Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Anyone use this lens??
Opinions good or bad??

I'm looking for an all-around good lens for walk-arounds.
Went down to Vegas recently with my D200 and 18-70 and found a lot of situations where I needed something longer for distant mountain landscape shots. I'd just like to have a "travel" lens I can always keep attached, and not have to change off constantly depending on the situation.

Any suggestions/comments?

I have one with my D200 and it's a decent travel lens. Even with VR you need a lot of light to get good exposure and the high ISO support of the D200 doesn't help.

I've pretty much moved to using the 35 f/2 and the 70-30VR as my go to kit although I'm debating if I should bring along my 18-200 on my upcoming trip to Portugal.

Its good, but not very good.
The quality on the 18-70mm is on par/better than 18-200mm.

If you're going to have 2 lens, get a 70-300.
If you hate changing lens, the 18-200mm is perfect for you.

It's not really that I hate changing lenses, just when I'm travelling I prefer to bring a smaller carry-on...and when that's already stuffed with my GPS, my point-and-shoot, and whatever other electronic junk I need to bring on the plane, carrying a secondary lens isn't the best option for me.

This is also my dilemma. I'll be interested in what you decide and how it works out for you.

just recently bought this lens for IR only and for travel when my wife complain about how big are my d3, 24 70 and 70 200.

Still have the D70s to use this very light for travel

http://tvdphoto.com/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=8664&g2_serialNumber=2

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We really enjoy our copies. It lacks the fast aperture of other zooms but when the versatility of a single, all-purpose lens is most important, this is the lens to take.

Just noticed that the Sigma lenses with similar specs/characteristics is significantly cheaper.

Is there a noticable difference in quality verses the OE Nikon lenses??
I know the old saying "you get what you pay for" ... but will a lens that doubled in price be twice as good?

In my option, yes, the Nikon is worth the extra money.

1) The Nikon has VR which is exceptionally useful, especially in an all-purpose lens that reaches out to 200mm.

2) The aperture of the Nikon can open to f/5.6 at 200mm compared to the Sigma's f/6.3. While not a big difference, if you find yourself shooting in low light you'll be happy for every extra bit of aperture you can get.