I got a d3100 for Christmas and it came with an 18-55mm lens and as we all know you can only use a kit lens for so long.

I'm planning on buying a new lens for more landscape / architecture / wild life pictures

What do you guys suggest? I was thinking a 70-200 but I'm not too sure

Also, do you think it's worth getting a flash? I plan on getting the 50mm lens for portraits. 90% of the time they'll be done outside around sunset so I think I could benefit from one.

for landscape and architecture, you need a wide angle. for wild life you need telephoto(200mm rarely does it, but depends on your targets). so you need two lenses.

whats you budget?

>$1000

read this: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/dx-dream-team.htm

explains very well what lens you can choose and why.

Learnt a lot reading that.

I'm kind of leaning towards the 70-300mm VR for a telephoto.

I'm not sure about the Wide Angle lens since he only lists one and it's $800

this will be my next buy: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tokina/11-16mm.htm?refby=rflAID021866&sku=TN1224NKAF

less expensive and work good.

the best wide angle is the nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 but that costs a fortune and is not that wide on a cropped body
the tokina 11-16mm is great and decent price
that'll be great for landscapes and architecture
then if you can afford it get the 70-200mm VR II (amazing lens) and at a later stage get a teleconverter, far cheaper this way than buying a 200-400mm lens but yes you do loose a bit of quality, but the 70-200 is far more useful

I think I'm going to go with

• Tokina 11-16mm
• 70-300mm VR

Anybody have a suggestion for a flash?

i am looking at a set of yongnuo yn560, rather cheap but decent reveiws
dont wanna pay huge amounts for flash units at this time

I've got one of those, I've loved it so far and the only thing I would rather have is the Canon 560 XII or whatever the thing is called. I use one of those occasionally, but I do not own one.