Is Tamron B018 18 - 200 mm F/3.5 - 6.3 Di II VC a good buy for Nikon D5200?

[chevycamaro]

I own Nikon D5200 with 18-55mm kit lens and wants to buy my first telephoto lens. I'm much into travelling and trekking and like to do Bird, Wildlife and Landscape photography. I want a versatile lens that will be low on weight as well as cost; good on image quality and atleast the zoom of 200mm.
Will the Tamron 18-200mm with VC a worthy buy? I like the quality of images produced by my kit lens so how is the quality of Tamron 18-200 wrt the kit lens 18-55? If the quality is same as the kit lens I'm happy to live with such quality! I know this lens (Tamron 18-200) wont match anyway to the pro lenses which cost 3 to 4 times for same focal length, but I'm tight on budget and don't want to spend more, but also want a versatile lens with good quality output if not exceptional. Please suggest alternatives if any.
Thanks in advance!

 

[goodguy]

All superzoom lens will produce lower quality of image, you gain one thing which is great flexibility and pay with lower quality and very slow lens.
I wouldn't bother with any of the superzooms.
Want good and reasonably priced telezoom lens ?
Get the Nikon (or Tamron) 70-300mm VR (or VC)

 

[Solarflare]

So whats wrong with the Nikon AF-S 55-200mm f4.5-5.6 VR ?

Or the 70-300mm that goodguy suggested.

I dont think you can expect much image quality from a 11x normal zoom. Even less if its not an original Nikon one.

 

[chevycamaro]

Thanks goodguy and Solarflare. Yeah, I was thinking to buy Nikon 55-200 VR but then came across this lens. Also, once I rented 55-200 VR and tried to click birds hand held, and the results were not good because of cam shake. I'm not used to that much weight of the cam as I used to shoot with kit lens and my Sony HX-200V most of the time. Both being light I can keep the camera shake in check while shooting hand held. I guess this issue should be solved when used with a tripod. Is it worth to save money and go for Nikon 55-300 VR or Nikon 55-200 VR is good? If I'm not going for Tamron 18-200 VC because of low quality, I wanna go for a budget lens with good quality then. Which can be it? Of course I've to swap between my 18-55 and the new lens to get the entire range of focal length.
Please give suggestions and comment on the Nikon 55-200's quality.
Thanks in advance

 

[Solarflare]

Camera shake ? With the 55-200mm ? Did you not use the VR (Vibration Reduction, allows to handheld slow shutterspeeds) ? Theres a switch on the lens to enable or disable it.

And the 55-200mm is a very lightweight zoom lens. Its 100% plastic, after all.

One usually shoots with supporting the center of weight of the camera with the left hand, while the right hand presses the shutter release.

There is no big difference between the 55-200mm and 55-300mm, for all I know. The later is just quite a bit more expensive.

The 70-300mm is a FX zoom, so you could keep using it if you ever want to switch. It also has a strong autofocus motor, so with a corresponding camera its quite useable for sports.

As I said before, if image quality is your goal, you want zooms with small zoom ranges, or prime lenses.

 

[chevycamaro]

Thanks buddy, Yes, I did use VR and the shutter speeds were quite high, still at 200mm I faced camera shake. I'm not pro but I'm not that new also to photography so I believe I can hold and click the camera properly And yes, I do use it the way you mentioned! Might be that the lens I used was a rented one and was used quite a lot. I could clearly notice image shake in viewfinder when focus used to get locked. I've read about the reviews from people about 55-200 VR being a very good lens and in budget as well. This was the reason I narrowed it down initially to 55-200 VR.
You can have a look at the pics clicked by me on flickr here : Omkar Patil
Do provide your feedback on them!
Thanks once again for valuable inputs!

 

[KmH]

Tamron VC is not Nikon VR.
Virtually all superzoom lenses have a variety of image quality issues.
Tamron 18 - 200 mm F/3.5 - 6.3 Di II VC reviews note the variety of image quality issue the lens has.


55 mm to 200 mm is nowhere close to being superzoom range. 10x or more zoom range is superzoom range.

Nikon | Technology | VR (Vibration-Reduction)
VR is pretty much useless at shutter speeds faster than 1/500, primarily because the VR optic can't move any faster.
Plus there is a limited amount of room for the VR optic to move in which limits how big a camera movement VR can correct. VR will have difficulty correcting high amplitude camera movement caused by panning. Nikon lens user manuals that have VR note that:

When taking panning shots, be sure to set the vibration reduction mode switch to [NORMAL]. If you move the camera in a wide arc when panning, vibration in the direction of that movement is not affected. For example, if you pan the camera horizontally, only vibration in the vertical direction is reduced, making smooth pans much easier.

Nikon | Technology | VR (Vibration-Reduction)
Nikon VR explained

Rule #2: VR should normally be off if your shutter speed is over 1/500.