Camera Labs

Hi everyone

Please advice me on buying lens for my camera Nikon D300s. I am considering Tamron 18-200 mm f/3.5-6.3 (IF) Di II Aspherical lens for my
camera. Any reviews on this ?
Thank you,
Kooler1

Is this your first lens you are buying or do you have other lenses?

I don't know much about the quality of Tamron lenses, but from what i read it's a 3 out of 5 star lens.
Due to it's Aperture, you won't be able to shoot at low light. I heard that focusing at low light is hard for the lens too. Images turn out to be blurry. You lose optical quality due to the huge range of focal length of 18-200mm and the f/3.5-6.3 Apaerture. You cannot fit everything in a lens and expect to have awesome quality.

It really depends what you want to use this lens for. Each lens has it's purpose and performs best at what it's designed for.

If you only intend to use this lens for daylight-, travelling- or holiday photography and you wish to carry around almost 500g of lens, then go for it.

_________________
Nikon D90, 18-105mm kit Lens
Nikon 10 mm - 24 mm - f/3.5-4.5 G ED AF-S DX
Nikon macro 105 mm - f/2.8 G ED-IF AF-S VR
Nikon 35mm f/1.8 DX
Nikon 50mm f/1.4G
Manfrotto Tripod + Ballring
B+W Pol Filter 67mm & B+W Käsemann MRC Pollfilter 77mm, Step up rings

Thank you for your advised with regards to Tamron lens. You are right, I and my friends are planning to have a
holiday in Spain and France. And I was thinking of camera lens, of general use and don't need to be remove or
be change frequent. Meaning less changing of lens.
My other lens is Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D

Kooler1

This is not a great lens, optically, but it is versatile. My wife likes this lens. She accepts the distortion at each end of the zoom range, in exchange for not being compelled to change lenses. My wife's employer, a medical examiner's office, issued her this this lens, along with a Nikon D300s, several years ago. When the rules were changed, to allow her to use a personally-owned Nikon camera, I bought her a D7000, and she wanted to continue using a Tamron 18-200mm Di II, so I bought this lens, too. The images shot with this lens are used for official evidentiary purposes.

As with any zoom lens that covers such an extensive focal length range, there is "barrel" distortion at the wide end, and "pincushion" distortion at the long end. It is best to avoid each end of the range, for the best images.

There is a review of this lens in the review section of the Cameralabs web site, along with reviews of the Sigma and Nikon 18-200mm lenses. These reviews convinced me to try buying a pre-owned Tamron 18-200mm to fit the Canon cameras I use at work. When I later bought my 7D, which was packaged with a 28-135mm kit lens, I stopped using the Tamron 18-200mm in low light, as the Canon 28-135mm auto-focuses more quickly in low-light conditions, and 135mm is usually sufficient at the long end of the zoom range.

_________________
Canon 7D/5D/40D/1D2N; Nikon F6, FM3A, & Coolpix A; Canon 40mm Pancake, 135L, 50L, 35L, pre-II 50mm 1.8, 100mm 2.8L Macro, 10-22mm EF-S, 28-135 EF, 400mm 5.6L; Nikkor 50mm 1.2 AI-S, 50mm 1.4G, 50mm 1.8D, 16mm 2.8D Fisheye, 180mm 2.8D, 100-300mm 5.6 AI-S; Tokina 17mm & 100mm 2.8 Macro