Review on 📸 Sony Alpha SEL18200 E-Mount 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 OSS Lens (Silver) with Enhanced SEO by Shawn Mcfee

I've hardly removed this lens from my Nex-5n since I've had it. Contrast, sharpness and color reproduction are excellent. While adding significant weight to the camera, it is easy to handle and still lighter than an equivalent DSLR/lens. Physically, it is a treat for the eyes and hands. The metal outer casing is perfectly finished and the rubber zoom and focus rings are easy to grip. The hand controls are very easy to use. Autofocus and the Optical Steady Shot system work silently. The optical performance exceeds my expectations. I use it regularly as a wide-angle macro lens: it's perfect for my shop, which often requires closeups of circuit boards. I also enjoy photographing nature and a typical flower or leaf easily fills the frame while working from a comfortable distance. I've uploaded a couple of photos showing the range from widest to maximum telephoto and show excellent resolution even when hand-held. The lens is larger than the body of the Nex-5n, which is a problem with some of my tripods. The lens body rests against the front of the tripod, so I made a spacer that attaches to the camera and tripod. I have put some photos in the gallery. Although the lens covers the full range of the 18-55mm kit lens, it is not a complete replacement. First, the whale lens is much smaller and lighter, and its aperture is just as fast. At full wide angle, the barrel distortion of the standard lens is much less than that of the 18-200mm lens. For architectural or geometric backgrounds or objects, 18-55mm is a much better choice. After zooming in a bit with 18-200 everything becomes nice and square. When using a flash, the optional HVLF-20S is required. It's larger than the included Nex flash and much more powerful. Even at full zoom there is no lens shadow. The f/6.3 aperture at full zoom bothered some other reviewers, but I had no issues with it. When photographing flowers and the like, I often set my aperture wider and my shutter speed in open shade is still around 1/30. The Nex's quality at higher auto ISOs more than makes up for the limited aperture, at least in my applications. This lens combined with the Nex-5n makes me look like a better photographer than I really am. Update: I've had a few instances in low light where the autofocus just goes haywire and goes back and forth everywhere. In some cases I've taken a dozen of these shots, but one more of these will be difficult to focus on. Because of this, I've used manual focus a few times, and I'm happy to report that it works smoothly with just one finger, as long as you hold down the zoom ring. BTW, if you lose the hood (I bought mine used and it came without a hood), some sources list the ALC-SH0008 as the correct replacement, but that's not correct. The correct lens hood is the Sony ALCSH109 Alpha lens hood for the SAL2875 lens.