Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX Nikkor Lens

This is a spectacular lens but is it worth the extreme hype generated? Probably. Coming from digital with my 17-35mm 2.8, I needed something with a little more reach and a lighter lens for travel and general photography. With pro lenses in mind, I was skeptical of the 18-200 but this quickly vanished. I tested both the 17-35mm 2.8 and the 18-200mm VR on a tripod (with VR off) at different focal lengths and F-stops. Both lenses show very little if any difference in quality, perhaps a bit more contrast on the 17-35 and only slightly sharper when viewed at 100%. This is ignoring the obvious benefit of the 18-200 in its ability to use VR or nikon's vibration reduction. Again I was skeptical at just how good VR could be but the results were amazing.

VR is basically like having an electro-mechanical tripod operated by controls in the lens to stabilize the image when the shutter is pressed halfway. While you can't wildly swing your arms around and still expect to get a good shot, VR compensates for the normal 'tremors' present when holding a camera steady and/or wind effects so that you can stop the lens down to a smaller F stop such as F8 and still get a sharp photo. Anyone who tells you this lens will replace your fast, 1.4-2.8 lenses is not correct. Depth of field control and action shots in low light with this group is unparalleled. The 18-200 is just not cut out for either task, as VR will not compensate for blur when using a slow shutter speed.

While everyone likes to place the 18-200VR in the 'walk around' catagory because of its great versatility, I think that often this lens gets snubbed by pro's as being an amateur lens designed for prosumers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Fast lenses have their place, there's no substitute for the quality they possess. The funny thing is, a lot of pro's get the 18-200 to see just how good this lens is and test it against their fast lens arsenal. Is it a fair test? Definetely not, but the results are astonding considering the price points. My advice is wait for the hype to go away, which it already has started to do. This is a $699 lens and it is worth every penny.

I have used this lens for a month with my Nikon D200. I especially love two things about this lens: the wide focal-length range, and the performance of the VR system. Of course, it goes without saying that I love the optical performance of any Nikon lens.

The wide range means that this is a one-lens solution for travel and for daily use. I like to take my D200 with this lens, plus my SB-800 flash, with me at all times. With an 18-200 range, I'm ready for almost any shooting situation that comes up.

The VR means that, combined with the low noise of the D200, I can take more pictures without using flash, which is important to me. Using a Manfrotto monopod, I am now taking available-light photos in situations where I had to use flash before. The available-light photos are more natural-looking, and do not have the ugly shadows on the wall that are often part of event photography.

There is some optical distortion at the wide end of the lens, but it is slight considering the wide capabilities of the lens, and is easily corrected in Photoshop CS2.

My only complaint is that the zoom mechanism is tight at the wide end of the lens, but loose at the telephoto end, and is prone to "creep" at the telephoto end. This is a minor complaint about a lens that otherwise is perfect for me.

Bill Rogers
www.br-digiphoto.com

Ebay member name bmwnikon

I am a professional wedding, portrait and event photographer and I own many different camera bodies and lenses of all different price ranges including consumer, professional, and "prosumer".

After actualy using this lens on the job at numerous weddings I am impressed with its versitility. It offers a wide range of flexibility from 18-200mm which allows me to continue shooting images as they happen instead of changing out lenses and allowing dust inside my camera body, or grabbing a second body with a different lense attached to it.

Normally I would have to shoot with 2 cameras, one with a wider angled lense attached, and a second with a zoom lense, switching out cameras throughout the whole shoot. Now I just use one camera and one lens for almost every shot.

The VR system on this lens is well worth the extra expense. When you are shooting events such as weddings you simply can not utilize tripods or even monopods and achieve the photos that the clients expect. This has always been a problem because of the natural tremor tendancy in zoom mode and wind effects. Now with the VR built into the lens it produces photos that are as stable as if they were taken from a tripod.

I only see 3 drawbacks to this lens. The first being its weight, which is to be expected due to its outstanding construction materials. This is NOT a toy plastic lens. The second is lens creep which is also caused by its weight and construction materials. How often are you really going to shoot straight up or straight down? I have owned this lens since the day after it came out and I have never yet run into a situation where the lens creep has posed a problem. I even used this lens while mounted on my D200 on a tripod and shooting at a fairly extreme angle to capture outstanding shots of the recent full lunar eclipse. Even at such a high angle there was no lens creep. Until the lens is pointed straight up or straight down at about the 150mm range, lens creep s not an issue. The third drawback is its price, but again this is caused mainly by its high quality and durable materials. As I stated, this lens is NOT a plastic toy lens as other competitors are making.

Overall, I would give this lens an Excellent Rating after taking everything into consideration and would definitely recommend this lens to anyone wanting a single lens for their photography needs. This lens has replaced about 4 lenses that I normally carry with me. Now I am able to carry a single D200, this 18-200mm lens, a MB200 multi battery pack, and a SB800 Speedflash and I am ready for almost any photographic situation.

This lens makes it possible to travel with no other lenses in the bag and still cover wide to telephoto. The VR compensates for the lens being a bit slower. I just took it to Europe for two weeks and got great shots with it to on my D2x.