Nikkor 18-200mm VR II lens

bearbo said:

has anyone had this lens? how's your experience with this? (has anyone ordered it recently, how long did you take to get it?)

the max aperture varies from 3.5 to 5.6, is 5.6 at 200mm with VR easily shot steady without tripod? or is tripod pretty much recommended for that setting? given medium to lower light

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Can't talk about availability I've had mine since June I got lucky when a batch came in no preoder, waiting list or $100 over retail.
Anyway I got it as a light weight vacation and travel lens it for me it does the job great. The VR works well I can easily take hand held at 200mm at 1/60 or slower in a pinch and I do not have the steadist hands.
On the other hand if you are interested situations were tripods are available you may want to look at other options.
I shout mostly nature so either my 60mm 150mm macros or 50 -500 for wild life. The 60 is the only other I use hand held. If you are looking to get the same results from the 18-200 as a dedicated macro or long zoom you may be disapointed.
I suggest going to pbase.com there is a camera database that groups shots by equipment select Nikon after the cameras they list lenses. The skill level of the posters vary greatly but I always take a look there to see how good or bad a camera or lens can be. I don't use it a the deciding factor but it has always helped.

Rich

200mm :





I think this is a brilliant lens. I took that hand-held and I have a shaky hands. If I had less light it would have to be on a stand.

Hi there, I absolutely love my 18-200mm VR II. This is a decent overall lens. It covers a broad range of focal lengths and 11.1x zoom is just awesome. The only thing is that when you point the lens/camera downwards at 135mm and over, the lens zooms on its own accord, so make sure to hold the zoom ring when shooting/focusing.

I lust after a 50mm f/1.8 right now

Anyway, amazon.com seemed to have it last night but check for yourself to be sure. Get the lens if you can find it, you will love it!

bearbo said:

has anyone had this lens? how's your experience with this? (has anyone ordered it recently, how long did you take to get it?)

the max aperture varies from 3.5 to 5.6, is 5.6 at 200mm with VR easily shot steady without tripod? or is tripod pretty much recommended for that setting? given medium to lower light

Click to expand...

As one of the other said, the VR gives you about one and a half stops. The normal rule is that you can hand hold a lens if you keep the shutter speed at or faster than 1/(focal length) so without VR you could do 1/200 or faster at the 200mm setting and not have noticable camera shake induced blurr. shooting at 1/60th is pushing that "one and a half stops" a little but not by much.

But note that 1/60th will not freeze _subject_ motion nor will f/5.6 give you that narrow DOF that you might want to use to isolate a subject from a background. But everything is a compromise. the 70-200 f/2.8 VR is better for many subjects but heaver and expensive. and yo still need to get a wide lens.

I was eyeing the 18-200mm lens and read some great reviews on the lens but I didn't want to pay the markup so I settled for the 18-135mm lens which I have been very pleased with.

I've never seen any irregular markups on the lens. I'd also have no trouble having one delivered to me within 3 days, and I'm not even in America.

bearbo said:

the max aperture varies from 3.5 to 5.6, is 5.6 at 200mm with VR easily shot steady without tripod? or is tripod pretty much recommended for that setting? given medium to lower light

Click to expand...

If you're shooting at low light, you wouldn't want this lens anyway. It's not a limitation of the lens, really. It just wasn't designed to allow you to shoot under low light, especially not at 200 mm. You might get away with it at 18 mm even at f/5.6, but not at 200 mm. Any shaking just causes too much blur.