nikon AF-S nikkor 18-200 mm review

so here is a short review of the 18-200 lens from Nikon.

I bought this lens after reading a good review about it. Previously I had the nikon 18-105 lens which I had bought as a kit lens for the nikon D90 body. When I saw the good review I thought it might be a good idea to switch to a wider range zoom lens which - as the review said - was better than the 18-105 lens. So I sold my 18-105 lens and bought this 18-200 one.

I have to say that it is a pretty good lens. It is compact for such a big zoom range and optically it is decent. It is actually good if you think about the compromises which go into creating such a big range zoom. It feels pretty solid and has a metal mount. One of the reasons I didn't like the 18-105 was its plastic mount.

At 18mm wide open the corners tend to get quite fuzzy. At f5.6 they become good and at f8 they are quite sharp. at 18mm I usually shoot landscape, so I don't really need the f3,5 setting. Well I used it once and wasn't very happy with the result. I had to crop the edges of the picture to make i usable. the 18-105 didn't have this problem. at 18mm f3,5 the corners were quite good.

Image stabilization or VR as nikon calls it is pretty good. On this lens it is actually the VRII. It helps you get away without a tripod when taking pictures in low light. Again the VR is actually useful only when shooting static things. When shooting portraits in low light it cannot compensate for a moving subject. I was pretty happy with the VR of the 18-105 lens and couldn't notice any big difference between it and the VRII of the 18-200 lens. But I never took the time to thoroughly test this feature. Here are some handheld pictures taken in low light with the 18-200 lens.

Is the 200mm end of this lens really a 200mm focal length?  Well, I also own the 180mm f2,8 nikon lens, and while taking pictures of a bird one day I noticed that the 180mm lens brought the subject closer to the camera than did the 200mm end of the 18-200. I didn't have any explanation for this at the time and was a little disappointed. In the meantime I made some tests, did some research and found the answer.
The focal distance of a lens is measured at infinity.
Underneath you can see a comparison. the images are not cropped and are taken with a tripod from the same place (except the last one). As you can see in the first two samples the 180mm lens frames the view slightly wider. This means that the 200mm end of the 18-200 lens is somewhere around 200.

nikon 180 f2,8

nikon 18-200 @ 200

The next two images are taken from the minimum focusing distance of the 180mm lens which is somewhere around 1,8 meters. As you can see the 18-200 one frames the subject wider. In fact it looks like it has a focal length of around 110mm. What happens is that on the 180 prime lens, when focusing on a close subject the front lens gets pushed out, making the barrel of the lens longer. On the other side, the 18-200 has IF (internal focusing). This means that the barrel of the lens remains the same length while focusing and when focusing on a close subject an inner group of lens gets pulled back relative to the front lens. This has the effect of reducing the focal length when focusing on subjects close to the camera.

nikon 180 f2,8 min focus distance

nikon 18-200 @ 200 2m focus distance

This feature of the 18-200 IF lets you get very close to the subject even at 200mm. You can see this in the picture below ,which is taken at the minimal focusing distance of the 18-200 lens at 200. So some people say that they don't mind taking a few steps toward the subject to frame it closer. And this is true as long as you take pictures of flowers for example. But if you're out taking pictures of birds or butterflies you would probably want to bring them close to the camera without having to get closer to them and scaring them off.

nikon 18-200 @ 200 min focus distance

As a conclusion I would say that this is a great all around lens with a compact size and with good performance in low light due to its VR system. It has decent optical performance, but don't compare it to prime lens. It is a good lens when you want to travel light and don't want to keep changing between wide and telephoto lens.

Here and here are some more pictures taken with this lens.

nikon 50mm f1.4 review

this is a superbly built lens. it's a simple and sturdy design which delivers stunning results. It's all metal and glass with a nice rubber grip on the focusing ring.

the optics are great and are capable of delivering very usable pictures even at wide open. the problem I experienced at f1.4 was a slight glow in the contrasty parts of the pictures. but I really didn't mind it as it gave the picture a little bit of a glamor look.
the bokeh is very smooth and pleasant. this is what really sets it apart from the nikon 50mm f1.8 lens.
the depth of field is very small. if, for instance, you focus on the nose when shooting a portrait, the eye will be visibly out of focus. this can become a real problem as far as I am concerned. it is almost impossible to get a clean focus. at least not with the nikon D90 body. you cannot rely on the in body focus confirmation of the DSLR. the depth of field is far shallower as the tolerance of the focus confirmation. you can test this on your own DSLR if you focus on an object and then move the camera back and forth. you will probably notice that the focus confirmation will be on for a distance of 10 millimeters and up to 10 centimeters depending on how far away you are from the object. now with a depth of field of just 2-3 millimeters at wide open this is obviously too much in order to get clean focus when relying on focus confirmation with this lens. It is also very hard to rely only on your eyes when focusing. even with the quite large viewfinder of the D90 body you cannot be sure about the results. out of 10 pictures I took only one was really in focus where I intended it to be. I had to ask the subject not to move at all and use the magnified live view in order to get a good focus on the eye. But this way you can't compose your picture and you also loose the capability of taking candid pictures. and those are the pictures you really want to take with a small lens like this.

although I really like the lens I decided to sell it in the end as I wasn't really able to use it at wide open due to the focusing problem. Unless you are a very good manual focus-er you should try and get a version with AF. you could also consider the  nikon AF 35-70 F2.8 D as an option which also has a superb bokeh but also has auto focus as well as a zoom.

here are a few pictures taken with the nikon 50mm f1.4 lens. all except the second one which is shot with the nikon 180mm f2.8.

nikon AF-S nikkor 18-105 mm review

I bought this lens as a kit lens together with the nikon D90 body. It was my first nikon lens and I was pretty happy with it. As I began to read about lens online and also bought the older 180 mm prime lens I became unhappy with it. I read some good reviews about the 18-200 mm from nikon, which was described as being far better than my 18-105 mm. So I said why not have a better lens with a wider range and sold the 18-105 mm.

nikon 18-105 mm @ 18mm f3.5

I only realized how good this lens was after I started using my new 18-200 mm. On a well known site the 18-105 is described as being the fuzziest nikon lens in the corners at 18mm. Well this is not true in my opinion. It actually is far better at 18mm than the 18-200 mm.  When I used it I never noticed any problems with it, which is a good sign. On the other hand the pictures taken at wide open at 18mm with the 18-200mm where unusable. I went back and checked out some pictures I had taken in the past with the 18-105 at 18mm wide open. They were decent corner to corner. There is some fuzziness noticeable in the corners, but it is very little for an all-around kit lens. On the left you can see an image taken with this lens at 18mm wide open and below a 100% crop of its top left corner with no adjustments or any kind of post-processing.

100% crop of the top left corner

 At f8 the images all get sharp from corner to corner and you cannot find any fuzziness. There also is some distortion at the extremes of the zoom range, but it is nothing I wasn't able to cope with.

What I didn't like about the 18-105 was its plastic mount. I almost felt guilty whenever I took it off or put it onto the camera body. I also found a few such lens for sale online which had their plastic mount damaged. So it is really a shame that Nikon didn't put a metal mount on this otherwise nice lens.


The bokeh of this lens is not great, but what can one expect from a lens in the 300 $ price range.
The image stabilization (VR) also works really well. I was able to take quite a few decent pictures in low light with the hand-held camera. You can check out some of them here.
As far as focusing is concerned it focuses fast and very well. Even in low light conditions it focuses fast together with the nikon d90 body. It has its own focusing engine so that you will be able to use it with nikon bodies that don't have internal focusing engines as the nikon d40 or d60 for instance.

As a conclusion I would recommend this lens to anyone who wants a decent all-around lens. Anyone who wants sharp pictures from corner to corner with good bokeh should consider a fast prime lens.

Here are a few more images taken with this lens.

short review of nikon 180 f2.8

 It is a great lens. Even though it is pretty old it still delivers stunning pictures. I can only recommend buying this lens to everyone who is willing to deal with manual focus.

 As soon as you put your hand on it you realize it's a high quality lens. It is all metal and glass with a rubber grip on the focus ring. Both the focus ring and the aperture ring operate so smooth that it is a joy to rotate them (at least it is the case with the lens I have). It also has a built-in retractable metal hood. This is very convenient as you don't have to worry about the hood. You cannot loose it or brake it and it is very easy to get it out of the way. I wish all the lens could have this hood design.

 

As far as optics are concerned, even at wide open (f2.8) the images are sharp corner to corner. You can notice some chromatic aberrations around the contrasty edges at f2.8. For instance you will notice some purple fringing around the edges if you shoot an object against the bright sky. Anyway if you don't shoot against the sky you should have no trouble using it wide open. Personally I only use this lens at f2.8 as the quality of the images is great. The images below are shot at f2.8. You can notice the shallow depth of field and the great bokeh. It has the smoothest bokeh out of all the lens I've used. The optics also have superb resolution.

nikon 180 @ f2.8

nikon 180 @ f2.8

 The only downsides of this lens are its weight and the lack of AF.  You have to give it a little time if you want to get a clean focus on the eye (when shooting a portrait), so that the model should be a little patient. 

I should mention that the focus confirmation light is not very helpful. Looking at the focus confirmation light while shooting doesn't work for me. I tried out entry level Pentax cameras and they also have a beep focus confirmation alongside with the confirmation light. The audible focus confirmation makes much more sense while composing a picture rather than have another thing to look at. So the lack of the audible focus confirmation is not the greatest feature of the nikon D90 body. On the other hand the viewfinder is pretty big and this is helpful when focusing with this lens.

Compared to it's performance the lens can be bought pretty cheap. Having no electronics and being all metal and glass, there is really very little that can go wrong with this lens.

It's good to have it around in the woods as you can hurt a bear with it, but than you have to also be willing to carry around another 880 g.

 Some other pictures taken with this lens here and here.
 

short review of nikon AF 70-210 F4-5.6 D

It is a good lens. Push-pull design with fast auto-focusing. Although it has plastic elements it is structured around a metal core. The mount is also metal. The front element will rotate while focusing and has metal thread for filters. Filter size is 58mm. It doesn't have any internal focusing engine, so if you want the AF to be functional you need to use it together with a body that has a focusing engine.

The lens performs very well throughout it's whole range. You need to stop it down at least one step in order to get usable pictures as at wide open it has a glow around the contrasty edges in the pictures. This makes it hard to use in low light conditions. Other than that it focuses very fast and also delivers sharp pictures.
The other day I had the chance to compare this lens to the non-D version. I have to say that this lens - the D version - focuses considerably faster. So if you ever want to buy one of these, look for the D version.

The thing I like a lot at this lens is it's so called macro feature. When focusing on a close subject in the 210 mm end it delivers sharp pictures with a narrow depth of field and a really nice bokeh.

here are two pictures taken with this lens.

@210mm f7.1; 1/500; iso200

@210mm; f8; 1/400; iso200

and a 100% crop of the second

another picture taken with this lens here

the non D version of this lens can be bought here Nikon 70-210mm f/4-5.6 AF auto focus lens

short review of nikon AF 35-70 F2.8 D

The lens is amazing. It is a push-pull design. At F5.6 it is very sharp from corner to corner.Auto focusing is really fast.

At 35mm at F2.8 all the corners are blurred, but they get sharp at f8. At 70mm it performs much better. Even at F2.8 the corners are just a little soft. At F5.6 it is very sharp throughout. The center of frame is always very sharp starting from f2.8.

It has also macro feature at 35mm, but I find that at this range with macro you have to get to close to the subject to get a clear picture. This makes it impossible to photograph insects for instance. Also sometimes you will find the shadow of your own lens spoiling the picture. Personally I prefer a longer range macro. At macro setting the lens doesn't have AF any more, but this is ok as for macro you'd probably want to manual focus any way.
The bokeh is really nice and smooth too.

here are some pictures in macro mode and also a 100% crop of each of them.

 On a DX format camera  the lens doesn't feel wide enough for landscape photography. Anyway this is first of all a portrait lens.

The build quality of the lens is great. It is all metal and glass. You could probably beat someone with it and still take good pictures with it after-wards - only joking :) . It has rubber grip for focusing and zooming. The only plastic is the aperture ring. This makes for a quite heavy lens and you will feel the difference in weight if you add this lens to your camera bag.

All in all the lens is a great performer. One drawback would be that it has a somehow short zoom range and that the macro is at a too short range. On the good side it is capable of taking very sharp pictures. According to the tests I've done it beats the Nikon 50mm F1.8 lens at any setting. It has also a constant F2.8 throughout the range which is great and makes for nice portrait photographs.

some pictures taken with this lens are here and here.