I have just bought a new ‘super zoom’, the Sigma 18-200 f3.5 – 6.3. This is not really a ‘new’ lens either, the new version is optically stabilised and for Sigma, Canon & Nikon only, but the in-body stabilising of the Pentax mean the old version is more than adequate. I am not a great telephoto fan, and it was not well covered by my lenses. Up till now I only had a 1980′s Tamron Adpaptall 70-210 to fall back on. The Tamron was fine, but for £165 + £5 postage from Germany, I thought it was time to get something with a bit of versatility and reach.
This is not a review, just some thoughts and observations about what it is like to use.
* Overall I am very happy, it is fine for non-demanding work and takes photos of nice things when pointed in the right direction * It is only about 40% bigger than the kit lens for the Pentax, but it weighs twice as much at about 420g * It feels solid and the zoom and focus rings feel right. The zoom is still tight enough that zoom creep is not an issue (yet?) * It zooms the opposite way to Pentax (and Nikon?), not that great an issue * It bills itself as macro, but at 1:4.4, it is not as macro as the Pentax kit lens, which focusses down to 25cm * No real problems with image quality so far. At the zoom end the contrast seems reduced, but a bit of level tweaking sorts it out
So far, no real problems. Apart from the fact I now resent spending anything towards a Pentax when I am heading for a complete move to Nikon in 2010 (again).
