Here is a selection of Nikon 18-200mm sample photos photographed during the Super GT Race at Sepang, 2008.
For photos at the same event taken with the Nikon 70-300mm VR lens, see here.
Unless otherwise stated, all of them have not gone through any post-processing edits.
Where a photo has the original version posted, I’ll mention that.
I hope these JPEG, Large, Fine images and my comments will help you to decide whether or not you should get the 18-200mm VR Nikkor lens.
One of the most touted advantage of the 18-200 lens is the huge zoom range that starts at 28mm (after accounting for the 1.5x crop factor in Nikon’s DX digital SLR cameras) and goes all the way to 300mm (it doesn’t actually reach this far, but I’ll write about it more in another post).
So, I’ll present these photos in ascending focal lengths to help showcase some of this zoom flexibility that I’ve found very useful in my day-to-day photography with the 18-200 mounted on the Nikon D300.
For this particular event, my D300 was set up this way.
Rear view of the pit building — 18mm, ISO 200, f/10, 1/400s, brightened in Nikon Capture NX 2 (12 MP image):
The 18-200 can’t be used to take critical architecture photos, but the 28mm equivalent end of the zoom range makes it absolutely convenient to photograph facades of buildings.
A race driver and fans — 18mm, ISO 400, f/10, 1/400s (12 MP image):
The D300 was accidentally left in ISO 400, hence the appearance of noise if you look real closely. I find the 18mm end of the zoom range just wide enough to take in the entire scene and the context. It would have been better if the lens could go to 16mm (like the Nikon 16-85mm Zoom Nikkor).
Technician checking a race car — 18mm, ISO 200, f/8, 1/250s (12 MP image):
The 18-200mm VR lens would never win against a dedicated wide-angle prime lens or even the pricier zooms for raw optical quality, but this picture shows that you get can get images with this lens that are sharp where they need to be, and even the extreme corners of the frame show sufficient detail.
All eyes on the race car — 18mm, ISO 400, f/11, 1/400s (12 MP image):
Here’s another photo where I forgot to set the ISO at 200. But just look at all the detail captured.
On the race track — 18mm, ISO 200, f/9, 1/320s (12 MP image):
There’s nothing quite like taking a snap of everything in the scene at 18mm to remember the event.
National anthem playing — 56mm, ISO 200, f/9, 1/320s (12 MP image):
This photo gives you an idea of the type of sharpness you can expect at 56mm and f/9. I focused on the Porsche.
For now, I’ve only demonstrated photos taken in the 18mm to 56mm zoom range. I’ll be posting more examples of images taken at longer focal lengths in future.