Recently I got an email from a reader (yay!) inquiring about lens selection. I figured instead of emailing them back I'd post about it instead.

"...I just got my camera not long ago and i'm thinking of buying a lens for my nikon d5000. i'm looking for suggestions on either a 18-105mm lens or 18- 200mm lens..."

There's a lot of debate about lenses. It's not a simple choice to make either sadly. Manufacturers have such a wide array of selection when it comes to glass, that it can be difficult and overwhelming to make a decision.

There's some things you need to ask yourself before dropping dollars on some new glass, such as:

• What will I usually be photographing?
• Will I need a far reaching zoom?
• Will I be shooting in low-light?
• Will I be hand-holding the camera, or will I be using mostly a tripod?
• How much can I afford to spend?

There's more questions that need to be answered, but that's a good start. Essentially I'll break it down like this... spend what you can afford. A 18-105mm and the 18-200mm are both reasonable pieces of glass to consider purchasing.

The 18-200 will give you a good variety of options when it comes to photography. BUT, it's rather expensive, and heavy. That being said, you can do a lot with this choice. Because it's a 200mm zoom, you can take some decent distance shots, and can use it for portraiture where you want to blow out the background of your subject. It will be useful for 'mid-range' shots too, such as 50mm and 35mm. And because it's a wide lens, it works well for wide-angle shots as well.

Then there's the 18-105mm. Again, it's a decent lens. It's smaller, shorter, and is also a pretty good choice. It gives you a reasonable zoom level (at 200mm, you'll want to consider a tripod, at 105mm, you can get away with hand-holding, provided the lens has VR or VR-II)... It will be very useful for general photography, wide-angles, portraiture, and costs a bit less.

As for what I can suggest, again, go with what you can afford. Do you need the 200mm zoom? Are you taking a lot of 'far away' shots? Is the extra weight ok? Myself, I'd likely go for the 18-105mm. But, I already own the 18-55, the 55-200, and a couple prime lenses.

I hope that  helped in some way, but always, when considering new equipment, read reviews from other sites, see what people have to say about them, and go from there. Lastly, go to a local shop, and try the lenses out in-store if you can. That helps the decision process quite a bit too.