jcb193 said:I'm trying to be as nice on here as I can, but I need a lens that is good for taking pictures in a hotel room, of a subject in various poses....18-200 lens is decent, but not as good for closeups.

f/1.8 is much faster than the 18-200 zoom lens. The main advantage of a fast prime lens is that it gives you much more speed than a zoom.

jplee3 said:i've found the 18-200mm definitely isn't very sharp.

While no 11:1 zoom is likely to be as sharp as a good prime, an 18-200mm zoom - given proper technique - can yield images that appear extremely sharp on a computer monitor or in small to medium size prints.

No, they probably won't technically be as sharp as a good prime if you examine them at high magnification. But in ordinary, routine, real world situations, most people would be hard pressed to look at three photos and determine which was taken with an 18-200mm zoom, which was taken with a 28-70mm zoom, and which was taken with a 35mm prime (assuming all three were shot at 35mm, at moderate aperture, with proper technique).

The key, of course, is proper technique. Too many people seem to think that the old "1/<focal length>" rule for sharpness is a law of the universe, precise to the 9th decimal place, and enforced by God Himself. (In fact, it's just a rule-of-thumb, not necessarily precise, and will vary considerably depending on all sorts of factors.) Or they use a shutter speed fast enough to eliminate camera shake, but they're photographing a fast moving subject, so the subject's blurred anyway. Or they shoot at a fast enough shutter speed to deal with camera shake and subject movement, but at a sufficiently wide aperture that not everything from foreground to background falls into the zone of sharp focus. Or they do none of this, but make some other mistake.

Additionally, very few lenses are at their best wide open. So while the 18-200mm f/4-5.6 zoom may appear about as sharp as the 50mm f/1.4 prime when both are used at f/11, the same may not be true when they're both used at f/4.5.

But I guarantee you that I could go out with your 18-200mm lens and a 35mm f/1.8 lens and come back with 40 sharp images - half taken with the zoom (at 35mm), and half with the prime. And if these 40 images were displayed on a 22" computer monitor, or in the form of 5x7" prints, you would not be able to figure out which were made with the zoom, and which with the prime. And I know this is so, because similar experiments have been conducted many times - often with the viewers being professional photo editors, respected photographers, and professors of photography - and almost each and every time the viewers couldn't clearly identify which pictures were taken with the great lens, and which with the mediocre lens.

This doesn't mean that all lenses are equal. They're not. But within certain relatively broad limits, in terms of real world viewing, even a bargain basement lens can produce results which will appear razor sharp.

And no, photographing a test chart and examining the results under high magnification does not constitute "real world" viewing.

jplee3, you post some of those unsharp pics you took with an 18-200mm lens, with EXIF data, and I bet in nearly every case it'll turn out that the lack of sharpness is due to poor technique on your part, not due to an unsharp lens. No offense.
--
Michael

johnny98 said:jcb193 said:I'm trying to be as nice on here as I can, but I need a lens that is good for taking pictures in a hotel room, of a subject in various poses....18-200 lens is decent, but not as good for closeups.

f/1.8 is much faster than the 18-200 zoom lens. The main advantage of a fast prime lens is that it gives you much more speed than a zoom.

which means that in the hotel room you do not need to use a flash, so the skin tone will look much more natural. Also remember: the LAST thing you want is a tack-sharp image of someones' face or skin. You will see every wrinkle, hair, zit, blemish and scratch. That is not a sight most will want to see. You would want the image to be smoother and more flattering - therefore a wide aperture will allow for shallow depth-of-field. (you can also use soft-focus filters, but that is another story)

EDIT: skin tone will look natural if you remember to do appropriate white balance...

One easy way to solve your problem of close ups (esp if you have the 18-200) is to buy a "Macro" filter. A very good one is the Canon 500D. It threads onto the front of your lens, just like a filter. much less expensive than a Macro lens.

zklopman said:Taking pictures using the F/1.8 lens allows for two stops faster than the Zoom lens.

Well, sure. I did explicitly state "at moderate apertures." And made it clear that I was talking solely about "sharpness."

I never suggested that f/1.8 offered no advantage over f/4.5. For existing light work, or for shallow DoF, of course the faster lens is the better choice. For that matter, if compactness is important, a 35mm f/1.8 is likely to be small and lighter than an 18-200mm zoom. And there are other advantages, too.

But jplee3 was criticizing the sharpness of the lens, not its limitations in these other areas. And I pointed out that within certain limits, even an 18-200mm zoom is capable of yielding sharp images.

Just as an aside, I plan on picking up this 35mm f/1.8 lens, but not just yet. It's been available for, like, 3 days now. I'll wait a little, and get one on sale sometime this spring. I have a 35mm f/1.4 from way back in the days when people focused lenses manually and fed their cameras film to keep them happy. I still use it, and I like it, and it's not as if auto-focus is all that important to me in a fast 35mm lens, but for under $200 this new lens is definitely worth buying.

Anyone know if Nikon includes the matching lens hood with this lens? I know that some of their lenses come with the matching hoods, but some don't. Not a big deal, but it'd be nice if one were included.

Nikon/Canon sells their hoods for tons of money, for this price tag it shouldn't come with one

patrick835 said:Nikon/Canon sells their hoods for tons of money
Got that right. I know that some of Canon's hoods for their fast teles go for $500 or more.

Sure, they only cost around $5 to produce, but I suppose the rationale is that if you can afford a $6000 lens, you can afford to drop $500 for the matching hood.

for this price tag it shouldn't come with one

My Nikon 18-105mm cost me less than $300, and it included a hood. And I know that Nikon's 55-200mm lens, which is under $200, comes with the matching lens hood and a cheap little faux leather storage bag.

So it seemed plausible to me that this $200 lens might ship with the matching hood. But if it doesn't, I have a rubber hood that'll fit its filter thread.

Man, a $500 lens hood. Kinda restores my faith in the ability of private citizens to overpay every bit as well as the Pentagon can. (Reminds me of that King of the Hill episode, where a character said, "We spend $80,000 for each military-grade barber chair. The French make a barber chair that costs $110,000. It's a damn good chair, but I'm not gonna spend $110,000 for a barber chair.")

From the Nikon website:

Supplied Accessories
HB-46 Bayonet Lens Hood; LC-52 Snap-On Front Lens Cap; LF-1 Rear Lens Cap; CL-0913 Soft Case

patrick835 said:just buy the lens and WAIT!
i'll open a company specialize in hoods for you guys when i graduate. high quality normal hoods, high-end hoods with built-in range finder/infrared filter/mp3 player/and 1.3mp PS camera

I want one that's Y2k compliant. And tactical. As used by the Navy SEALs. I want a lens hood that practically reeks of milspeckiness and tacticality. With tritium nite markings.

Oh, and it had better be "Digital Ready." Like my Mountain House freeze dried mac & cheese.

OOS already ...