Should I buy a dslr kit or body with separate lens? [duplicate]

Question

I came across 2 reputable sites here in our country selling DSLRs.

I wanted to buy a Nikon D90 kit with 18-55mm lens, cost 28,600.

The other store sells the 18-55mm lens for 3,308.

So it is cheaper to buy the body and lens separately from different merchants. I would save 1,692.

Is it okay to buy lens separately assuming it has the same specs with the kit?

Or is the lens from the kit better than the separate lens?

Answer 1

If it is actually the same lens, there is no particular reason not to buy them separately as long as you get the same warranty coverage. You should always be very careful when buying a camera though to make sure you are actually getting the same things.

Sometimes sharply discounted items may be grey market and come without a standard warranty. The price difference is small enough that it may simply be a good find, but I would look at it very carefully.

It is also worth looking at the question that Philip Kendall linked to and decide if you even want to get the standard kit lens or get a different lens that may fit your use case better.

Answer 2

If both lenses you are considering are the same version of the same lens model there should be no difference between buying the kit that includes the D90 and the 18-55mm lens or buying the D90 as a body only and buying the exact same model 18-55mm lens from another seller.

A couple of things you should be aware of, though.

• The D90 is an older model that was introduced over five years ago in 2008. The D7000 and more recently the D7100 have more or less replaced the D90 at that spot in Nikon's lineup, even though there are still remaining stocks of D90 cameras in a lot of places.
• There are more than one version of the 18-55mm 'kit' lens which is often paired with entry level Nikon DLSRs such as the D3000 or the older D40. Some version have VR (Vibration Reduction) and some don't. The normal kit lens for the D90 is an 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF-S VR DX lens. So it appears whether you get the lens from either seller you are buying a body and a lens separately.