"This lens is quite literally a miracle of technology. It provides sharp, decent performance as a 18mm to 200mm zoom lens. (It provides a 27-300 focal range on a Nikon digital camera due to the 1.5 sensor crop). This is a DX lens, and therefore is designed only for Nikon digital cameras, not film cameras. The fact that it is a DX lens also enables this lens to be lighter and smaller than a conventional "full crop" lens. I have been told by pros that this lens would be a "monster" in size were it not for the fact that it is a DX lens. As it is, it is small and light, and feels great mounted on my D70s. This is not a cheap lens. It is capable of providing professional-level quality images throughout its range, although it is certainly not the best lens at a given range--no zoom lense is that. The fantastic (yes, I mean it, fantastic) thing about this lens is that over an incredible focal range from wide-angle to telescopic, it provides sharp, bright images. Oh, many prime lenses can produce brighter images, and the much more expensive and larger, heavier 70-200 VR Nikkor provides brighter images with better bokeh, and many wide-angle Nikkor zooms outperform this lens at the other end of its range, but no other lens I know of can touch this lens for its overall range. This lens is capable of producing pleasing, bright, and vivid images througout its range. One big feature of the 18-200 VR is the Vibration Reduction technology that is built into the lens. This stabilizes the lens and allows it to take good photographs in much dimmer light than would otherwise be practical, and to some extent VR does the same thing that a tripod would do, i.e. stabilize the camera. The VR works, too, contributing to the sharpness of the images. VR is not a substitute for fast glass, which is one reason that very serious photographers will not be junking their heavy professional lenses (such as the incomparable 70-200 VR zoom, for example, or the wonderful 17-55 zoom). A discussion of the shortcomings and advantages of VR is beyond the scope of this review, but suffice to say that the VR on this 18-200 VR lens contributes to its ability to produce very sharp images. This is the ultimate "walking around" lens, and it is absolutely the lens of choice in many/most situations in which it is simply impractical to either change lenses, or bring along more than one lens. Almost all users of Nikon digital cameras will want to consider this lens. I am blown away with the images that I have been able to achieve using the 18-200VR."
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Review : Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX Zoom-Nikkor Lens
Review : Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED IF AF-S DX VR Zoom Nikkor Lens
"My Nikon ownership goes back nearly 30 years to the days when cameras were made of metal and carrying one with a few lenses tested your stamina. Times sure have changed. There's hardly a metal camera to be found and you can carry a bag full of equipment in one hand. The Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED IF AF-S DX VR Zoom Nikkor is the latest lightweight from this heavyweight of the camera industry. Plastic construction right down to its lens mount. This thing looks and feels like the label should say Fisher Price and not Nikon. However, looks can be deceiving as I soon found out. My only reason for buying this lens was that I needed to fill a void in my kit until I saved up enough for a 70-200mm f2.8. I had no intention of keeping the 55-200 VR once the 70-200 arrived. After shooting with the 55-200 for a few months I've come to appreciate what it can do. It's limited to use in good light as even VR can't change the laws of physics. In this case, it's not even the current VR-II but the original VR that Nikon developed a few years ago. With sufficient light and good technique, the 55-200 is capable of very good performance. No, it's not as sharp and contrasty as the 70-200. It's also not going to survive the bad weather or a few solid knocks that professional use would expose it to. Where the 55-200 excels is in its portability and above average performance. For travel or just walking around, it would be hard to beat this lens if it's used within its limits. I use mine on a D80 and have no problem getting excellent 13x19" prints. As an added bonus, it works very well with the Nikon CL3T closeup lens and does double duty as a macro zoom. Again, it's not a substitute for a real macro zoom like the Nikon 70-180, but it's not intended to be. Given my original opinion of this lens, I have to admit that I've gotten much more than my money's worth out of it. Instead of selling it, I'm going to keep it and use it when my 70-200 is just to big and heavy to carry around. If you're on a budget or just want a nice, lightweight lens in this range, take a look at the Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED IF AF-S DX VR. Like me, you may be very much surprised at what it can do."
Review : Nikon D80 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera
"Obviously, I am enamored with the Nikon D80. As one who has extensively used the D100, D70s, and D200, I was curious as to how the D80 would "shake out" in comparison with these fine cameras. The answer is that it does very well indeed. The most obvious improvement in D80 over the D70s and D100 is the upgrade from 6.1 to 10.2 Megapixels--the same as its "Big Brother," the D200 This is not a major issue for many users, as a 6.1 MP image (uncropped) looks essentially exactly the same as a 10.2 MP image. However, if the user intends to crop images in post-processing, the larger amount of resolution becomes important--the more megapixels the more detail when images are cropped. Shooters of wildlife, for example, will appreciate the additional resolution of the D80, as it is often necessary to photograph wildlife at a distance and then crop the image to cause the subject to dominate the frame. The other very obvious D80 improvements are the larger viewfinder and larger rear-LCD. These are very welcome improvements, also borrowed from the D200. The viewfinder is wide, bright, and a literal joy to use. Combined with the 11-point autofocus system (basically the same as that of the D200 although with some differences in options) the viewfinder makes the D80 a powerhouse camera for moving subjects, or for framing the subject in places other than the center of the image. The autofocus is fast and sure. I literally never use manual focus with the D80--the autofocus is just too good not to use for almost every conceivable situation. The 2.5 inch rear LCD is bright and vivid--a joy to use. This too, as mentioned above, is borrowed from the D200. The menu selections in the D80 closely track those of the D200 and are largely pretty intuitive for anyone who is somewhat familiar with the Nikon system. A few nits. First of all, the D80 does not have a selection for focus-priority continuous focus mode. This is unfortunate, as such an option (present on the D200) allows fast action shots using continuous-focus with surety that the subject is, in fact, in focus. Happily, this absence (which I predict and hope Nikon will correct in a later firmware revision) is not a huge loss. I have shot hundreds of images of fast-flying birds using continuous focus with the D80 and the images are almost all perfectly focused. The user can trust the D80 in continuous focus mode, focus priority or no. Nikon chose to equip the D80 with SD cards rather than CF cards. Why Nikon did this is a mystery to many of us as the D80 clearly is an upgrade to the wonderful D70s, which uses CF cards. Further, the D80 is a fantastic backup camera for D200 users, and the D200, of course, also uses CF cards rather than SD cards. CF cards would have been a more logical choice in my opinion for the D80. Fortunately, the cost of these media is dropping so fast that this is less of an issue than it would have been a few years ago. The D80 sucks up power a lot faster than the D70s. That 2.5 inch LCD entails higher power use as a price. Most users will want to own a spare battery. As to ergonomics, the D80 is terrific! I have just finished an 8 day stay on Maui, Hawaii, during which my D80 was literally always with me. The weight of the camera is low, and its bulk, reasonable. There is no digital SLR I would rather carry for an extended period than the compact D80. The placement of the various controls is excellent, and pretty intuitive. The quality of the D80 body construction is standard Nikon-Prosumer grade, which is to say, excellent albeit not as heavy-duty as the metal-body D200. Overall, the D80 is destined to become one of the great Nikon cameras that will find a place with users all over the world"
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