Good glass
A while back I got myself a Nikon D40. After my trip to Peru decided that a better, longer lens was in order. The stock lens that came with the D40 is an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 which is great but noticeably not up to the task of shooting candid street shots or wide angle landscapes. I’m not a fan of carrying multiple lenses while hiking or climbing and having to change them in awkward situations so I really wanted a single lens for all occasions – a “superzoom”.
After some hunting around I came to the conclusion a Nikon 18-200 mm F/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF DX VR Lens was in order. There’s lots of info on the web about this lens and the general consensus is that it’s about as good as your going to get with a superzoom. Getting two lenses to cover the same range is cheaper and will not face the compromises inherent in a superzoom but obviously doesn’t meet my one lens requirement.
I ordered the 18-200 from RitzCamera.com (no tax and no shipping) expecting it to take a couple months to arrive as Nikon haven’t been able to meet but amazingly it took less than ten days! I got lucky and placed my order the same day Ritz received theirs.
My initial impression and results are very positive. The lens feels solid and has no zoom creep issues. It’s a lot heavier than the 18-55mm stock lens but I’m OK with that, if I want to go really light I can take the original lens.
You can see a bunch of the pictures I’ve taken so far in the travel gallery. I spent the weekend at Harstene Island taking pictures. My only real negative observation is that the D40’s vivid saturation mode overdoes the red in some cases but the lens really delivered and the VR feature certainly helps at slow shutter speeds.
