Someone asked me to take some portraits of them soon and I didn’t really have a lens that can do the kind of thing they’d want. A recent discussion over at Flickr suggested the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D as a good lens to get, I picked one up from a store in town for GBP80 which was very very cheap.
I really love this lens, takes fantastic shots, not yet had a chance to take portraits but I love it for flowers as well. Some sample shots can be seen here.