18-200 In stock at B&H

[SP77]

i have the 18-70mm and am thinking of upgrading to this 18-200mm, but in all the sample shots i've seen the 18-70mm is sharper and more contrasty, so i have some reservations. even with the D50, people say they notice a difference.

Keep your 18-70mm. In retrospect I wish I had bought my D80 with the 18-70 instead, but I was planning on the 18-200 eventually so I got the 18-55 kit lens. Not that the 18-55 is bad because I've gotten great results with it, but the long end is too slow and the bokeh is ugly.

 

[cotdt]

Keep your 18-70mm. In retrospect I wish I had bought my D80 with the 18-70 instead, but I was planning on the 18-200 eventually so I got the 18-55 kit lens. Not that the 18-55 is bad because I've gotten great results with it, but the long end is too slow and the bokeh is ugly.

Thanks for the advice, which I will take. Yeah I really like the 18-70 as it is quite sharp for a zoom lens when used at f/5.6 or slower. But you're right, these zoom lenses have ugly bokeh and though the 18-70 is faster than the 18-55 it is still too slow. I might as well get a PS camera shooting this slow! And at 18mm, these zoom lenses have quite a bit of barrel distortion. I'm very tempted to replace my zooms with a set of primes, since I have a waist pouch where I can carry 6 lenses at a time. But I am still a novice photographer so I'll continue to use primes like the 35/2 and my 18-70 for outdoors.

Yeah Ken Rockwell is my neighbor and I've learned a lot from him but some of his lens reviews are wacko. He said that the 18-70mm was as sharp as it gets and no lens was sharper yet later he said that his 18-55mm is sharper. In my comparisons, I got the opposite results as the 18-70mm was indeed sharper than the 18-55 as it should be due to better optics. Regardless, the 18-70 while sharp for a zoom gets blown away by my 35/2. At f/2.8 the 35/2 is already much sharper than the 18-70mm at max sharpness (f/5.6 to f/7.1) on my D50.

 

[SP77]

Ken is your neighbor? :smile: Literally or just the same neck of the woods? LOL.

If you're worried about distortion, just get the DxO software. It has a profile for the 18-70 and works wonders on my 18-55. Distortion be gone, the auto sharpening profiles are great, as is the noise reduction and all of the other things it does. I can shoot at iso1600 and not worry about noise since the NR in DxO seems to work pretty good also. Or just use a flash. Got some great results last night on the D40/18-55 bouncing either the SB-400 or 600. I'm still learning flash technique so I have a ways to go.

I wish DxO had a profile for the 35/2 (I requested one). It has barrel distortion close up also that needs to be fixed. You can create your own profiles but I just don't have that kind of time. :frown:

In Ken's defense though, the 18-70 was out before the 18-55 was, and he doesn't always go back and update all of his reviews so that everything lines up and has proper context. Hence a lot of the inconsistencies. And in a lot of these reviews you're talking more about sample to sample variation than you are the lenses themselves. Ken says that in one of his "about lens tests" articles, but I don't think it's emphasized enough. Ken says the 18-55 is sharper than the 18-200. GenoP says his 18-200 VR is sharper than the 18-55 II. Well how do you know you're not just talking about sample to sample variations? It's tough. Anyways I'm pleased enough with my 18-55. It's not perfect and it's not fast, but it can still capture great images, and DxO software fixes a lot of the flaws.

 

[TVayos]

I found that my 35 mm F2 out shined my 18-70 too.

 

[jmmtn4aj]

Heh, when I got into this I saw the 'just got my hands on a 18-200' threads at DPReview and was like 'wow, these lens must be new and awesome'.. a few months later I saw the actual release date of the lens. ***? Hahaha. Funny though, lots of 18-200s are going unsold at the local photography forum here..