Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

After two days of use and test shots on my Nikon D7100 I am very pleased with this lens. It's not perfect, but it's very good; I'd give it a4.5 stars if that were possible for reasons made clear below. Auto-focusing is fast and crisp, and the manual focus ring turns smoothly and easily. The zoom is a tad stiff, but unlike my previous superzoom (Nikon 18-200) there is no zoom creep when carried face down, even without engaging the zoom lock. The VC (image stabilization) appears to be excellent, enabling hand-held telephoto shots at relatively slow shutter speeds. Full-scale crops show the lens to be a little soft at all focal lengths, as expected in a lens of this range and price, but it's acceptably sharp for general photography. Fall-off at the corners is very slight. The biggest optical compromise is in distortion. My tripod test shots show pronounced barrel distortion at 16mm, with some complex ("mustache") components. At 300mm, this has gone over to mild pin-cushion distortion, and pin-cushion distortion is also evident at 50mm. Overall, this is an excellent choice for serious photographers wanting a truly all-in-one lens. PROS + Good build with weather-sealed construction + Slightly smaller and lighter than similar competitors + Best-in-class range (18.8-to-1 zoom) + Good auto-focus and stabilization + Great value-for-money CONS - Noticeable optical distortion over entire range - Half-stop slower at telephoto end than competitors The negatives are fairly easy to compensate for by cranking up the ISO and some judicious post-processing to correct distortion. However, if you do a lot of architectural photography, this is not the lens for you. Likewise if you do a lot of low-light work or portraiture, you will be better served by good prime lenses or shorter-range zooms with wider aperture. But if you want to slap one lens onto your DX/APS-C format DSLR and be off into the woods or onto the street, this would be a solid choice.