I am in the market to buy a Nikkor 18-200 VR lens. Yesterday I saw one piece at a shop. It was 'Made in Thailand'.

I request you to share your experiences with the comparative quality of the same lens manufactured at diffrent places, say for example made in japan vs made in thailand or made in malysia etc.

I need to reassure myself that I am buing the right thing.



Thanks in advance.:-)

IMHO the 18-200VR is the best non professional lens that you can buy for the money.

The range is great at my D300's 1.5 factor.

There are many reviews on the Internet on this lens. Google it and read through them.

Take note of the objective issues reviewed and not so much the subjective issues.

Nicholas

I wouldn't worry about where the lens is made. They are made using the same specs, and go through the same quality control regardless of point of origin. I've heard no issues of problems of any Nikon lens based on where it was made.

It is a highly usable lens and yields some great results... I was using mine on the D80 then I bought a D300 and transplanted onto that. In its place I put the 18-135mm back on, which came with the D80 originally. This lens yields equally as impressive shots in my opinion. It just doesn't have the same amount of zoom range.. I turn the VR "off" with the 18-200mm as I have learned to live without it, with all my VR lenses... Both lenses have some barrelling and pincushioning at various focal lengths but I can live with that... As for Made in xxx, nowadays what isn't...??? Still works well...

Go ahead and buy it, you wont regret it.

fewpics wrote: I don't understand this. If you have VR why deliberately turn it off? Does it create an unwanted effect for you?

I have had the 18-200 vr lens for three months now ,it was made in Thailand .

I love it ,it is very quick to focus, I have had some great in flight bird shots.

It's sharp enough for me.

It seems that by default it will give you as fast a shutter speed as it can at the long endif you shoot inprogram mode,which is obviously good for action shots.

I noticed had a speck inside the the front lens after I had had it 2 mths ,so I unscrewed it and cleaned it off ,no problem.It comes off as easily as a filter.

There are 2 washers behind the lens.

At18mm you will get a fair amount of distortion but I easily fix it in Photoshop if it bothers me.
One thing thing that impresses me the most is the VR as I have had some hand held shots as low as 1/6th sec , that I just couldnt believe came out sharp.

I have one that came as part of a kit with my D200. I use it on my D40 mostly now. It is made in Thailand. Going on two years with this lens I have been pleased with my results and have used it also for three weddings that I shot last summer. It is a great walk around lens and the VR does work very well.

There is only one thing I do not care for is "lens creep". I don't know why it is the way it is but for the amount of money spent on it I feel that this should not be happening with this lens from the get go. I know in time lens creep can/will occur but, this was happeningright out of the box. The only reason I kept it is because there were none to be found anywhere. The prices it was going for was almost double that it is now.

That aside the results of the lens made in Thailand is as good as it gets.

vIZnquest wrote: I read somewhere ,fairly recently (probably here) ,that it could be cured by placing an elastic bandbyone of of the barrel overlaps and moving it as nescessary. Having said that mine has virtually no creep (yet!). If it is any consolation ,I have in the past had a Canon 70-210mm and also a Sigma70 -300mm ,they, particularly the Canon crept at high speed ( I never thought ofusing anelastic band and I am sure they were heavier than my Nikon). When taking up or down shots I used to have to hold them in place, they were like it straight out of the box,so my Nikon 18-200 seems very good to me . The good thing is, I dont have to use a tripod anywhere near as much as I did with the other two lenses,that makes creep less of a problem.

From what I understand the lens creep only appeared in early versions of the 18-200. After the first year or so in release, the lens creep issues was apparently taken care of.

I think this question of where a lens is made crops up at least once a month and frankly it is a non starter. Nikon lenses are made to a standard and it is just that it costs less to manufacture the consumer lenses in bulk outside Japan that is the most important factor. If you look at the pro lenses they are all made in Japan at a commensurately higher price, but of course there will naturally be a slightly higher problem of duff lenses manufactured in bulk down to a price compared to the premium price lenses.

I had years back in film days the 24/120 on my F90X which was my travelling lens and which served me well; nowadays I use the 18/200 on either the D2X or the D70 for everyday use and it has proved ideal for catching the moments when otherwise I would have lost the shot because of the need to change lenses (17/55 to 70/200 for example). I now keep the 18/200 permanently on the D 70 as a backup but, and it is a big but, I've found that the speed of focus isn't as good at all as the pro lenses. My thing is sport photography and I've found that I get a higher percentage of out of focus shots with this lens and so avoid its use for this purpose. However, for everyday use it is about the best compromise you can find.

For general use on a Nikon SLR you won't do better.