What are essential lenses for dSLRs?

[TenzoR]

god... reading all this makes me want to upgrade my D80+18-70 to a 18-200... and i still don't know how to use my dslr beyond full auto. how sad is that?
i should really get around to reading up about shutter speed/iso/aperture

that being said, on the other hand with the exchange rate being so great... for those who don't care much about warranty, B&H is selling the 18-200 for $749, compared to adencamera's 829.99+tax(~$945). i am soooooooo tempted damn you NAS

I don't think you are missing much. I hardly use beyond 100mm anyways. Though the VR is fairly handy but most of my photos involve me + gf so I always use a tripod anyways.

[goofball]

god... reading all this makes me want to upgrade my D80+18-70 to a 18-200... and i still don't know how to use my dslr beyond full auto. how sad is that?
i should really get around to reading up about shutter speed/iso/aperture

that being said, on the other hand with the exchange rate being so great... for those who don't care much about warranty, B&H is selling the 18-200 for $749, compared to adencamera's 829.99+tax(~$945). i am soooooooo tempted damn you NAS

Thecamerastore.com has it for 799 + GST + $10 shipping Expresspost. That's cheaper than B&H after taxes plus you get 5yr Canadian warranty.

[rubberband]

One nice thing about the 18-200 is that it actually does passable macro work. You can push it out to ~150mm and still get pretty good results.

I like this lens more all the time.. You can use it for so much, and aside from some distortion at the very wide and very long ends, the IQ is pretty good (for a zoom, of course).

[bpopd]

Oh i was just referring to carrying around alot of primes being an impractical thing.

Im in the canon system! But I use to be a nikon film guy, but I didnt get past what the kit lens gave me. Then I moved into canon.

I still am annoyed at how well nikon builds their entry level equipment, compared to canon... Rather i am annoying at how poorly canon builds their entry level equipment grrr!

Not really impractical. I don't know what system you're into but I just recently travelled with a 35mm f/2 and it was plenty fine for me. Was very good for low light, which most of the wax museums were so I needed f/2 and ISO1600 for handheld shots. 35mm on APS-C sensor is almost what they call "normal" view.
Nikon has a 105VR which is a beauty of a lens. There are older lenses which are also great (105 f/2 DC comes to mind)
Sigma has a 105 Macro which is also a very nice lens.
Tamron's 90mm macro is also a great multipurpose lens.
Not sure what Canon has to offer as I don't have this system but i'm pretty sure they have a 35mm f/2.

[2000fordfocus]

Very nice lens, 1 full stop faster than f/2 but the copies I tried had a bit of a yellow cast to them (I could have corrected via PP I suppose) and 2 of the 3 had a backfocus issue. Very disheartening. Ended up getting a used 35mm f/2D Nikon for around $200 which I can't complain about, it's pretty much my most used lens at this point.

Holy smokes! I bought mine new for $400cad...

Sigma is known to be shxtty in color rendition...

[NiMSo]

I like to shoot indoors using ambient light only (for candid stealth, and to preserve the "look" of a venue). Also, for artistic purposes, nothing beats the ability to finely control depth-of-field (bokeh is what really makes an image 'pop', and separates the 'great' from the 'good' images). Therefore I keep a whole bunch of fast aperture primes for those purposes (Sigma 20/1.8, 30/1.4; Canon 50L, 85L). I almost exclusively shoot those wide open. If I wanted to stop down, I'd just strap on a zoom. I like portraiture, so no need to fuss about critical sharpness.