Request views on Nikon 18-200 lens

Dimitris M wrote:
I understand what you say. I have D300 with 18-200 VR for travel and I have
24-70 with D700 for pro work. You should not compare the world's best zoom
Nikkor 24-70 with the poor 18-200 VR that trys to do everything in light
weight and low cost.

How much better do you like your D700 over your D300? I'm happy with my
D300 but of course I would like to have had the D700.



As for the barrel distortion, if you step up just a little to 22mm it
disappears. But it's not that. I use this lens without the slightest
distortion in all the range from 18 to 200mm. How? I use the DxO software
that uses modelling for specific bodies and lenses that corrects
automatically any distortion, fringe, CA and reduces effectively softness.
The program is not expensive; I think must be around 120 euro's. In practice
I could say that this makes your lens to perform as a much better lens.
http://www.dxo.com/uk/photo/dxo_optics_pro


--
Sheila
http://swdalton.com

"MaryL" -OUT-THE-LITTER wrote in message
. ..
I have a Nikon D80 with 18-135 kit lens (18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S DX
Zoom-Nikkor ) and also a 70-300 lens (70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR
Zoom-Nikkor). I am planning a trip to Greece in the spring, and a great
deal of walking will be involved. The 70-300 lens is rather heavy, and it
really would not be practical for me to carry two lenses and try to
constantly change them since I will be traveling with a group. So, I am
interested in a "walk-around" lens that will be more practical, be good
quality but not "break the bank" quality. Have any of you used the
18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX Zoom-Nikkor lens, especially in
combination with the D80? If so, I would appreciate your thoughts about
this lens for the purpose I described. I am an amateur photog, still in
the process of learning the features of this camera. I do also have a much
smaller Nikon camera (P80, not a DSLR), but I think I would be very
disappointed if I had that one and missed a lot of shots that I could have
gotten with the D80. Incidentally, I have gone to sites like dpreview, but
I am interested in also hearing personal responses from users.

Thanks,
MaryL


Thanks, everyone. Your responses have been very helpful. Based on various
reports -- what I read here, some reviews, anecdotal reports other places on
the Internet -- I have decided to bite the bullet and buy the 18-200 lens.
Now, I need to investigate prices and availability.

MaryL

"Dimitris M" wrote in message
news:1228668567.602409@athprx03...
It is the perfect travel "do everything" lens. I have use it as my main
lens in the D70 from December 2005 and after with my D300 The second is
the Tokina 12-24. When you will become familiar with the VR, you can have
nice steady shoots at 200mm with 1/16s and even at 1/4s, if you are steady
enough, you will have more than 50% success in steady subjects.

I wish you wonderfull vacations here in Greece ;-)
--
Dimitris M



Thanks! I am excited about the upcoming vacation in Greece. I decided to
buy the 18-200 lens, so that means I will have several months to practice.

You said I can have steady shots after I "become familiar with the VR." Can
you give me some tips on what I should do (or avoid doing) with regard to
VR?

MaryL

In normal light both cameras are almost equal. D300 have faster autofocus in
3D full 51 focus points (after the firmware update, makes me look every day
in Nikon for an update for the D700). In low light D700 opened a new world
in front of my eyes. It is almost 2 stop faster. With a fast lens I can
shoot handheld practicaly everyware. In 6.400 ISO is as D300 in 2.000 ISO.
If I shoot in RAW in low ISO (1600 or less) I have plenty of room (dynamic
area) to bring back in life almost completlely dark areas if I want to. Is
no need for fill-in flash as the shadows can be preserved easily.

In the near furure I wll change the D300 for a D90, just to have a very
light easy camera with my 18-200 when I want to travel light. D700 + 24-70
is very heavy and bulk. I can not make street photo's without attract the
people's attention.
--
Dimitris M



How much better do you like your D700 over your D300? I'm happy with my
D300 but of course I would like to have had the D700.

Excuse my poor english. I hope that I will make clear what I want to tell.



The VR performs better after some time and experience with it. You must
expect that some times will make miracles, when you are stable and some
times (few) it will disappoint you.



You must understand that the width of movement (correction) have limits.
When you look through the viewfinder and press half way the release you will
see the image stabilized. If the camera changes azimuth just a little, in
the viewfinder you will see nothing to change as the servo mechanism
corrects this. If you move a little more, you will reach the end of possible
transition (movement) of the small floating crystal. In this moment, the
lens VR it will reset the crystal in the middle. So when you become
experienced you will press the release just after the set (or reset) of the
correcting crystal. In the tele end is well visible in the viewfinder and
easy to become familiar. I normally press the shooter just after I see in
the viewfinder the subject stabilized. If I late, I wait for the slight
movement that indicates that the crystal is been reset and then I take the
picture. It is more easy than it looks.



Another is to know when to choose "active" or "normal" stabilization. In
most situations "normal" is better and permits panning, from the other hand
it can interpret slow movements of you as panning and decide to not correct
in this direction. "Active" is better when you are not stable, if you are in
a vehicle etc.



If you shoot in the tele end, from 100 to 200mm with very low speed in the
area of 1/16 to 1/4 it is a good idea, if you can, to take 2-3 shoots to
choose the best. As I told before, when the end of crystal travel is reached
the crystal is reset. 1/4 sec is enough time so if you slowly moves, the
crystal can be reset during the shoot and the photo become as double exposed
or as to have ghosts. The blurred photos with the VR are completely
different from the normal blurred from camera shake. It resamples the
blurred photos when shoot with flash at "slow" sync.



Another thing is that you should understand that the VR can not correct for
subject move (except panning).



The impressive results are in the tele area and are more impressive as you
reach the tele end. Is not at all impressive in the low end. At 18mm I can
shoot clear pictures at 1/8 without the VR. With it I can shoot at 1/4, but
not so at 1/2. So when you become familiar you can gain 4+ stops at the high
end, but no more than 1 to 2 stops in the low end.



I hope the above to be some helpful. I am electronics engineer more than I
am photographer so I always want to understand and analyze "how it works"
under the surface.



Friendly,

--
Dimitris M




You said I can have steady shots after I "become familiar with the VR."
Can you give me some tips on what I should do (or avoid doing) with regard
to VR?

MaryL

Dimitris M wrote:
In normal light both cameras are almost equal. D300 have faster autofocus in
3D full 51 focus points (after the firmware update, makes me look every day
in Nikon for an update for the D700). In low light D700 opened a new world
in front of my eyes. It is almost 2 stop faster. With a fast lens I can
shoot handheld practicaly everyware. In 6.400 ISO is as D300 in 2.000 ISO.
If I shoot in RAW in low ISO (1600 or less) I have plenty of room (dynamic
area) to bring back in life almost completlely dark areas if I want to. Is
no need for fill-in flash as the shadows can be preserved easily.

In the near furure I wll change the D300 for a D90, just to have a very
light easy camera with my 18-200 when I want to travel light. D700 + 24-70
is very heavy and bulk. I can not make street photo's without attract the
people's attention.


Thanks for the detailed reply, mostly I shoot in normal light so I am
glad that the lighter and less expensive D300 is almost as good as the
D700. I have been shooting some lower light photos with my D300 and
have been much happier with the results compared to the D80. I shot
some very low light photos a couple days ago that had quite a bit of noise.

With a tripod I can shoot low light very nicely.

--
Sheila
http://swdalton.com

Thank you very much. This is very helpful -- and your English is fine!

MaryL


"Dimitris M" wrote in message
news:1228733356.997854@athprx03...
Excuse my poor english. I hope that I will make clear what I want to tell.



The VR performs better after some time and experience with it. You must
expect that some times will make miracles, when you are stable and some
times (few) it will disappoint you.



You must understand that the width of movement (correction) have limits.
When you look through the viewfinder and press half way the release you
will see the image stabilized. If the camera changes azimuth just a
little, in the viewfinder you will see nothing to change as the servo
mechanism corrects this. If you move a little more, you will reach the end
of possible transition (movement) of the small floating crystal. In this
moment, the lens VR it will reset the crystal in the middle. So when you
become experienced you will press the release just after the set (or
reset) of the correcting crystal. In the tele end is well visible in the
viewfinder and easy to become familiar. I normally press the shooter just
after I see in the viewfinder the subject stabilized. If I late, I wait
for the slight movement that indicates that the crystal is been reset and
then I take the picture. It is more easy than it looks.



Another is to know when to choose "active" or "normal" stabilization. In
most situations "normal" is better and permits panning, from the other
hand it can interpret slow movements of you as panning and decide to not
correct in this direction. "Active" is better when you are not stable, if
you are in a vehicle etc.



If you shoot in the tele end, from 100 to 200mm with very low speed in the
area of 1/16 to 1/4 it is a good idea, if you can, to take 2-3 shoots to
choose the best. As I told before, when the end of crystal travel is
reached the crystal is reset. 1/4 sec is enough time so if you slowly
moves, the crystal can be reset during the shoot and the photo become as
double exposed or as to have ghosts. The blurred photos with the VR are
completely different from the normal blurred from camera shake. It
resamples the blurred photos when shoot with flash at "slow" sync.



Another thing is that you should understand that the VR can not correct
for subject move (except panning).



The impressive results are in the tele area and are more impressive as you
reach the tele end. Is not at all impressive in the low end. At 18mm I can
shoot clear pictures at 1/8 without the VR. With it I can shoot at 1/4,
but not so at 1/2. So when you become familiar you can gain 4+ stops at
the high end, but no more than 1 to 2 stops in the low end.



I hope the above to be some helpful. I am electronics engineer more than I
am photographer so I always want to understand and analyze "how it works"
under the surface.



Friendly,

--
Dimitris M




You said I can have steady shots after I "become familiar with the VR."
Can you give me some tips on what I should do (or avoid doing) with
regard to VR?

MaryL

MaryL wrote:

Thanks, everyone. Your responses have been very helpful. Based on
various reports -- what I read here, some reviews, anecdotal reports
other places on the Internet -- I have decided to bite the bullet and
buy the 18-200 lens. Now, I need to investigate prices and availability.

Amazon is nearly always the least expensive, non-rip-off vendor. But
they don't show up in price search engines like Google's because they
don't pay to be listed.

On Sat, 6 Dec 2008 20:37:10 -0600, "MaryL"
-OUT-THE-LITTER wrote:


IS Modes: Advantages vs. Disadvantages


IS Off:

Advantages -- Prevents accidental blurring caused by the IS mechanism when the
camera is mounted on tripod. Many models of cameras and lenses put the IS to
sleep after 2 seconds of no motion so this may or may not be necessary. No extra
power used. Excellent for learning how to improve your own hand-held skills to
prevent camera shake. There's less chance for the angled IS optical elements to
introduce linear chromatic aberration. Optical IS works by shifting the angle of
planes of flat glass, acting as a prism if angled greatly. You may experience a
few pixels of color shift at the edges of your subject with IS turned on and it
is trying to compensate for a lot of camera shake. This IS induced CA is most
often seen as green and magenta fringes on opposite sides of your image. (Green
fringes one side of the subjects in your shot, magenta at the other side of your
shot. Like looking at a light at night through a thick pane of glass from an
angle, same principle.) This happens often with optical IS turned on especially
for long-zoom shots because it has to compensate for much more motion and the
optical elements will be angled more. If you happen to capture the shot at the
extreme of that shake-compensation it will be more apparent--more angle = more
prism effect. 100% accurate framing. No need to worry if you have the IS mode
set on the proper adapter lens setting in P&S cameras if you are using add-on
lenses.

Disadvantages -- No IS.


Shoot Only Mode:

Advantages -- Much better IS compensation because you can see how much you are
shaking the camera. If you can dampen the camera-shake with your own muscles the
camera can easily compensate for any that's left over. Works exceptionally well
for long-zoom and low-light conditions where you have to manually dampen as much
motion as possible so the camera can compensate for any motion left-over with
long shutter speeds and magnified motion in long-zoom situations. Works best
under most shooting conditions. Lower battery drain than Continuous mode. Good
for learning how to hold your camera steady for those long-zoom and low-light
shots with long shutter-speeds.

Disadvantages -- If you can't stabilize the image well enough with your own
hand-held techniques then the camera can't latch onto anything easily for
auto-focus. If using manual focus this isn't a concern. Not available in
movie-modes, but with obvious reason, so that's not a disadvantage really.
Framing may not be 100% accurate. At the time of the exposure and the IS kicks
in it will shift slightly to compensate for the actual camera shake. You may not
get exactly what you want but close to 95% or more of it.


Continuous Mode:

Advantages -- Makes it easy to frame your shot. Auto-focus is greatly speeded up
if the image is steady for the camera to have finer details to latch onto.
Greatly improves auto-focus speed for long-zoom and low-light shots. More
accurate framing during the actual exposure because the IS elements are already
in motion and will be using what you see for the actual exposure. It won't be
100% accurate framing during the actual exposure, but close.

Disadvantages -- If you can't see how much you are shaking the camera then you
may be using, or the camera might have chosen, shutter speeds where you are
shaking the camera more than the IS can compensate for it during the actual
exposure. Resulting in blurry pictures that look out of focus but were actually
caused by camera shake from too long of zoom being used or too slow of shutter
speeds. Slightly higher battery drain. Letting the camera always compensate for
your camera-shake will never teach you how to hold your own camera steady,
always resulting in low-light and long-zoom shots being blurry so you think it's
the camera's fault and limitations rather than your own.


Panning Mode:

Advantages -- Turning off horizontal IS compensation allows you to pan with the
a horizontally moving object naturally so the background will remained blurred
and the subject you are following will be sharp and clear. If not used it will
be hit and miss as the IS shuttles sideways trying to figure out when and what
to compensate for.

Disadvantages -- Only works on horizontally moving subject. Not available in
movie-mode in many video-capable cameras, which could actually be a help.

"SMS" wrote in message
...
MaryL wrote:

Thanks, everyone. Your responses have been very helpful. Based on
various reports -- what I read here, some reviews, anecdotal reports
other places on the Internet -- I have decided to bite the bullet and buy
the 18-200 lens. Now, I need to investigate prices and availability.

Amazon is nearly always the least expensive, non-rip-off vendor. But they
don't show up in price search engines like Google's because they don't pay
to be listed.

I have already checked amazon.com. I buy a great many items from them, but
I am dubious about using them for this purpose. It is extraordinarily
difficult to send messages if there are any problems -- no "real" person to
contact. I have had good results from B&H and Adorama. We also have a
BestBuy nearby, but there prices for photography equipment are usually very
high.

MaryL