mount. Drop your camera and you can mess up a quality lens if it lands in the wrong orientation. I'm fairly rough on my 18-55 kit lens and haven't broken the mount yet. The performance at either of the zoom scale isn't the best, but the mid zoom ranges are fine for casual photography. Distortion at 18mm is worse than the 18-55 kit lens and the image is a bit soft at 105mm. For an inexpensive general purpose lens, it's a good choice.

Go to Flickr and check out images taken with the 18-105 to see how you like the image quality.

Not a problem at all for amateur use. Sure, it's made of plastic, but so is every other electronics today. If you want any lens that's built tough, you would need to spend a lot more money (more than $1000 for something like a 17-55mm f/2.8).

When grabbing the camera though, I suggest you grab it by the camera body itself and not by the lens barrel, or else if your unlucky, it can break!

Otherwise, it's a fantastic lens that performs well optically. Have fun and good luck!

Nikon makes some of the best lenses because they are an optics company. The plastic used in building certain lenses is meant to keep overall costs down for the photographer with a small budget. I have the 50mm 1.8D its made of plastic but it is really sharp.

. I was torn between the 18-105mm and 18-200mm. After a week of shooting with both on a D40x a few things became clear:

- the 105 seems to be more reliable - it can focus correctly more often (less hunt) and the VR, though less powerful than the VRII, reduces blur more often (for me) than the VRII on the 200mm

- the 105 is much more comfortable on the D40/D60 body. It feels almost perfect. Not too heavy; not too light. Just right.

- the color saturation is better on the 18-200mm
- the sharpness is very similar on both (at the center at least)

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