AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II

Love the versatility and performance of the lens. Truly, this lens will do it all. Hate that the lens extends automatically when it´s pointed down. It just slides out, making the camera unwieldy, and losing the last zoom position. This is a known defect that Nikon has apparently not corrected. A shame. Because, otherwise, this is a great lens.

unfortunately, i cannot recommend this particular Nikon Lens. it is not sharp, and mine has been in repair 4 times now for various reasons.
love all of my other Nikon Lenses but this one, misses the boat.

The lens is great with one annoying matter. When held or carried in a downward slant, the lens slides to readily. Other zooms are built to restrain such movement while still providing easy manual zooming. It is especially problematic on tripod mounted shooting where an angle is required (closeup of objects or scenes that need an angle of view).

Good all around lens if you´re only going to carry one around.

Pros - I find the lens VG in color, contrast and sharpness. Quick focus in AF mode.

Cons - Lens ´´zoom creep´´ is unacceptable for a Nikon product. When carrying the lens on shoulder or pointed downward, the zoom creeps outward to longer focal length, due to weight of glass. Very annoying and uncomfortable, A cam to prevent the zoom creep should be given consideration by engineers.
The supplied petal sun shade has a weak twist locking configuration, causing the shade to easily disengage from the lens, especially when under run-and gun shooting.
Built in flash not high enough when shooting at minimum focal length, causing image cutoff.

Other than that, the lens performs very well. I´d recommend this lens with the above caveats.

The Nikkor 18-200 VRll is my work horse lens.
It is mounted on my D300 and is my favourite lens unless I´m doing macro or long telephoto.
It does have one annoying drawback...
When pointed down it ´´creeps´´ at a rapid pace.
You must use one hand to hold the lens at the distance setting you select.

Lens was not very sharp when new. Soon developed a ´´failure to focus´´ when zoomed past about 80mm. Sent it in to Nikon for warranty repair. It stayed fixed at the normal mediocre level for another year and then dropped back into the ´´failure to focus when zoomed´´ mode.

By now it is out of warranty and I conclude I don´t like the lens well enough to try for another fix.

Love the lens! Spent too much time switching back and forth with my other lenses. Now I can do all my work with one, convenient lens. I´m sure that there are other Nikon lenses that might be of better quality for sports etc. but this is the best lens for the average serious amateur.

Nikon has always produced excellent and robust cameras and lenses. Not so with this 18 - 200mm VR lens. Although the action is smooth and the optics pretty good, once zoomed out to 200mm the barrel is quite sloppy, moving a few mm from side to side. When the camera is held pointing downwards, the sloppy lens barrel will allow the zoom action to move towards 200mm by itself. The VR mechanism also seems suspect as both a friend and myself have had to have the VR mechanism replaced.