Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Hi Guys - I just got the 18-270 for Nikon (D80 here) and am NOT happy with it. I guess the other guys got better 'copies' than I did (my normal luck.) The Good: Feels and looks very well made Quiet - might not by USM, but is VERY quiet, and would be perfectly fine at a wedding. You can barely here it, honestly 6 year warranty (Don't buy grey-market, and ONLY buy from an authorized dealer!) The BAD: Image quality - Virtually all of my pictures are soft! I even set the d80 to maximum sharpness - better, but still not enough. Focus lock was VERY slow (typically) sometimes even taking 8-9 seconds, and this was in outdoor light around 5pm. Even then, the pics are just not sharp. Inside, even with decent lighting, it just won't get focus-lock in half my pics. Manual focus worked fine, but there is not a lot of barrel movement between out of focus and in focus, so its tough to get it just right. Lens Creep - its there - if you point the camera up, my lens falls back in. Fortunately, you do have the lock swith , which is great. Also, when you extend the zoom, it feels "ok," but the resistance changes as you extend it. You can tell there is a lot rotating inside the lens. Try it, and write write back your own findings. Make sure whovever you buy from has a good return policy. My thoughts are the Nikon 18-200 is probably the right way to go, but I'm going to try the Simga HSM OS 18-200 just cause the price is $200 bucks less. Good luck. UPDATE: I have now compared the Sigma 18-200 vs the 18-270. IMMEDIATELY, I noticed much quicker focus-lock (at any focal-length) with the SIGMA, and upon viewing them on the PC, much sharper results. I'd have to try another 18-270 to be sure if I got a bad one or not, but at this point, my sale goes to Sigma.