lightheir wrote:tibbitts wrote:midareff wrote:The best one lens for Nikon, Canon, Fuji, Oly, etc., would be in the an 18-200 range which both Canon and Nikon have. Fuji has an 18-135 for that area. On APS-C, which it seems you are using, it covers an effective Full Frame equivalent range of 28 to 300 or so mm. It is the best one lens solution to varied needs and has some drawbacks inherent in a lens fits all situation.
On the other hand it is a great starting place for a novice to low intermediate SLR user. When you develop you interestes further you will see what your interests are and what suits your needs better.
I still don't get the love for 18-200 when 16-300 and 18-300s are out there and just not that much bigger/heavier. I can see arguing, for example, that the lower fringing problems with the 18-300 sigma would make it preferable vs. the tamron for some people, or even people preferring the 18-300 nikon because of what might be a slight edge in overall performance - or just that it's a nikon. But there's a big difference between a 300mm equivalent (200mm) and 450mm (300mm) and hardly any disadvantage to the extra range.
Weight, price, and photo quality. Sure, the differences are small, but for example, I can easily tell the superior sharpness and superior bokeh effects (much superior, actually) of my prime 50mm lens compared to my 18-200 Tamron, even at the exact same settings. I was wondering why my results always looked 'not quite' as good as what I saw in the magazines, until I went to the prime, and it was really 'ok, THERE it is!'
I never thought I'd be the kind of person who cared enough about that level of detail, but when I saw my friend's fixed lens photos compared to my zoom, despite no flash and same camera body, and no special techniques (mostly casuals and portrait-type stuff) the first thing I thought was "why are his photos slightly better?"
The 200-300 zoom range lens is pretty excessive for an all-around lens as well. At that level of zoom, you're sacrificing a lot of sharpness, and also really should be considering using a tripod for stability. I'd actually say the same for the 18-200, having bought that first myself and realizing now how much more useful and all-around the 50 prime is, but looks like most folks here are convinced that a zoom is what they want and need. Without a tripod, I actually suspect even my zoomed shots would look better had I gone with a 50 prime and just zoomed in on it with a digital zoom, due to the added blur from camera motion with that degree of zoom.
Nobody will dispute that fixed focal length lenses are, generally, better performing than zooms. Or that shorter-range zooms (from the same era) generally outperform longer-range zooms. Or that the difference is more noticeable on a newer body with 24mp, vs. an older one with 6mp.
Perhaps equally importantly, from my experience with about a dozen zoom lenses, I believe that zooms have more manufacturing sample variation than fixed focal length lenses. Many purchasers aren't interested in discriminating between design limitations and poor assembly, so when someone says they replaced a zoom with a fixed focal length lens and got "sharper" results (as opposed to better bokeh due to a larger aperture, for example), that might be partly a case of having a poor copy of the zoom.
As for the 18-200 tamron, if it's the lens I'm thinking of, it's a ten-year-old design, and doesn't have vibration reduction, so it's not really comparable to modern superzooms.
The advantage of fixed focal length lenses is generally diminished by a couple of factors: stopping down, and emphasizing the center of the frame. I find that I want fairly good sharpness across the frame, but usually need apertures where sharpness is going to be diffraction-limited anyway, and yes, I usually use a tripod. Many other people are concerned more about center sharpness, particularly at the long end of the range, and in that respect zooms are more competitive with similar-grade fixed focal length lenses.
Obviously there are reasons why people spend many thousands of dollars for fixed focal length lenses, and the very longest focal lengths aren't generally where superzooms shine. But I see no evidence that 18-200mm lenses generally outperform 18-300mms (which are typically newer designs, incorporating newer optical designs, coatings, and VR.) So my comments were more about 18-200 vs. 16/18-300, than about comparisons with fixed focal length lenses, although I find it interesting that some people find zooms more disappointing than I do. I started with all fixed-focal-length lenses, and then went with a mix of fixed and zoom. Now I have (almost) only zooms, and haven't looked back.