The Best Selling DSLR Lenses According to What Our Readers are Buying

Pin ItEvery few months I take a look at what photography gear readers of the dPS community are buying at Amazon (according to the reports Amazon give us from our affiliate program*). Today I spent some time digging into the purchases of DSLR lenses and have compiled the following breakdown of best selling lenses. These results end up on our Popular Digital Cameras and Photography Gear page.

Canon DSLR Lenses

As usual the f1.8 50mm lens wins in the Canon range – a huge seller (see notes before). It’s a great quality lens and considering its price and how fast it is – it is almost a no brainer to have one in your camera bag.

1. Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens
2. Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS Telephoto Zoom
3. Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM Standard & Medium Telephoto Lens
4. Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens
5. Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens
6. Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens
7. Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM Standard Zoom Lens
8. Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III Telephoto Zoom Lens
9. Canon EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Standard Zoom Lens
10. Canon EF 100-400mm
11. Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM Standard Zoom Lens
12. Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom Lens
13. Canon EF 20mm f/2.8 USM Wide Angle Lens
14. Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM Wide Angle Lens

Nikon DSLR Lenses

As with Canon – the 50mm lens is king here – doubling the sales of its nearest rival in the Nikon range – again its to do with quality of the lens and the value for money!

1. Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor Lens for Nikon Digital SLR Cameras
2. Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX Lens
3. Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED IF AF-S DX VR [Vibration Reduction] Nikkor Zoom Lens
4. Nikon 105mm f/2.0D AF DC-Nikkor Lens
5. Nikon 50mm f/1.4G SIC SW Prime Nikkor Lens

Other Brands DSLR Leneses

Many of these lenses from third party suppliers like Signma and Tamron can be used on different brands of cameras (just make sure you’re buying one with the appropriate mount for your DSLR.

1. Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM Lens
2. Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 DG APO Macro Motorized Telephoto Zoom Lens
3. Tamron AF 70-200mm f/2.8 Di LD IF Macro Lens
4. Tamron AF 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 Di LD Macro Zoom
5. Pentax SMCP-FA 50mm f/1.4 Lens
6. Sigma 17-50mm f/2.8 EX DC OS HSM FLD Large Aperture Standard Zoom Lens
7. Sony 50mm f/1.8

A few notes about these results:

Remember these lists are simply based upon what our readers are buying. They don’t guarantee that they are the ‘best’ quality lenses – in fact the lists include a real mix of lenses from those at a professional (and quite expensive) level through to more budget lenses.

The Canon lens is biggest because that’s what our readers buy most but also because the spread of lenses our readers buy on the canon range is larger than for other brands. Nikon’s list may not be as long but our readers buy similar amounts of these lenses to Canon except for one lens – the 50mm f/1.8.

The biggest selling lens by a long long way is the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 – in the last quarter this lens outsold all other lenses significantly (in fact it saw over 3 times the sales of the the next biggest selling lens – the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens.

For interests sake – here are the top five selling lenses across the brands:

1. Canon EF 50mm f/1.8
2. Nikon 50mm f/1.8
3. Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX Lens
4. Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS Telephoto Zoom
5. Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM Lens

Want more lens recommendations? Check out Amazons own best selling DSLR lens page which has some similar trends to our lists but also has a few others that our readers didn’t seem to buy. You can also drill down by brand of lens with Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony, Olympus, Sigma, Tamron and Panasonic etc.

* dPS earns a small commission when readers click through on links to Amazon from dPS. This helps us to keep dPS free so if you’re in the market for a new lens we appreciate you buying through these links.