Nikon 28-300mm FX Format lens on a DX camera?

Kenan wrote in message ...
Thanks to David Ruether and C J Campbell for helping me.

I think I'm going to return to the 28-300 lens and I will order the
NIKKOR 18-200mm VR II . Although the 440 zoom range of the 28-300 is
tempting as I like to shoot wildlife, birds, etc., I'm afraid I will
miss the wide end of the 18-200.

To have just 42mm as the widest isn't going to work for me, and I'd
like to travel with just one lens.

No really wide-ratio zoom is likely to be as sharp as any of the best zooms
of much shorter zoom ratio; that's just the nature of the beast and reflects
the compromises that zoom lens designers have to make. I have always found
my Nikon 18-200mm VR to be sharp enough for my purposes when I just want to
take an all-in-one lens, and I expect most other users would agree.

You might want to look into the Tamron 18-270mm VC. I got one of these not
long ago and really like it a lot, maybe better than the Nikon lens.
According to DPReview's lens tests it is generally better than the 18-200mm
Nikkor, especially wide open at or near the long end which is important for
your purposes (wildlife, etc.). The Nikkor is slightly better wide open at
the short end, but stopped down to f/8 the Tamron again is just a hair
better. Note that I have not compared my two lenses side by side, I'm just
going by DPR's tests but they seem to comport with my experience with both
lenses.

Tamron's VC seems to me at least as good as Nikon's VR and probably better
(don't know about VR II since my 18-200 Nikkor is the original VR).

Again, these two lenses (11x and 15x zoom range respectively) are not ever
likely to be as sharp over their zoom ranges as a good 3x or so zoom lens.
The Tamron seems the better lens optically but the difference is not great.
If you were dissatisfied with the sharpness of your Nikon 18-200 (unless you
just got a really bad one, which is a possibility), I question whether you
would be happy with *any* wide-ratio zoom.

I'm curious to know exactly *how* you found the lens unsharp. Was it only at
some particular focal lengths or apertures, or in every shot? Was it unsharp
when using flash? Have you tried shooting some detailed, high-contrast
subject from a solid tripod, with VR turned OFF?

What I'm getting at is that you need to test the lens itself on the camera,
not the lens *together with* your shooting technique. If there is some fault
with the latter, no new lens is likely to give you better results.