[dberthia]

It looks as though the Nikon 18-200 VR DX zoom lens is almost impossible to find these days because of production shortages. Scammers are getting upwards of $900 for a lens that retails for under $700. The most reasonable price I've seen online is $750, but they are constantly backordered.

Anybody have any information or tips on how to score one of these for $750-$800? I only want to buy new, and from a reputable dealer.

[PeterK]

just got one about 3 weeks ago at my local camera shop. MSRP price as far as i know. guess i just got lucky. they said they had 2 in stock and they go in and out pretty quickly.

[Keith Plucker]

A weekend or two ago I was in at Paul's (Torrance, CA) and they had the lens in stock. I don't know what their price was though. I also don't know if they would sell it to you over the phone but you could give it a shot.

Here is their site: http://www.paulsphoto.com/index.html

-Keith

[ErichH]

Bet the new 55-200VR will be the same. 250 MSRP - watch it go to 399 right away.

E

[Christ Reynolds]

Wish I could get my hands on the 18-200 VR. I was sick of the 50mm 1.8 D prime lens I had (very sharp, but 75mm equivalent is not wide enough for indoor stuff), so I bought the 18-55 3.5-5.6 zoom. It's a kit lens, so the quality isn't great, but I only paid about $100 for it. I'd replace everything with the 18-200 if I could get one. My D200 needs it as much as I do

CJ

[dberthia]

The good news is that I signed-up for a waiting list at a local Twin Cities camera dealer (National Camera Exchange) and got a call within a couple weeks that my lens had arrived. The bad news is that they were charging $799 for it. I guess it could have been worse though, as some people are paying close to $900. Anyway, it's a very nice lens and has been a lot of fun to play around with.

[Man-Fai Wong]

Deleted.

Oops! Duplicated post.

[Man-Fai Wong]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christ Reynolds

Wish I could get my hands on the 18-200 VR. I was sick of the 50mm 1.8 D prime lens I had (very sharp, but 75mm equivalent is not wide enough for indoor stuff), so I bought the 18-55 3.5-5.6 zoom. It's a kit lens, so the quality isn't great, but I only paid about $100 for it. I'd replace everything with the 18-200 if I could get one. My D200 needs it as much as I do

CJ

Just go for a combo of some widezoom of your choice + 70-300VR instead. I'm hearing very nice things about the 70-300VR -- it's probably much better than the 18-200VR for the tele focal lengths. In fact, I'm even considering getting one for myself even though I already have some pretty good glass for tele, ie. 85 f/1.8, 180 f/2.8, Sigma 70-200 f/2.8. And the 70-300VR is not a DX (crop) lens, so it'll be useable if Nikon should ever come out w/ an affordable FF body. BTW, I just bought a Nikon #6T close-up lens off eBay and would love to try it on that telezoom for (near macro) close-ups -- I'm not a macro enthusiast, but would love an inexpensive, easy way to add some good macro capability w/out lugging (and buying) extra lenses.

If the size doesn't suit you (and you don't need the extra reach), maybe go for the 55-200VR instead. Reports are a little bit more mixed w/ this one (probably due to greater variance in manufacturing quality for a cheap consumer lens), but most copies seem to be quite good and should certainly be better than most copies of the 18-200VR at the same focal lengths. Build quality is cheap as you can imagine, but what can you expect from a ~$250 consumer telezoom w/ VR?

For the price of the 18-200VR, you could easily have something like Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 + the 55-200VR (or even the 70-300VR, if you stretch the budget a bit).

_Man_