A white dot on the outside of the hood aids alignment for mounting, and the hood reverses neatly for storage. You’ve probably noticed my skeptical tone by now. I will be straightforward – I do not like this lens nor any other 18-300mm class optic. Why? Because they are too much of a compromise. Here’s what Nasim thought about the f/3.5-5.6 version of this lens in our review:

A-M stands for Auto-Manual Mode. Thanks to a mechanism incorporated in the lens barrel, smooth focusing operation in Manual focus mode is realized in the same way as users have become accustomed to with conventional manual-focus lenses by adding an appropriate torque to the focus ring. The images below give an idea of the difference in magnification you'll get between these three at their telephoto ends. All three were taken within minutes of each other from the same camera position.Can anyone help me to find a suitable lens for my Nikon camera? I use the camera mainly for video and looking for a wide angle lens which is good in low light with VR option and also which can cover wide area in focus. I already have a 18-105 lens.

We run a range of lab tests under controlled conditions, using the Imatest Master testing suite. Photos of test charts are taken across the range of apertures and zooms (where available), then analyzed for sharpness, distortion and chromatic aberrations. Here you can also see the rubber 'O'-ring that surrounds the mount to protect against dust and moisture getting into the camera. The increased magnification of the 300mm telephoto end is clear here - the 18-300mm does give noticeably more 'reach', and of course gathers a bit more light than the other lenses too. But whether this is worth the increased bulk and price is very much a personal decision. Autofocus The lens's angle of view widens dramatically on focusing from infinity to 0.45m, especially at the telephoto end. This is a common trait with superzooms, and the Nikon 18-200mm, Sigma 18-250mm and Tamron 18-270mm behave in just the same way. The result is that when the lens is focused to 2m, the 300mm telephoto end has an effective focal length that looks much closer to 200mm. In context, it's worth bearing in mind that long telephotos generally tend to used more for distant subjects, in which case the lens naturally behaves as a 'true' 300mm (as you can see from the comparison above). Meanwhile at short distances you merely have to move a little bit closer to compensate. Lens body elements It's an nice lens and it can cover a huge range of subjects due to 18mm-300mm range. It's okay walking around with it on your camera, but it starts to get heavy after a while (Old version).

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Overall, the lens sharpness is not bad for a superzoom when compared to the 18-200mm, but certainly nowhere close to the sharpness and contrast of pro-level lenses like Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G or Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II. You can see lens sharpness tests with comparisons to the 18-200mm and 28-300mm later down in the review. Color rendition is pretty good, I would say on par with the 28-300mm. NIKON D800E + 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 300mm, ISO 100, 1/250, f/8.0 Vibration Reduction – VR II For a superzoom lens, the Nikon is impressively sharp at its shortest focal length but sharpness drops off steadily at longer zoom settings, becoming quite mediocre at 300mm. Corner sharpness is also particularly disappointing at longer focal lengths. Nikon offers two 18-300mm zoom lenses for their DX (APS-C) format cameras. I had the brief opportunity to compare them and report my results. Specifications Typical of superzoom lenses, barrel distortion at the shortest zoom setting is clearly visible, but it’s rather less extreme than the Tamron 16-300mm. Colour fringing is noticeable, especially at long zoom settings where it’s very similar to the Tamron 16-300mm. Overall, the new Tamron’s huge zoom range doesn’t come at the cost of a greater compromise in image quality compared to other superzooms. Tamron 18-400mm: Lab tests Ghosting and flare are handled quite well, depending on the focal length and where you place the source of light. Here is an extreme example with the sun in the top left frame: NIKON D800E + 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18mm, ISO 200, 1/500, f/11.0