Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was torn between the 18-105mm and 18-200mm. After a week of shooting with both on a D40x a few things became clear: - the 105 seems to be more reliable - it can focus correctly more often (less hunt) and the VR, though less powerful than the VRII, reduces blur more often (for me) than the VRII on the 200mm - the 105 is much more comfortable on the D40/D60 body. It feels almost perfect. Not too heavy; not too light. Just right. - the color saturation is better on the 18-200mm - the sharpness is very similar on both (at the center at least). My recommendation is that if money is tight and the weight of the camera is important to you (since this is a walk around lens), the 18-105mm is a very nice upgrade to the 18-55mm or the 18-55mm & 55-200mm combo. You can use the extra $ for a nice flash and the 35mm prime. If money is not and issue and you find yourself shooting a lot of images at 200mm - then go for the 18-200mm. Image quality will not be a deciding factor. Perhaps order the 18-200mm, shoot for a week with it and look at how often you use the range 105-200mm. If you are not using it often - trade it in for the 105mm. Otherwise, remember that cropping on an image taken at 105mm is not a replacement for 200mm optical zoom for more reasons than pixel count - focus, exposure, and depth of field are also different under real zoom and I find this important for portraits. In the end I sent my 18-200mm back and kept the 18-105mm.