BIGGER ISN'T ALWAYS BETTER
The mid-range zoom is the lens most of us for-fun-shooters use 80 or 90% of the time, so it makes sense to take your time choosing the right one. A decade ago, when digital SLRs first began to challenge film, there were almost no lenses made for the cropped sensors all the early DSLRs used. Yes, the old 35mm lenses worked on these new bodies but their geometry was changed. Wide lenses no longer looked wide and normal looked abnormal. The only benefit was the extra reach of tele lenses.
Kit Options
Today we have a variety of DX lenses to choose from, offered by Nikon and the Indi lens makers. I’ve restricted this short survey to 9 lenses but I could’ve easily gone the whole baker’s dozen. The first three here cover the 18-135 range, they all began life as part of a DSLR kit, and they all start at f/3.5 as most kit zooms do. I’ve tried to represent the relative sizes here because size is an obstacle when you take a lens for a long walk.
The AF-S 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED on the left is my benchmark here. It’s a great lens that produces sharp images with true colours and minimal distortion, is well-built yet very compact, and offers f/4.5 at the long end. It doesn’t offer VR but, if you need VR on a lens this short, you may want to revisit your shooting technique. This lens is far better than its D70 kit origins suggest, and I suspect Nikon knows this because it asks $450 for it new. The big US-based camera shops sell refurbished copies for around half that amount, and second-hand copies sell on eBay for $150 - $200.
The 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G has been sold as part of a D90/D5000/D7000 kit for about $300, and lists at $400 on its own. These days, the street price is closer to $300 and refurbished copies are down to $240 or less. This makes the lens a much more attractive proposition even if its build quality is not in the same class as the little 18-70. It features a plastic lens mount and has some optical issues, of which barrel distortion is the most noticeable (in seascapes where the horizon ends up a touch bent).
Still, 18-105 is a useful range and VR is an attractive option from 100mm upwards. Less attractive is its size – see the comparison of figures below. Vibration Reduction comes at the cost of extra bulk here, and the same is true for the Tamron and Sigma we look at below: the versions with VC and OS are bigger and dearer, which is heading in the the wrong direction for our purpose here.
The AF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G is no longer in production but there are plenty of second-hand and refurbished copies on the market, for much the same money as the 18-105 - around $250. This lens did duty as the main kit lens on the D80, and it suffered from similar mixed reviews as the later 18-105 VR, again for it plastic build and optical issues. Most reviewers also complained about the absence of VR.
So why do I want to talk about it here and now? Because it’s probably the sharpest digital zoom lens Nikon has made at an affordable price. Yes, it’s the sharpest of all the lenses in this article although the 18-70 comes pretty close. And it has less obvious distortion and chromatic aberration than the 18-105 VR. As a walkabout lens, it’s smaller size and lower weight make the 18-135 an appealing proposition as long as your hand is steady. At 385g, it’s the lightest lens in this line-up so it's a comfortable fit on the smallest Nikon bodies.
|
Lens brand |
Lens type |
Dimensions (cm) |
Weight (g) |
|
Nikon |
AF-S 18-70mm f/3.5-5.6G ED |
73 x 75 |
390 |
|
Nikon |
AF-S 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR |
76 x 89 |
420 |
|
Nikon |
AF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G ED |
74 x 86 |
385 |
|
Nikon |
AF-S 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR |
72 x 85 |
485 |
|
Tamron SP |
AF 17-50mm f/2.8 SP XR Di II LD As [IF] |
74 x 85 |
430 |
|
Sigma |
AF 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC HSM OS macro |
79 x 89 |
535 |
Looking for more?
I went down that track a fair way, just to see the difference. The Tamron 17-50 was attractive for its constant f/2.8 aperture, the Sigma 17-70 for its greater reach and the Nikon 16-85 for going that much further again.
The constant f/2.8 offered by the Tamron is a feature you normally pay a lot of extra dollars for. I’m not fond of the gold band and fussy ribbing of Tamron lenses but I was surprised by the solid build of this item. And the smooth, sure way the focus and zoom rings moved - with just the right degree of resistance as well.
The reviews of this lens are pretty positive, and that added a sharp edge to my disappointment. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get images out of this lens that matched the Nikon 18-70 for sharpness, and I’m talking about pre-sunrise pour light conditions where this lens should’ve shone. No, its real-world performance was a let-down, and many of the images had an exaggerated vibrancy or a slightly pink tinge to them as well. The colours weren’t true, to my eyes at least. I also found the short limit of 50mm too restrictive for a walkabout zoom. The lack of VC didn’t bother me, and Tamron offers it on a newer version of this lens.
With the Sigma, I opted for the newer lens with OS and a better AF motor and a faster f/4 max vs f/4.5. The price is attractive and 17-70 is a decent range, and f/2.8-4 is a bit faster than the f/3.5-5.6 you tend to get with kit lenses. It's a big, hefty lens though, well-built and solid. Too big for a walkabout lens. It’s very sharp in the near-to-middle distance, but gets a bit fuzzy on far-away objects in long shots. And it suffers from the Tamron colour problem, except here it’s a touch of orange instead of pink.
One of the things I've always like about Nikons is the way they make the colours look just as they were in the scene you saw. Tamron and Sigma lenses don’t quite render colour the same way, and the Sigma here also displays some of those pastel notes you see in digicams when they’re glossing over detail they can’t capture (on the building).
I have to confess that I’ve never tested the Nikon 16-85, the last lens in this bracket. Then again, why would I pay almost $700 for a lens that has a kit lens aperture range – f/3.5 – 5.6? The Tamron is f/2.8 right the way through and costs $400; the Sigma with f/2.8-4 is not much more. The extra range of the Nikon at either end is attractive, but the speed is not and even second-hand copies tend to fetch more than $500.
Going for Broke
Longer zoom lenses have become surprisingly popular, so much so that Tamron has tried to make this market its own, offering 18-200mm, 18-250mm and 18-270mm versions. Nikon responded several years ago with its 18-200, which included VR and optics that avoided the more obvious compromises these long zooms often bring with them. So it’s a well-built lens that offers good image quality but its price, length and weight make it unsuitable for walkabout duties in my book (or in my bag). The key data here are 77 x 96.5mm, and 560g.
The Sigma’s 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3 OS HSM is even bigger and heavier. Yes, it gets fair reviews but it’s 10cm long, 8cm wide and hits the scales at well over 600 grams. It’s the monster mash. The new Tamron 18-270mm PZD is a more attractive proposition with its Piezo Drive, since it weighs in at just 450 grams. Tamron boast that this is ‘The World's Lightest, Smallest 15x Zoom lens for DSLRs.'
It may well be so but several reviews suggest that the Tamron delivers images that are soft right across its zoom range. When a lens has to cover 18-270mm, some compromises are to be expected. I'd rather use an 18-70/55-200 lens combo, with the second lens in my backpack.
Conclusion
My top choices here are the Nikon 18-70 and 18-135mm. No, I’m not a starry-eyed Nikon acolyte. The 18-70mm is still a benchmark as I said at the beginning, and the 18-135mm is the lightest, lowest cost zoom offering this kind of range, accurate colour and tremendous sharpness of image. It is shorter, lighter and much smaller than the 18-105mm VR, barely longer than the kit 18-55mm. Yes, it has optical issues but they’re not show-stoppers. No, it doesn’t have VR but do you really need it? If the answer is NO, this lens is hard to beat.
Kim
Here are a few samples (click on the images to see larger files):
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