Nikkor 18-200mm introduction

The Nikkor AF-S DX VR 18-200mm 3.5-5.6G IF-ED was announced in November 2005 as an all-round 11.1x zoom lens, ideal for a wide variety of situations from landscape to wildlife photography. As a DX-format lens, it's exclusively designed for use with Nikon-mount digital SLRs, which includes the D50, D70s, D200, D2Hs and D2X. It is not compatible with 35mm film cameras.

The lens delivers a long 11.1x optical zoom ratio with an equivalent focal range of 27-300mm on a 35mm body. This offers wide angle to decent telephoto coverage which for many people will be all they'll ever need.

The optical design consists of 16 elements in 12 groups with two ED and three aspherical lens elements. Quick and quiet focusing is provided by a Silent Wave Motor, SWM, while Nikon's latest VR II (vibration reduction) technology claims up to four stops of compensation - that's the ability to handold shutter speeds 16 times slower than normal.

In this review we'll take an in-depth look at the Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens and compare it against the considerably more affordable competition from Sigma and Tamron. The Nikkor may be the only one of the three with VR, but with costing £549 compared to £269 for the Sigma or £274 for the Tamron (Jessops UK prices) is it really worth twice the money?

NEW: For an overview of the headline features of this lens, see our Nikkor 18-200mm video tour.

NEW: Check out our Nikkor kit lens group test which compares the DX 18-55mm, DX 18-70mm, DX 18-135mm and the DX 18-200mm VR, complete with a video tour around all four Nikkor lenses.


Testing notes

To see what each lens was capable of we tested them using Nikon's high-end D2X body. The serial number of the Nikkor lens tested was 2005489.