Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 66
 Good value - useful all-in-one lens August 9, 2005
A. C. Sisto (Orange County, CA)
192 out of 194 found this review helpful
Like a baseball player with a decent batting average, some power, a little bit of speed and fairly good fielding ability, the Tamron 18-200 lens won't be an All-Star any time soon because it does not excel at any one thing. But, like that $500k/year utility infielder, this lens DOES provide a very good all-around value for what it is. Does it compare to a prime lens at either end? Heck, no. Is it a good lens to use when you can't carry a wide choice of lenses with you? Absolutely.
I've been using this lens on my 20D quite a bit and have only a few minor gripes: it tends to hunt for AF (especially as you get closer to 200mm), and it's not the quietest lens I've used.
An earlier reviewer mentioned that it maxed out at about 160mm. My own analysis shows that it is short of 200mm, but not by that large an extent; I found it much closer to 190. Still, there's no doubt that these zoom lenses with extreme ranges like this have a built-in fudge factor.
Another reviewer described the problems he encountered when using two screw-on filters. There aren't too many primes that I've used that will avoid vignetting when using two filters. Heck, my 10-22 can barely handle one extra-slim. As for darkening the image - well, you're adding two more pieces of glass to a highly-complex lens assembly... just asking for trouble.
As for the concern regarding blur at longer focal lengths, I highly recommend the use of a tripod. I noticed the exact same thing - blur and lack of sharpness - at lengths over 100mm. Keep the old rule of thumb in mind - if you're shooting handheld, your shutter speed should be no slower than the inverse of your focal length. A 200mm lens on a 20D (or Rebel XT for that matter), is an effective 320mm - I wouldn't recommend shooting any slower than 1/500 at max zoom with this lens - UNLESS you're using a tripod. When I mounted it firmly, I got great shots with no blur.
Keep in mind that you get what you pay for here: the convenience of a wide-angle, normal, and moderate telephoto lens in one piece. If you're shooting professionally, or need absolutely perfect images, then carry the three or four lenses that this would otherwise replace in your bag. But if you want one easy-to-use, satisfactory lens, go for this one. It's a jack-of-all-trades, ace-of-none kinda deal.
Great all use lens April 20, 2005
S. Mingus (Los Angeles, CA)
84 out of 89 found this review helpful
I recently purchased this lens for use on my Canon 20D. I was never happy with the lens that came with the camera. I've been very happy with this lens.
Pros:
- Quality construction. The lens doesn't feel cheap.
- Zoom range of this lens is fantastic.
- Image quality is great.
- Internal focusing makes using filters and hoods a piece of cake
- Zoom lock is nice so the zoom ring doesn't turn while stored or carried.
- Price. For the money this lens will give you a lot of bang for the buck.
Con:
- Auto focusing is a bit slow for a moving subject.
 Never ceases to amaze June 28, 2006
mcenut (Tooele, UT)
49 out of 50 found this review helpful
I have owned this lens for over a year now and it never ceases to amaze me when I see the photos it produces. Over this last year I have come to learn a thing or two about how to use this lens.
1) If you are going to shoot indoors, or in low light, with a long focal length (like 200mm) use a tripod or plenty of ambient light. This lens doesn't have a built in image stabilizer so you are going to steady the lens with the tripod or use a real fast shutter speed to minimize your hand jitter.
2) Use a smaller aperture. I have found that my best photos come from an aperture of 8.0 thru 16. These apertures aren't great for bokeh (background blur) but they sure do allow you to take razor sharp pictures.
Praise.
Focal range. With one lens you are able to take nice wide-angle shots (18mm) and with the twist of zoom ring you have a nice telephoto lens (200mm) Definitely a good walk around lens for the day at the botanical gardens, museum or amusement park.
Build quality. This lens gives you a nice solid feel in your hands. Give it a shake and it doesn't make a sound. The zoom and focus rings move smoothly without being sloppy. With a lens this well built you would expect it to be heavy. Not so with this lens, it's quite light (which is something you really appreciate after a long day of carrying it around.)
Minimal chromatic aberrations. The lens' three hybrid aspherical elements and two low dispersion glass elements correct for almost all lateral and on-axis aberrations making most of your images optically clear.
Size. At it's lowest focal length (18mm) the lens is small enough to fit into a mid size top loading camera bag while still attached to the camera body.
Complaint?
Well yes, I do have one minor complaint about the lens. Auto focus is slow. How slow? Well let's just say you won't want to try and photograph a two year old on the move. I have found that I can keep fast moving objects in better focus by switching to manual.
 Compromise - Know the trade offs. September 1, 2005
Digital Camera Guy (MN)
62 out of 66 found this review helpful
On paper this lens seems to be exactly what anyone would want for their Digital SLR. We used this lens with our Canon Digital Rebel XT. Overall, it was great to have the 28-320 (35mm equiv.) zoom. The size and weight of the lens are nice. But the 2 big issues that ultimately made us send it back were 1) focusing problems and 2) backward zoom rotation (from the Canon lenses) and replaced it with a Canon EF-S 17-85mm IS lens.
Most of the time the focusing was just fine but on certain shots it would really search for a focus. I never did figure out if it was certain conditions or what. The fact that the lens rotation to zoom was backward of the standard Canon zoom lenses drove us crazy because every time you wanted to zoom in / out a little bit, you ended up going the wrong way. This was especially a problem in Sports Mode with the subject moving towards you.
If these 2 problems don't bother you, you will probably like the lens.
Good choice for All-in-One lens for digital SLR July 12, 2006
Hiram Grant
20 out of 21 found this review helpful
This is a very good choice for anyone shooting Canon Digital Rebels or 20D/30D series cameras, and wanting an all-in-one design that small and light weight.
Although it doesn't give us the overall range of the most common choice for Canon users (18-55 & 75-300), it does give us a broader zoom than Canon offers starting at 18mm, and is considerably smaller than the 75-300 alone. It also has internal focusing (in neither Canon lens), which means filters, like polarizers, won't spin with the autofocus. It also means we'll have a more useful lens hood, which is included ($$$ add-ons from Canon).
The max aperture at 200mm is 6.3, adequate, but not the best we can get in a 200mm that's still reasonably priced (here's were we loose a star). But construction seems very good, and the warranty is considerably longer than Canon's.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 66
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