Sony SAL-18200 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DT Aspherical Autofocus Lens

Comments about Sony SAL-18200 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DT Aspherical Autofocus Lens:

Everything is fine, optical quality is fine.
Only one thing : why Sony has stopped the motorisation of zoom, as the old Minolta Xi range?

Comments about Sony SAL-18200 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DT Aspherical Autofocus Lens:

Having purchased the Sony Alpha DSLR-SLT-A55 Digital Camera, I find this lens to be the perfect companion for almost all photography. It's light weight goes along with the camera's lighter weight to make it a perfect travel companion, and the lens with a true wide angle 28mm zooms to 300 mm to cover almost any photo situation.

Comments about Sony SAL-18200 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DT Aspherical Autofocus Lens:

- I wanted to upgrade the kit lens on my Sony Alpha 500; this was the perfect step-up!
- I shoot mostly portraits and candid shots, but for travel I wanted a better lens for landscapes. This lens can do both. I even used it today for some spectacular shots of race horses! It's a great, versatile lens.

Comments about Sony SAL-18200 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DT Aspherical Autofocus Lens:

I wrote the review just below and I want to correct what I've learned after extensive head-to-head testing of this lens against the Sony 18-250 which is supposed to be so much sharper. On a tripod, triggered by a cable, autofocused on a landscape at infinity, and camera settings the same, the Sony 18-200 produces sharpness that is EXACTLY THE SAME as the Sony 18-250 at all zooms. There is NO difference whatsoever in 100% crops. But since the 18-250 is often sharper at less than infinity, it must be that the autofocus on the 18-250 is superior at mid ranges. It's not the optics.

Comments about Sony SAL-18200 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DT Aspherical Autofocus Lens:

This is my only lens for a Sony Alpha 100. I've had them both for two years. I love not missing shots because I might have the wrong lens on the camera and I love not carrying around a camera bag. This lens is always the right length, or close enough to fix later.

But since I do a lot of landscape and wildlife work, and even 200mm is not always enough to make a bird fill the frame, for example, I end up cropping and resizing afterward to enlarge it. 100% crops are always quite soft compared to pictures I see online taken with primes (although they are more expensive and less versatile). I've done enough research to prove the camera is not the problem, nor is the image stabilization introducing blur. Shots on a tripod with stab off are still soft. It's the lens. So I'm ordering a DT18250 to get the extra sharpness reviews say it has even though the 18-200 will not bring much on resale. Its lack of sharpness bothers me that much.

But on the subject of lens creep, who cares? Yes, once in a while it creeps when walking along with the lens pointed down, which is an unnatural carry orientation I think. It balances at about thirty degrees off level and does not creep there. Regardless of that, who has arms so long that a lens creeping out an inch or two could cause it to scrape something?

Another nice thing about this lens is freedom from sensor dust. The last time this lens was off my camera was two years ago when I put it on for the first time and you can't get the sensor dusty if you never change lenses.

Focus is very slow compared to Nikon, for example, but it almost always works in three seconds or less even in quite low light. In very, very low light it sometimes will not lock at all... so I switch to Manual and focus it. It's not like life as we know it is over if we have to focus manually, is it? This is a slow lens for no-flash, indoor, very low-light work, but it will work if you hold your breath, maybe lean against something and do a little post-process work to brighten dark areas. I took about 200 pictures inside a plantation house on a dark, rainy day where flash was not allowed and about 3/4 of my pictures were fixable. So this is far from just an outdoor, sunny day lens. It just requires more work sometimes.

All in all, if you mostly print and rarely crop, this lens will do you just fine as your only one. The only thing PhotoShop can't fix is its blurriness if you enlarge. If that's your game, this is the wrong lens.

Comments about Sony SAL-18200 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DT Aspherical Autofocus Lens:

I bought this glass as a replacement to the useless 18-70mm Kit lens for my Sony A300. Immediately I started noticing the sharpness in day light.

I found this lens to be extremely useful for beginners (Me being one) as it is a multi-purpose lens covering Wide-Telephoto range. It should be the first upgrade for any entry level photographer. There is a learning curve to DSLR photography and this lens is the best to help you experiment and understand the physics.

After using it extensively for a year and getting a good grip on the subject, I started to realize its limitations. First up it's Noisy! You will notice this when shooting indoor/low light conditions. Which brings to the second issue. Its Slow! with F3.5 it just manages to get decent results in low-light/indoor situations provided you have a steady hand and the subject is still.

Having said that, it does an incredible job for day-light shooting. Image quality is far superior to the kit lens. If you are an entry level photographer with a kit lens, this is your next upgrade. However if you plan to use it for indoor/low-light photography, then you might want to look elsewhere or get an external flash.

Comments about Sony SAL-18200 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 DT Aspherical Autofocus Lens:

I purchased the lens as an all purpose outdoor photog lens. I pricipally shoot land/sea scapes, flowers, birds in flight, etc. With this lens I see a definate improvement over the 70mm kit lens that came with the camera. I'm also quite happy with my "macro" flower shots. I didn't expect such clarity. It's in this area that the lens has exceeded expectations.