TAMRON 18-200mm Lens B018N F / 3.5-6.3 Di II VC Black - Mount for Nikon

I am an enthusiast photographer who simply enjoys his hobby and have been fortunate to be able to afford my equipment for 40 years or so. I also enjoy travel, but due to retiring early I find that I have to compromise now when I purchase equipment to get the best "bang per buck". Whilst I have enjoyed my travel photography both near and far, it has become more of a challenge due to the changes in security home and abroad and the restrictions in cabin hand luggage weight. Combine this with the fact that carrying my preferred kit of sigma 10-20, either canon prime 40mm or 50mm and canon 55-250 lenses when on a city tour has become more of a chore, primarily weight but compounded by the fact that my bag was searched recently on 4 occasions during a trip to Genoa in a single morning. Drastic action was required, either purchase one of the excellent small cameras available (but high priced) or purchase a generic lens of mixed focal length which I could fit on one of my two APS-C cameras, a 550d and a 750d; the former mainly used now for macro work.I looked at three lenses, this Tamron and its non stabilised 11 year old predecessor at £99.99 (fantastic value), and the Canon 18-135. I liked the Tamron budget lens, but compared to the optics on this lens, it really is worth the extra £60.00 for the quality alone, let alone the stabilisation, which its predecessor does not possess. I really felt that the Canon lens suited my purposes well and the image quality and speed of focus I thought were better than this lens and it also focussed more quietly, but it was over £100 more and so I purchased this lens from Jessops at a slightly higher price than Amazon; they let me test it side by side with the canon in their shop and gave me some advice, so I felt duty bound to purchase after taking advantage of them.So what is it like in use? Well it is a compromise, like all zoom lenses. It weighs in at 400g and I found it quite a weight, but not exceptionally so. What is nice is the stabilisation works very well (similar fitted to my Tamron 150-600), it does focus plenty quick enough for my needs and zooms quickly and easily whilst automatically refocussing; much quicker on the 750d than the 550d, but if you own an older camera do not let this put you off. I particularly like the fact that you can lock the focal length as this is a weighty lens and when carrying it around, it does extend to its full focal length when pointing downwards. I tend to lock it at either a fixed length or 18mm when I am not using it as it is more compact.In terms of image quality, at either end of the focal lengths, there is some deterioration in image quality, but if it is a choice of getting the image or not, I can accept the loss of quality; around the range 25-190 I found it fine; multiplied of course by 1.6 as it is an APS-C lens. Is there any other negatives about the lens? Not really, it is a budget lens, it is well manufactured, it does produce sharp(ish) images which provided that they are not enlarged hugely produces crisp enough images, is a great compromise over carrying four lenses; I now carry either this and my sigma 10-20 or canon 40 or 50mm prime lenses now and w my Canon 55-250 is kept in its case; it is a Mk1 and whilst it has provided me with good service, it is not as quick or quiet as this lens.I can heartily recommend this lens having used it for just over 6 months and have used it on a session in my local town and also at a nature reserve as an adjunct to my 150-600 on a tripod. Simply a great all round lens and well worth the money.Update +++ unfortunately I damaged my original lens and purchased again as the "kit lens of choice" for my new Canon 80d, this time from Amazon at the increased price of £179.00.

After owning this lens for over a year now I can honestly say that its a good lens and I find myself reaching for this lens the most.ProsNice long focal rangeQuite lightweight and comfortable to useComes with a lens hoodEasy to zoom with a smooth motion5 year warrantyMuch cheaper than other well known brandsConsSometimes takes a little while to too focus on things at maximum zoom rangeNothing else that I can think ofOverall would I buy it again? Yes I would buy it again and I have recommended it to a lot of other people

The Tamron 18-200mm Lens B018N F / 3.5-6.3 Di II VC Black is a very useful lens.I bought this as a walkabout lens, it gives a reasonable range on a crop sensor camera (This is not suitable for a full frame camera) And it is very cheap for what you get.Is it perfect? No but you would not expect it to be on a sub £170 lens. What it gives you is versatility, the ability to do wide angle shots and to zoom in close when required. It doesn't have the fastest focus but it is not a slouch by any means. The focus will hunt, especially if you are close looking a something thin, an insect on a thin branch for example, it will try to hunt further back. I get around this by manually focusing enough to get the object central and then let the AF take over and that seems to work.Picture quality is a little soft, but you can use that, if you look at the photo's I have added this will give you an impression of what it is capable of.If you are on a budget this is a good walk about lens, there won't be many situations that this lens won't cover. It is not suitable for sports due to focus speed, and low light light can be a little challenging but not insurmountable.Over all I have enjoyed this lens, it has a few minor short comings, but fun to use and it makes you think about the photo you are taking and so improves you as a photographer in my opinion.Recommended for those like me on a budget

I have only put approximately 10,000 photo's through the lens. So far I have had very consistent performance from the lens which is all I ask. I have used Tamron lenses for decades and never regretted it. It's a lovely 'tight' lens; very compact and feels really good. The auto-focus knurl is nice and small (so it does not catch on supports). BTW the Nikon back-up batteries I bought from Amazon years ago (see elsewhere for review) are absolutely superb. I have easily put 100, 000 photos through them and they still act as if they are new. One very happy customer.

what a fantastic lens for the money the focus is pin sharp and the VR is absolutely fantastic the focal range make it a good walk around lens that replaced 2 of my Nikon lenses. Would I recommend this lens the answer to that is a definite YES . Update had the lens a few months now and this lens has continued to impress me the quality of the pictures I am getting are fantastic they are just so sharp this has become my lens of choice for most occasions . A fantastic all round lens well worth the money .

It is a very good lens outdoor. The images are as sharp as Nikon at low magnification. However, at higher mag (over 100mm) the light tend to drop quickly, hence shutter speed drops and good quality pictures can become tricky to gather. It is more true when light gets darker, and forget about using it at night. Autofocus works well when amount of light is enough, again, darker it gets, more strangly it acts. the motor will step up and down in a funny way and never get the focus correctly. It is worth the money as the Nikon equivalent is 2.5x the price, and i'm not sure it would get better quality anyway as it is tricky for lenses 18-200/18-300 types to be efficient all the way.