18-200 VR distortion and softness

[posez]

"You will love it if you want to travel light"

haha...today I spent the day with my new lens around my neck...and boy was it heavy!

I guess it is lighter than the total of my old 18-55 plus 70-210 together....but it sure is heavier than my 18-55 by itself..

Hopefully my neck muscles will get stronger as a result

Thanks all...

I really just wanted to make sure the particular lens I had wasn't showing worse than normal distortion.

I'll keep playing around with it and try to work it with its sharpest apertures.

Does anyone have a link to a 'table' that lists the max aperture to use (to get sharpest image) for particular focal length?

many thanks all! Happy Easter!

Satz

That's the spirit! I guess you must know your tools and why you use particular lenses. This is one of the most highly rated Nikkors on the market at the moment, and definitely the most highly in demand worldwide - waiting list is up to 8 months in some parts of the world. There is definitely a reason for that. Cheers!

 

[xxxger]

you cannot expect too much from the 18-200 lar
you cannot all want lor : cheap + green + big lor ...

 

[looka]

"You will love it if you want to travel light"

haha...today I spent the day with my new lens around my neck...and boy was it heavy!

I guess it is lighter than the total of my old 18-55 plus 70-210 together....but it sure is heavier than my 18-55 by itself..

Hopefully my neck muscles will get stronger as a result

Thanks all...

I really just wanted to make sure the particular lens I had wasn't showing worse than normal distortion.

I'll keep playing around with it and try to work it with its sharpest apertures.

Does anyone have a link to a 'table' that lists the max aperture to use (to get sharpest image) for particular focal length?

many thanks all! Happy Easter!

Satz

This is the first Lens I bought with my D200. It is the best known walk-around Lens. Below are something I found about this Lens.

Distortion:
24mm Normal
18-23mm Barrel
25-200mmm pincushion

Sharpness:
50mm All f-stop excellent
18-50mm 5.6-16 very good
50-200mm 8-11 very good

Contrast:
Nothing to worry about, this Lens seem to design for it.

Fare:
Not finding this a problem to this Lens unless someone pointing a laser light into your Lens. I found a f*&^ e#$% did that.

Remark:
one strange thing about this Lens is its centre sharpness at all aperature throughout its range is very good except for corner you need to step down 1-2 stop to even out.

For low light I have 50/1.8 and 70-210/4. Many have ask me to buy 70-200VR but how many time I will use it. From my Minolta time I have 70-210/4, 80-200/2.8G and 70-200/2.8SSM. I brough 70-210 for travel, 80-200/2.8 only 4 time over 2 years of use and 70-200SSM I haven't even open its box. Now all were sold. So my point is unless you going to use the Lens 20% more on your photo shooting it is going to be a poor investment.

 

[lsisaxon]

"You will love it if you want to travel light"

haha...today I spent the day with my new lens around my neck...and boy was it heavy!

I guess it is lighter than the total of my old 18-55 plus 70-210 together....but it sure is heavier than my 18-55 by itself..

many thanks all! Happy Easter!

Satz

If you carry lenses like 17-55/2.8, 28-70/2.8, 70-200/2.8VR or 80-200/2.8, you will find that this lens is extremely light!! ;p

Happy Easter to all too!

 

[CT 3833]

Satz,
I have the same 18-200 mmVR, so far no complaints. But frankly, have been contemplating to get 17-55mm. Ultimately, we got to be realistic, this is a multi-purpose lens, which consider reasonably good in many aspect.

But if you are in-search for better photo quality, then it all depends on whether you are prepared to bear with the inconvenience of carrying more lens, at heavier weight, shorter zoom coverage, having to change lens at times, much higher price......so only you yourself have the answer, but i dont think the lens has any flaws.

 

[wind30]

the distortion looks REALLY bad. Considering the 18mm probably the most used focal length of the 18-200... kind of sucks if you have to correct most of your 18mm shots.

That is why I never got the 18-200 or seens the need to. I think a 12-24mm f4 tokina and 85mm f1.8 nikkor is probably much better. Around the same price. Not much heavier. The only thing is you have to change lens but I think the output is much better.

 

[Kit]

The barrel distortion might be bad but it can be avoided if you know how to frame your subjects carefully.

 

[wind30]

The barrel distortion might be bad but it can be avoided if you know how to frame your subjects carefully.

if you have to frame your subjects to avoid lens distortion.... kind of takes the fun and creativity out of photography.

 

[Kit]

if you have to frame your subjects to avoid lens distortion.... kind of takes the fun and creativity out of photography.

The way you work around constraints your equipment imposes on you actually reflects how creative you can get.

 

[theRBK]

if 18mm is the most used part of the lens, get an extreme wide angle lens as complement... a 10-20 or a 12-24...

and to cover the rest of the range, like what others have said, just stop down the aperture to f8...if exposure is too dark just increase ISO

 

[photoboy]

Satz24,

It is a known fact that this lens has quite a bit of barrel distortion on the wide end.
Even 17-55 has barrel distortion.

You are not going to shoot wall pictures all the time. In the normal use you would not notice the barrel distortion.

It is a pretty good lens for most purpose especially when you are travelling. You would really appreciate that you have a light gear.

Moreover the VR is really a saver. How else can you get a reasonably sharp photo on a night shot without tripod. Attached is a photo taken handheld at 1/20 sec, set at 20mm on a very cold windy night (minus 8 deg).

Don't feel despair by the barrel distortion. Go out and use this lens.

 

[aq12345]

Well, Firstly, the 18-200mm lens, or any other with large focal length range, usually do not have optimum optical quality. These lenses are mainly for convenience, like going on a trip, you can't possibly switch between your 18-70 and 70-200 just to take a picture. However, for professionals who really need the optical quality and low distortion rate, they'll go for something likee 17-55mm and 70-200mm with f/2.8. These lenses cost much more, but give great quality.

Well, Think on the bright side. Use this lens for traveling, and use it to take good subjects. Well, i don't think photo competition judges will care about a slight distortion if your subjecct is :thumbsup:

Good luck!

 

[ryuggen]

Satz24,

It is a known fact that this lens has quite a bit of barrel distortion on the wide end.
Even 17-55 has barrel distortion.

You are not going to shoot wall pictures all the time. In the normal use you would not notice the barrel distortion.

It is a pretty good lens for most purpose especially when you are travelling. You would really appreciate that you have a light gear.

Moreover the VR is really a saver. How else can you get a reasonably sharp photo on a night shot without tripod. Attached is a photo taken handheld at 1/20 sec, set at 20mm on a very cold windy night (minus 8 deg).

Don't feel despair by the barrel distortion. Go out and use this lens.

Quite agree with photoboy.

Unless you love tho shoot straight lines or walls, 18-200vr is a very good lens.
VR is a gift such that night shots are possible on hand held.

Personally, I feel this lens takes a more artist mind to pick it up. Engineering minds will stay away.

 

[lsisaxon]

Quite agree with photoboy.

Unless you love tho shoot straight lines or walls, 18-200vr is a very good lens.
VR is a gift such that night shots are possible on hand held.

Personally, I feel this lens takes a more artist mind to pick it up. Engineering minds will stay away.

I am an engineer and I know how difficult it is to get such a super zoom to this kind of optical quality. Architects are probably the people who will not buy this. Then again, if the use photoshop...... that might be a different story.. Then again... they might probably just hire a photographer to do it.

 

[Scaglietti]

IMO, the test shot by the TS is not a very good representation of the distortion at 18mm. There is an added element of perspective distortion over the lens distortion as I expect the subject to quite close to the lens. Try it out by shooting a larger object with straight lens at a further distance. This will minimise the perspective distortion and evaluation just the lens distortion.

BC

 

[lsisaxon]

IMO, the test shot by the TS is not a very good representation of the distortion at 18mm. There is an added element of perspective distortion over the lens distortion as I expect the subject to quite close to the lens. Try it out by shooting a larger object with straight lens at a further distance. This will minimise the perspective distortion and evaluation just the lens distortion.

BC

 

[ihub88]

ya. the distrotion looks bad here.

 

[jem777vbk]

Unless you are doing lots of architectural shooting that requires straight straight lines, or portraiture, the distortion is not recommended. In any case you won't be using such lens for that specialised area.

For general shoots with the range of zoom and VR, I guess at 18mm it is acceptable. Just use PS lens correction filter.

Eh, trying tooooo hard to find faults with the lens will make you a very unhappy person.

 

[lsisaxon]

ya. the distrotion looks bad here.

For a lens like this, I would deem it acceptable.. I find those higher order distortions from some other 3rd party lenses worse because they are much harder to correct and looks very unnatural. Those are what I call bad. If you really think about it, you can't even buy 2/3 of the 18/2.8 with the money you pay for this lens and how many prime focal lengths you can cover with it.. 18, 20, 24, 28, 35, 50, 85, 105, 135, 180, 200. Worth it? I think it still is.

As long as your pictures are aesthetically pleasing, no one will care about the technical imperfections. Unlike some distortions that warps people's faces etc.. It would be a different story if the lens is used for technical photography where you are using the images to do measurements, or in architecture, etc... You need to pay for what you want. Learn to manage your own expectations.

 

[theRBK]

ya. the distrotion looks bad here.

if you want to minimise the effect, can try DxO Optics Pro ...it works great cause it takes into account the particular distortion of each lens modal at different focal length on each camera model and adjusts to reduce distortion... works only on RAW files...