Out of the box, the lens looks well built and finished. The wide zoom range will mean that couple of aging lenses can now be retired. (especially my 18-35 Nikor which has too short a zoom range) Having a multi purpose wide to tele lens will reduce the need for lens changes. VR is a bonus albeit an expensive one.
I literally walked out of the dealer and straight to a music festival where musicians and dancers lit by stage lighting will be a useful test of the lens capabilities.
Low lighting and movement exposed the biggest weakness of this lens:
At F5.6 at the 200mm end It is simply too slow for that purpose; as one needs at least 1:125 sec to freeze motion. The VR does an effective job of freezing static objects; but if you are shooting a dancer at 1/10th of a second you are not gong to get her sharp at all but you will get a sharp background at F5.6 in most cases. An F 2.8 lens is far more effective.
Lens Distortion at 18 mm is unacceptable: If you take a shot with the horizon anywhere near the bottom of the frame; the barrel distortion is prominent . It is totally useless for quality architectural photography as a result.
Where this lens really excels is for photography of static objects like buildings and dark interior like churches, in less than ideal conditions. At the wide F3.5 end; one would normally use 15 to 20th sec as a minimum for 18mm focal length. I was able to get reasonably sharp results hand held at ¼ second. This is pretty handy if you in a place which bans tripods or flash; or are too lazy to bother with a tripod.
So are VR lens a reason for tripod manufactured to go out of business!
There is no substitute for a proper camera support; as you can use small F stops to give depth of field. If you are shooting at F3.5 you just aren’t going to get the same DOF and sharpness than if you stop down to F11 for example. Having said that; it can enable a smaller F stop under marginal light. Where you may have to use F 3.5 at 15th sec you can use F8 at 1 ¼ sec
To judge performance:
I will just have to use my own eyes. My impression over a few months use is that the 18-200 VR is a general purpose travel lens with decent image quality. Its usability with VR enables it to go where most lenses fail to reach! The autofocus is good too and its close focusing is useful.
The weaknesses are the limited max apertures at the long end, serious barrel distortion at the wide end, There is an irritating tendency for the lens to creep open if carried facing downwards. As it was designed for the APS sized sensor; It will not work with 35mm or any future full frame Nikon camera
The lens distortion will not be much of an issue for general photography; if you want to take serious architectural photography; then you will be best advised to get a more specialist lens like the Sigma 12-24. For the wild life or budding rock music photographer; get an 80-200 F2.8 lens:
The Nikon 18-200 VR is No 1 in a field of one; unless some manufacturer comes up with an 18-200 F2.8 lens at less than $1000 ……….dream on!
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