Universal Soldier

After a few months of playing around with the EF-S 18-55 f3.5-5.6 IS II kit lens, it became obvious that I want something with a longer range. I browsed around for some time, and I found two lenses that would fit my needs: the EF-S 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 IS STM, and the subject of this review, the EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS. My reasons were the following:

• at least 135mm on the long end,
• must be an ultrazoom, I don't like to change lenses on location if I can avoid it,
• I wanted something in house, and
• a dedicated EF-S lens, because I'm not interested in going full frame anytime soon.

After thinking about it for a few more days, I decided to go with the 18-200, because of the longer focal length, and because I'm not using this lens for video (more on this later). I ordered a copy at an Unnamed Huge Electronics Franchise Based In Germany That Has Shops All Over Europe, and the lens came in in a few days.

So, let's start with the physical description I guess?

This lens is the heaviest Canon made EF-S lens I ever held, almost half a kilo. It has a metal mount, and obviously only fits Canon's APS-C bodies. The zoom ring is nice and wide with a rubber grip, really easy to operate even in winter gloves. It unfortunately suffers from a pretty substantial amount of zoom creep, it will extend to about the 135mm mark if the lock switch is not engaged. Said switch is located on the lower right hand side, and while small, it is easily operated. The IS and AF switches are located at the usual spot on the left side of the barrel. Also, while relatively compact at 18mm, the lens extends quite a lot as the user increases the focal length.  This lens is not water/dustproof.

The focus ring is at the front of the lens, and since the 18-200 uses a micromotor focus system, it turns during AF, and one has to switch the lens to MF before manually adjusting the focus to avoid damage. When using MF, the ring turns very easily, and it has a relatively short rotation length. I wouldn't say that it's hard to focus with it, but it's definitely geared towards AF. The front element does not rotate or extend while focusing, so a 67mm CPL filter can be used without any problems. The IS is probably the best I have ever experienced, I believe Canon's claimed 4 stops without a question. All in all, the lens feels solid, at least for me. I never had that "oh sh*t, it will fall apart" feeling.

So, what is my experience with this lens so far?

It's quite heavy, but it balances well on my 77D. This is my default lens for events and walkaround, it's just too convenient, especially if I don't have the luxury of zooming via legs. The 11X zoom range is also convenient from a different perspective: I don't have to carry and swap two zoom lenses for this focal length range. I can take two specialized primes and the 18-200 instead of two zooms and a single prime. The micromotor AF is surprisingly fast and accurate, after a good 7-8 months I can't think of a single shot I missed because of it. It is a bit noisy though, so this lens is not the best for video projects. Speaking of noisy, the aperture is quite noisy too, this lens does not have that smooth aperture control system the newer STM lenses come with for video.

When it comes to low light, the f3.5-5.6 range is not exactly the best, but with such a rock solid stabilizer I never had an issue. I don't think bokeh is too big of a question when it comes to an ultrazoom lens like this, but it pulls f5.6 at 200mm, so you can blur out the background for portraits if you have to use the 18- 200 for such pictures. The image quality is good in my opinion, but not L level good, and there is noticeable softness in the corners when using a wide angle, and shooting wide open. Still, for my needs it's perfectly good, especially with in body corrections. I'm not going to go all forensic on this, but have some examples from what I managed to get at the annual New Year's Rally event at the Hungaroring last week as a spectator, edited to taste in Darktable:

f5.6, 1/200 s, 28mm

f5.6, 1/160 s, 100mm

f6.3, 1/250 s, 200mm

So, in short:

In my opinion this is still the most convenient lens for Canon APS-C if shooting stills, even though it's a 12 years old design. The EF-S 18-135mm F3.5-5.6 IS STM is better for video due to its quiet STM focus motor and that smooth and silent aperture control, but since I'm a stills guy, I don't really care about that. It just feels good in my hands, I love using this lens on my 77D. The only reason it's not five stars, is because I'd love to have a USM variant of it.

I recommend this lens for stills.

Those are some pretty low shutter speeds for shooting moving cars.  Since there doesn't appear to be much evidence of panning, I can only assume they weren't going particularly fast.  At higher shutter speeds stability control is of little or no use.

I recently took a cruise and took only my 18-135.  Some brown boobies started flying around the ship's bow as the sun started to set.  The image below (highly cropped) is not intended as an example of a stellar shot but rather to show you can get something with what you've brought.  I'll take it.

Brown Booby

I had better results two days later when the light was stronger.

Brown Booby

Yeah, these particular cars were either right after a corner still powersliding, or on the warmup lap. I didn't have to track them too hard, because as a simple spectator I couldn't get to those juicy spots the official photographers were using, and of course, where the real hardcore action took place. The 200mm picture was actually taken through a chainlink fence.

The sole reason I uploaded those images is to show what kind of pictures can be taken in 2019 with an ultrazoom lens that was designed more than a decade ago. It definitely works for me at least.