NIKON AF-S DX VR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED lens

great versatile lens. The VR feature allows to take non-blurred pictures while walking and at night without a tripod ! high quality

great versatile lens. The VR feature allows to take non-blurred pictures while walking and at night without a tripod ! high quality

I got this lens to go with my Nikon D80. It complements the body perfectly. The quality and clarity of images that are produced are of an incredibly high standard!

The VR is worth its weight in gold! If you are not sure how good and useful the VR is, go some where, where you can have a look at the lens on a body. Zoom out to the full 200mm, and focus on something. Now hand hold the camera and with your finger off the shutter button watch how much movement there is in the view finder. Now half press the shutter release and the VR kicks in. Watch how the image that you have focused on stops shaking and if there is still any movement, it is so much smoother, and normally it manages to eliminate it all together! It is a truly remarkable piece of kit and well worth spending the money on.

There are only two real down sides to this lens that I have found. The first is that there is no zoom lock. This is a problem as if the camera is pointing up or down to any reasonable angle, the zoom barrel will roll itself in or out. Now when you are hand holding the camera, this does not cause too much of a problem, as you should have your hand on the lens to stabilize the camera, and therefore can hold the zoom ring. The place where it can really cause a problem is when using the camera on a tripod and shooting up or down. Here, the only way to stop the zoom moving by itself (that I have found anyway) is to use a small piece of masking tape to stop the zoom ring moving. The only other time this has caused a problem, is when I have been walking around with the camera strapped around my neck. Again, on these occasions I find that the barrel has a tendency to roll out.

The only other problem, if you can call it as such, is the battery life. If you are used to shooting with a standard lens, you will notice a dramatic difference in battery life as the VR really consumes the battery. I would estimate that using the VR lens means I only get approximately 50 to 60% of the number of shoots that I would if I was using a standard lens, before the battery runs flat. This is not a huge problem, as you just need to by a spare battery, or two if you are a really heavy user.

If you only have the money for one good lens, or don't want to trek around with half a ton of kit, then this is a seriously good investment and I can not recommend it highly enough. It is versatile enough that unless you are after something very specific from your photography, then it is the only lens you are ever likely to need. The added advantage to this, is that if you don't change your lens regularly for different shots, the chances of getting dust etc on your sensor are greatly reduced. Bonus!