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Anonymous
1. It's not a horrible lens, but there's nothing to recommend it other than that it has a good zoom range. Kit lenses are "mediocre," and "okay," I said, not bad.
And this is a stylistic matter, but personally I like using lenses opened up a bit and that hit their sharpest aperture closer to wide-open. Most lenses seem to me to be better aesthetically opened up; sharpness isn't as important an optical factor as people make it out to be.
And plus, the real advantage of primes IMO is the way they make you work, sticking at one focal length over a long period of time and developing your eye for that focal length. You can do this with a zoom, but only at the very shortest and longest ends. Kit lenses go a little too wide to be shooting at that all the time.
2. It'll result in a properly exposed photograph, but it'll also blast away any interesting subtle (or, to an extent, unsubtle) light contrasts in the scene. Just like a kit lens, simple diffused bounce flash looks alright, but doesn't look very interesting and won't make a shot. A flash will also remove any candid element in what's being shot if you plan on taking more than one shot of the subject. And if he's big on shooting concerts, most bands aren't fans of having strobes go off in their face while they're performing.
It's also possible to build a very impromptu bounce-diffuser for a pop-up flash: wrap the thing in aluminum foil loose at the front to send the light upwards, put some diffusing thing around the top, and there you go. No where near ideal, of course, but still possible.
And I'm all for assembling the stuff needed to do great flash work, but when someone is starting out, they need to be focused on developing their sight for good light before they start creating it, and the money from that would be better spent on a good prime for someone working on that. If he can afford it all, though, great.
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