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

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

Customer Rating:
Summary: Excellent Glass
Comment: My goal was to find a lens offering a broad range of magnification and capable of producing excellent pictures. I was looking for the "complete package" for my Nikon D80 camera. A lens I could leave on the camera. I understood the lens would not produce a picture as "tack sharp" as a prime lens but I was looking for something close in quality. I opted to purchase this lens and I have to say I made a good decision. The range this lens offers is terrific, the focus is smooth and quick, the VR is great for low light conditions, and best and most important of all the quality of the photographs are excellent. If you are looking for an excellent all purpose lens look no further.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Back To The Drawing Board For Digital Zoom lenses
Comment: I've been a professional photographer for 35 years - although for the past several years, I shot less and less and worked more and more in PhotoShop on Macs doing digital imaging. But since my entire career was with traditional SLRs several years ago, I missed the entire revolution of digital photography. So this is the very first digital lens that I have ever purchased (along with a Nikon D200). Every one of my professional friends has said to me that this lens is awesome. Every article I've read says that this is the best digital zoom ever created by ANY company. But I find this lens 10 steps backwards from the old days of fixed focal lenses.

I am now trying to relaunch my professional photography career - so I copped for a Nikon D200 and this 18-200 VR zoom lens. It is not sharp. There is no way that you can MAKE it sharp. Oh yeah... it's sharp enough for an amateur. It's sharp enough for a family photo album of 3x5 prints. It's sharp enough for Grandma. But... it... is... not... SHARP! I have had to sharpen every single image I have shot with this lens in PhotoShop. My little pocket Fuji ($175) is sharper. And amazingly, it's a zoom lens, TOO!

And automatic focus is the greatest leap BACKWARDS in photography that I have ever encountered. It's pretty much the equivalent of the difference between an automatic transmission in a car - and a standard transmission in a car. And... if you don't know how to drive the standard, then you don't know how to DRIVE! Do you? The same with an automatic lens. If you can't shoot manually, then you are NOT a photographer.

The other day I shot a portrait of a guy and his car. I had the guy up close in the foreground - and I had the car in the deep background 20-25 feet away. It was a bright sunny Florida morning - so I should have had depth of field all the way to MARS! Yet I could not keep both subjects in focus. (Forget SHARP! I'm just talking about acceptable focus!) I would focus on the guy and then pan to include the car - and the lens would automatically rack focus TO THE CAR! I must've done 30 shots in my attempt. So I said screw it and switched the automatic focus off - reverting to manual. But when I did that, it also killed the automatic exposure making every shot overexposed - and I can find no way to manually adjust the exposure - OTHER than through on the main menu - which takes time. So... if you're shooting on the fly in a variety of lighting scenarios - from light areas to dark areas - you can forget about it. You're doomed. You will never switch that main menu in time.

On the shot I just spoke about with the guy and his car, I ended up using one shot of the guy and one shot of the car and comping them in PhotoShop. That's the only way that I could get it done.

This whole digital zoom lens "thing" is BS! And when I talk to my Canon friends, they say the same thing happens with Canon as well. They also say that it took them all a CONSIDERABLE amount of time and experience to master these damned digital zooms.

So... Nikon and Canon... go back to the drawing board and develop true automatic FIXED FOCAL lenses that are actually SHARP!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: frustrating
Comment: I was so very excited about this lens and it was the first somewhat expensive lens i purchased for my DSLR. I liked the versatility and the VR feature - hoping to protect my sensor from dust with fewer lens changes. The problem? I am about to send it away for it's second repair!
When first received it telescoped out badly, so that if, like me, you frequently photograph insects and flora at foot level - you loose your focus.
That's not all, after only a month the lens froze up (would not zoom or focus - even in manual.) I sent if for repair, it worked alright for a while, then in the middle of my first paid photo job, it jammed up again. (Good thing I brought back ups.) If you haven't already purchased this, I would advise sticking with separate wide angle and telephoto lenses until Nikon improves this lens.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Nikkor 18~200 VR DX lens
Comment: All in all I am quite pleased and happy with this lens. It is one of the best "walk about" lenses I have ever owned. In one package I have dropped 2 lenses from my Felix The Cat black magic bag of tricks and my shoulder and back love it. However, it is not one of Nikon's sharpest lenses tho, but this is not saying it isn't, either. I use a Fuji S-5 and because this camera has a overly thick anti aliasing filter over the CCD chip, ALL lenses suffer a bit from a lack of sharpness. On my S-2 and or S-3 IRUV it IS quite sharp and so I forgive it. The color and DR is on par with many other lenses as well. Being used on a digital, of course many of these conditions can be tweaked a bit so instead of getting my [...] all up in a bunch I use and love the lens for what it can and does give me. 18mm to 200mm with a fast AF and nice VR and it is 'small' and light weight. A great all purpose lens I will enjoy for a long, long time (or until I get a full frame digital, for being DX it HAS to live on a APS-C chip sized camera).. Bummer..
Bob - Tucson

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Customer Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Comment: I really wanted this lens to be good. It's certainly an impressive piece of optical design to cram such a huge focus range into such a compact lens, and I was tempted by the prospect of never having to change lenses. But optically it has too many problems to be more than a snapshot lens, and for that a pocketable non-SLR is more appropriate and convenient, not to mention much lighter.

Main problems: Bad distortion at many focal lengths, to the extent that my friends laughed at some of the pictures I took with it. "Hey, why's your bookshelf bent at the top??" Chromatic aberration (color fringing) throughout the zoom range. There's light fall-off in the corners. At the wider end of the range, it casts a shadow with the builtin flash on the D40 body. If you carry it on a camera over your shoulder, it will extend all the way out under its own weight. In addition, it lacks the really nice super-close focusing ability of the 18-55.

I've decided I'll be happier with the stock 18-55 (itself not that great) and the 55-200 which is lighter, cheaper, sharper, and all around better. I guess technology has not yet reached the point where you can get all that in one lens.

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