Canon EF-S 18-200mm IS f3.5-5.6 IS Review

The Canon EF-S 18-200mm IS f3.5-5.6 IS is a tempting lens for a lot of photographers because of the obvious huge convenience of attaching one lens to your camera and having all the bases covered. Now, I’ve been the happy owner of the Nikon equivalent to this lens, the 18-200 VR, and have been nothing but pleased, but as you’d expect there’s some caveats to the convenience. In a review at Camera Labs, the Canon EF-S 18-200mm IS f3.5-5.6 IS scores points for its massive photographic flexibility, but obviously optics aren’t superior, there’s the typical barrel distortion, light fall off, and notable for Canon EOS 50D owners, lack of resolving power:

Finally in terms of optical resolution, while the EF-S 18-200mm IS has sufficient resolving power for 8, 10 and 12 Megapixel DSLRs, it begins to struggle with higher resolution models like the 15.1 Megapixel EOS 50D. The bottom line is if you want to enjoy the maximum resolution of the 50D, you’ll need to fit it with a higher quality lens.

-Camera Labs

Now I don’t mean to turn you off the Canon EF-S 18-200mm IS, because while it does have some flaws, for many photographers the convenience will far outweigh the negatives, and probably lead to getting a lot of great shots.

Get the review here.

Get the lens here at Amazon (wow…$499!) or here at B & H Photo (also $499!).

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1. 

   goldfries says:

   January 12, 2009 at 10:10 am

   For a lens that covers such huge range, there’s sure to be loss in optical quality BUT such losses are usually noted by picky people, a.k.a. pixel peepers.

   To me, the lens works fine. I have a Sigma 18-200 DC OS and I’ve also tested the Canon’s 18-200 offering and what I liked was that it’s f5.6 at 200, a little wider aperture than the Sigma’s. Funny thing how Canon took that long to release it when Sigma had it available for ages, I got it in Nov 2007 and it wasn’t even new then.

   I’ve also heard others (frequent Canon L / USM lens user) being surprised at how fast the AF speed of this 18-200 IS.

   reply
2. 

   Patrick says:

   January 12, 2009 at 10:02 pm

   goldfries,
   I was happy to live with the “compromises” of the nikon 18-200mm VR, and as I said most folks will be happy to pick up a $500 lens with the convenience that the Canon 18-200 offers.

   reply