Beginning Photography Lenses

A few months ago, I decided to buy a DSLR camera. I got into photography fairly quickly, and learning about photography consumed a LOT of my time. Here is some of my work.

A question I get a lot from beginners is what kind of equipment they should buy next.
There's a few things one should know about the gear they have with the first camera they buy.

1. There's a good chance your camera came with an 18-whatever mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens. There's a lot I can say about focal lengths, and aperture, etc., but I'm going to boil it down to this: The smaller the f-stop, usually the better the lens. Having to be at 18mm just to get an f-stop of 3.5 is not great. Low f-stops means more light coming into the camera and more bokeh (that dreamy blurry-background look).

2. Zooming doesn't just makes things seem closer or farther. Zooming in and out actually changes the apparent shape of your subject.
Try this: zoom all the way out to 18mm and take a picture of your buddy, with their face filling the frame, head to chin. Then zoom all the way in as far as your lens will allow, and take the same photo with the same framing (you will have to step back).
You will see a difference that looks like this:

Moral of the story: Wide focal lengths (anything 35mm and below) produce fat noses and weird shapes. They're great for large groups or landscapes, but it's not as flattering of an image as telephoto (zoomed-in) photos, (anything higher than 50mm). The 35mm-50mm range is considered somewhere in the middle.

In conclusion, buy one of two lenses: a 35mm or 50mm prime.
Prime lenses don't zoom, but the trade-off is a lens that takes amazingly sharp images (much sharper than the lens your camera came with) and great low-light and bokeh performance.

What does this mean?
The lens works well in dark situations.
Here's a photo i took with the lights off in my living room and no flash.
And for bokeh, here's an example 

WHAT TO BUY
For Canon users: 
- The super popular nifty-fifty, plastic-fantastic: the 50mm f/1.8 
It's a must-have for Canon users. I think it's their cheapest lens, but it takes some stunning images.

- OR for a comfy walk-around lens, the coolest little pancake, the 40mm 2.8 
It's a comfortable focal length, and at f/2.8, bokeh is definitely possible.

For Nikon:
The 35mm 1.8G or 50mm 1.8G