My Canon 18-200 IS will be here today !!!!!!!!!!

Well, I struggled a bit. I thought about getting the 70-200 f4L, then I thought about the 55-250 to match my kit lens. After years of carrying around heavy, expensive gear I really wanted a one lens solution, besides I could always add primes later if I feel I need more speed. Did I make a mistake, I don't think so: This will be a lens that always has a purpose and always has a use and will be the most versatile item in my arsenal, plus the next time I go out and about I won't have to carry a bag, I won't have to worry about switching lenses, I finally just be able to concentrate on what matter most, the art of photography.

wStudios said:

Well, I struggled a bit. I thought about getting the 70-200 f4L, then I thought about the 55-250 to match my kit lens. After years of carrying around heavy, expensive gear I really wanted a one lens solution, besides I could always add primes later if I feel I need more speed. Did I make a mistake, I don't think so: This will be a lens that always has a purpose and always has a use and will be the most versatile item in my arsenal, plus the next time I go out and about I won't have to carry a bag, I won't have to worry about switching lenses, I finally just be able to concentrate on what matter most, the art of photography.

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--
Yogi

When you get down to the nuts and bolts of photography, the results depend on the 'nut' behind the camera!

See the 'Plan' in my 'Profile' for my current equipment.

Good on you wStudios. Look forward to seeing your pics. With fewer lens changes, hopefully it means less frequent sensor cleans. I've clocked up about 1000 shots with my XSi 18-200IS kit and still dust free (as far as I can tell). Enjoy.

I have followed your other posts, and will look out for future posts to see how you fare with your new lens. As I am sure many others will on this forum. Pretty convinced (from your previous posts) that you will prove once again that its the photographer, not the gear, that takes good photos. Its so tempting just to carry the camera with one lens attached and face what may come. Good luck with your new toy.
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Pro 1 XSi Please bear with me. I am a slow learner.

Thanks for the kind comments.

It's raining here, so i won't have any samples until the weekend, but I do plan on doing a thorough 'average joe' (no MTF charts, no soup cans or brick walls, just good old fashion pictures) review of the lens.

My initial impressions of the lens:

I was very surprised by the build, feel, and design. My expectations from looking at pictures of the lens itself on the web is that it was 'plasticky' and fankly a little 'unattractive'. It's amazing how the web can fool the eye as out-of-the-box I found that the lens has a very nice build, in fact it's one of the nicest 'consumer' lenses I have ever held in the hand. It's hard to describe without holding one - but the finish, materials, large 72mm front element and thick rubber zoom ring amount to a lens that feels well above it's price point in design. It's attractive, it looks good mounted to the XSI.

Focusing. My only tests were conducted indoors, but I found the focusing snappy and rather quiet at both ends (18mm and 200mm) of the lens. Focus lock was achieved as fast as I could press the shutter and focus accuracy (the more time is needed) was spot on each and every time. If I haven't read that it wasn't ring USM, I honestly wouldn't have known the difference.

Optics. Again, I need to do some outdoor tests to fully evaluate the lens, but to my eye the lens produced sharp, colorful, and contrasty images at both ends of the lens (18mm and 200mm). I couldn't find any obvious optical flaws. There is distortion at 18mm, but it's easy to correct and depending on how you aim the lens at the subject matter it's not always as obvious as one might think. I shot wide-open the entire time and found the sharpness to be perfectly fine and as good as anything else I have used. Corner softness wasn't immediately apparent and I had to pixel peep to see it in a few of the shots I took. I think the reviews on the web don't quite tell the entire story. There are very positive notes regarding the optics which make this lens worth the price alone 1 Macro. I can get in really tight with this lens and optically the performance is superb. 2) Bokeh - there are very few zoom lenses on the market that produce nice, smooth bokeh and the ones that do tend to be fast pro zooms. The Canon 18-200 produces very nice bokeh, a rarity that must be appreciated especially considering the optical formula and 11x range.

enjoy your new lens and ignore people who'll try to tell you otherwise.

at 50mm. The 18-200 was wide-open @ f5.0 @ 50mm, the 50 1.8 was obviously stopped down to f5.0 to match exposure.

In all honestly I couldn't find any differences between the two lenses. Sharpness, contrast and color were the same. The 50 was a bit cooler, but it could have been changing light that impacted the white balance.

I shot several objects outside, buildings, etc. I can post the comparison, but it really was for myself just to find out how good or bad this lens really is.

Wow, that is surprising! That's sweet that it looks about as good as the 50mm at f5. I would be interested to see the pics side-by-side to check it out!
BTW, how much was the lens?

Wow, that is surprising! That's sweet that it looks about as good as the 50mm at f5. I would be interested to see the pics side-by-side to check it out!
BTW, how much was the lens?

I have the 50mm f/1.8, the 17-55IS (f/2.8) and the 18-200IS. It is true that even at f/5 you may not see a significant difference in the center of the image. However, if you look at the corners (assuming what is there is in focus) you should really see that the 50mm f/1.8 is sharpest, marginally better than the 17-55IS but clearly better than the 18-200IS. This is not really a problem as most images do not require the greatest corner sharpness.

Enjoy your 18-200IS, but be careful with framing as there is corner softness. So shooting a bit wider than you need and then cropping may be advisable.

wStudios said:

at 50mm. The 18-200 was wide-open @ f5.0 @ 50mm, the 50 1.8 was obviously stopped down to f5.0 to match exposure.

In all honestly I couldn't find any differences between the two lenses. Sharpness, contrast and color were the same. The 50 was a bit cooler, but it could have been changing light that impacted the white balance.

I shot several objects outside, buildings, etc. I can post the comparison, but it really was for myself just to find out how good or bad this lens really is.

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Slowly learning to use the 450D and and the Canon G6.
Public pictures at http://debra.zenfolio.com/ .

So Paul, what do you really gain with a pro lens over this lens as far as IQ is concerned ?

There is also better contrast, less CA, less distortion, but all of these can be corrected in software whereas differences in sharpness cannot really be fully compensated for.

wStudios said:

So Paul, what do you really gain with a pro lens over this lens as far as IQ is concerned ?

Click to expand...

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Slowly learning to use the 450D and and the Canon G6.
Public pictures at http://debra.zenfolio.com/ .

Paul De Bra said:

However, if you look at the corners (assuming what is there is in focus) you should really see that the 50mm f/1.8 is sharpest, marginally better than the 17-55IS but clearly better than the 18-200IS. This is not really a problem as most images do not require the greatest corner sharpness.

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Reviews of the 18-200 do point to corner softness specially at wide, fully open. Your observations bear this out.

I should remember your advice to shoot wider than needed then to crop to get rid of corner softness.

The corner softness i hard to see with most subjects, more so it's somewhat apparent with a building filling the frame, but still it's not something that tends to hurt the overall image - you have to pixel peep to really see it. I think the reviews of the 18-200 were incorrect and I am starting to think that you can not measure a lenses performance with instruments, it's just something that has to be done with the naked eye. Dpreview noted that the 18-200 was poor @ 18mm. Wide-Open @ 18mm my pictures are about as crisp as it gets. I have lost all faith in photozone, the last few lenses I have purchased didn't even jive with their test results.

Mine is definitely much softer in the corners wide open at 18mm.

• Is it visible when displaying 1280x1024 images on my lcd monitor? NO.
• In 10x15cm prints? Just a bit.
• In 13x18cm prints? YES

totally agree! after almost 20yrs.....upgrading from zoom to L zooms then to prime then L prime...now i am tired and wanted an all in one solution. it still does the job but colors dont seem to be as rich as I wished. I have some comparison photos to show taken with my 50-500mm sigma, 70-200 canon, and 18-270mm tamron.

http://www.chanandrew.com/trips/canoneos7dtest/canoneos7dday5.htm

all in one is nice to have but be aware of the strong barrel distortion in the wide end and lens shading if you plan to go light and only use the pop up flash.

-Andrew
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http://chanandrew.com/gallery.htm
http://www.chanandrew.com/reviews.htm
http://www.chanandrew.com/trips.htm

'Once you learn to appreciate, everything is Photogenic.'

All of your posts and replies about this lens sounds good. I'm a newbie and have been friends with a pro for a while who is going to teach me for free, what a great friend. Anyway, This will be my first lens and I feel great about the fact that this lens has come out at a great time for me. I'm on a tight budget right now and this lens should do me well for a while anyway. Kee pup the posts and thanks for the info.

Sid - XS 1000D and a kit lens....Man I'm dangerous! NOT!!!