55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED IF Auto Focus-S DX VR [Vibration Reduction] Nikkor Zoom Lens

I've been using this lens on my Nikon D40. Truth be told, I wasn't too thrilled with the basic kit that only came with the 18-55 lens. I'd been using my Canon SI3 as my preferred camera for sporting events, travel, and school activities. I'd had my eye on this lens for a while but just couldn't justify the price until I found a reasonably priced refurbished lens. The icing on the cake for me is that I get incredible compositions with a very modest investment (my lens was half the retail price of a new one at Circuit City). I couldn't be more pleased. Low lighting and shadows do limit some shots that include action or rapid movement. On the other hand, most lenses and cameras have this limitation. But if your subject is relatively still, you'll have no problem letting in more light at a slower shutter speed to get great photos. Like any lens, your best shots will be in good daylight or strong indoor lighting. You won't be disappointed. Because it's a zoom lens, you won't be able to stand too close to your subject. One of the downsides of 55 mm. But I compensate for this by just waiting until my subject is at least 4 feet away so that I can get the best focusing opportunity. If you take advantage of the fast shutter technology from your camera, you'll greatly appreciate the wonderful results and impressive boket that makes your work look like a trained professional. Nothing takes your breath away more than a photo of your child who is in crisp focus while the background blurs in the distance. It's one of the best features of digital photography that you can simply delete out photos and only keep the very best ones. You may find that changing to 800 ISO and activating the noise reduction feature in the D40 gives you just what you need - fast shutter speeds that stop the action without degrading the photo. While it will add some size to your camera, the light weight allows you to hold the kit for as long as you want without wearing you out. To take advantage of this lens to its fullest, I recommend using a high resolution (quality set to Fine, size set to Large). Avoid throwing out shots via the camera delete function when in playback. Instead - wait until you can download all the photos to your computer and look around for interesting sections of your composition. Then use your photo editing software to crop and keep the unexpected gems you may have missed while trying to make decisions on the viewfinder. I found interesting facial expressions or live action scenes that would have been deleted. For example, while aiming at a fountain, a small bird was in mid flight with wings extended off center. I just cropped so that the bird was centered in the resulting output and it looks like I had aimed at him all along. Thanks to the high resolution setting, I still had enough pixels available for a good looking printed photo. This is a very cool, must have accessory for your Nikon. Whether you buy new or refurbished, you won't regret your decision once you've mounted it onto your camera

There are faster, longer, and higher-quality lenses on the market. That's a no-brainer. You can find lenses that beat the humble 55-200mm f/4-5.6G in every possible respect. But that doesn't make this lens any less valuable in a startling lineup of lenses. It's an excellent performer all around at rock-bottom prices. It makes an amazing second lens for a beginning DSLR user, with no two doubts about it. Here's the breakdown. PROS + It's thoroughly manageable to carry. This lens is ridiculously light and reasonably compact for a telephoto zoom. If you get a chance to handle its bulkier cousins, the 55-300mm and the 70-300mm (or third party equivalents), you'll appreciate just how little the plastic 55-200mm weighs. It also takes up next to no space in just about any gear bag, whether you bought it or improvised. You know what they say about the best camera, right? Same goes with lenses-- if you didn't carry it with you, it's not doing you any good! Even with the hood, it's compact. + Versatile zoom range. The 55-200mm reach gives you the ability to take shots while walking around without trouble. The wide end (55mm) is a medium telephoto in DX terms, but you can still be reasonably close in before having trouble fitting something in the frame. 200mm isn't going to get you near exotic wildlife, but you'd be surprised at how well you can grab birds or other small creatures with "just" 200mm. With the increasingly high-resolution sensors DSLRs are fitted with, you're also likely able to crop inwards a bit further if needbe. + Quiet. Focusing and vibration reduction are both very discreet, enough so that I'm more than comfortable using this lens during events. Audible? Sure, but not enough to bug anyone more than your standard shutter. Speaking of vibration reduction though... + Vibration reduction. It works. And it's completely worth it. You must remember that you're still going to get subject blur at lower shutter speeds, but for all intents and purposes I've been able to forget about handheld shake for daily shooting with this lens. It's really quite remarkable. On the other hand, don't think you're going to be doing much shooting during a car chase or anything. + Image quality is excellent. The lens is sharp with no particularly nasty characteristics, and no distortion that can't be fixed by your average post-processing RAW developer (or indeed, in-camera JPEG correction). + Beautiful compliment to the 18-55mm kit. Its aperture at the wide end (f/4) handily beats the kit lens' f/5.6, which can give you a little more breathing room if you need it without overlapping enough to make the kit lens superfluous. + Precise build and functional, tactile controls. The zoom ring is well damped, not prone to creeping, and turns with a great degree of precision for such a cheap lens. Sure, the manual focusing ring is tiny, but if you do need to use it I've found it works just fine (although a bit on the looser side). Infinitely better than the kit 18-55mm's ring, in my opinion. + Internal focusing. The lens doesn't extend unless you want it to, and the filter ring doesn't mess about if you're into polarizers or graduated ND filters. + 52mm filter size. This makes it a great companion to the kit lens (you can swap filters), and it's a common size that's easy to provide for. + Autofocus doesn't mess around. The lens isn't any more prone to hunting than you'd expect, and usually locks on quickly and silently. CONS - Focusing ring is a bit slim. If you do really want to take advantage of manual focus, you'd be better served by a lens that's ergonomically designed for it. In a similar fashion, - Dedicated manual/autofocus modes. Nikon's more expensive lenses (or their newer primes) generally have a M/A mode which allows you to override the autofocus by simply grabbing the focus ring and turning. This lens requires that you switch the lens into manual before you make such adjustments (at the risk of damaging the lens otherwise). - 200mm maximum reach means that more distant subjects may leave you wishing for "just a little more." That said, take this with a grain of salt-- I upgraded to a 300mm lens recently, and while I appreciate the additional range it's hardly a revolutionary change. - Slower speeds. It's an f/4-5.6 lens, so it's not going to be pretty if you're shooting indoors or at night. Your camera will need to have a solid higher ISO performance if you want these kinds of shots; even with vibration reduction, you'll either hit the VR system's limits or run into subject blur unless you can shoot at at least ISO 800/1600. This lens was my second, and while I've moved on since I will miss it dearly. Amazing lens and a wonderful, wonderful place to start with photography.

Short version of my review: this is a superb Nikkor lens at a ridiculously low price - buy it. Slightly longer version of my review: When I bought my D3100 9 months ago, I tried a 55-200 in the camera store. The demo lens was not impressive as it creaked nonstop on the camera body and I was not thrilled with a plastic lens mount on a relatively large lens, so I decided to get a Tamron 70-300 instead. The Tamron is a fine lens for the money, had a metal mount and is fully capable of hand-held shooting at 70mm, but there is no way I can take a sharp image at 200mm or 300mm without a tripod or monopod. So I decided it would be nice to have another tele lens that I could actually use handheld. When I saw that Amazon was selling the 55-200 VR for $149 with a free UV filter and free shipping, I decided that for such little money, I would take a chance on this lens and buy myself a Xmas present, so I got the Nikkor. To my pleasant surprise, the lens I received does not creak at all. It is sharp, has fast autofocus and I can take sharp, beautiful handheld images with ease at 200mm with this lens. VR is for real! The quality of construction is better than I remembered on the demo lens and the plastic lens mount, while certainly not my first choice, is acceptable for the ridiculously low price I paid. I treat all my camera equipment with great care - but the occasional accident does happen. I recently dropped my Panasonic LX-3 from a height of 4 feet on to a cement floor. Luckily, it was in its case and sustained zero damage. I doubt that dropping a DSLR with this lens from the same distance would result in no damage. I highly recommend this lens at the current price of $149 - it really is an incredible deal at that price point! Update: Now that I have been shooting with this lens for close to 6 months, I am even more impressed with it now than initially. It works very well for portraits and close-up photography, so I keep it on my D3100 most of the time now. I even won a photography contest using this lens to shoot cherry blossoms. This lens is the best bang for the buck of any lens I have ever purchased: I paid less for this lens than my friend paid in sales tax on the last lens he purchased! Highly recommended.

This certainly is not the 70-200 f/2.8. Another poster commented that you should go for that instead. If you have a couple grand to spare and are using this professionally, he's absolutely right. In fact with $500 I would go for the (also consumer) 70-300 f/4-5.6 VR which has VR-2 and a decent focus motor (though I haven't tested one so I can't comment on anything else about it). For a mere $200, though, this is a fantastic piece of glass. The focus motor is so slow they would have been better off using a normal AF mount and having the camera do the focus work, but then they couldn't sell this for use with the D40/60. It has acceptable sharpness in all focal lengths at most apertures. It has slight vignetting at all lengths, but not enough to be noticeable unless you like shooting plain walls. Also it has slight barrelling at 55 and cushion at 200, but not enough to be a problem unless you're using it for architectural shots (why would you want a telephoto for that?) The biggest plus on the lens is the VR. Despite some negative comments about it having cheapo VR, it preformed beautifully for me. I tested it shooting 8, 4, and 2 pixel separated lines at 12 feet and 200mm and I could tell no noticeable movement distortion with VR on in about two thirds of the shots down to 1/8s. At 1/6s I got no usable shots, but without VR I'd get maybe 10% at 1/30s so this is a 2.5ish EV gain on no VR. If you're going to use the lens at all without a tripod I would highly recommend springing the extra $50 to get this lens instead of the VR-less version.

I bought this lens to compliment the 18-55mm kit lens that came with my D5000 before a recent trip to Europe. I am so happy that I decided to make this investment. I feel like this lens really opens up the range on my camera, allowing me to zoom in more on far away items such as architectural detail on buildings, action in sporting events, nature and wildlife, etc. I got some really amazing pictures in Europe, like close-ups of the London Eye and shots of the top of the Eiffel Tower that just would not have been possible without this kind of zoom. The vibration reduction is great because it allows you to take handheld pictures at 200mm zoom without blurring on the image. The lens also provides great color and sharpness, just like you would expect from a Nikon lens. Now some things to consider before you purchase. If you're someone who doesn't like to switch lenses, or doesn't really like to think about what you want to shoot with, this might not be for you (but then a DSLR might not be right for you either, you might just want to shoot on something with a big time optical zoom). Because this lens reduces your field of view (the smaller the mm the larger your field of view) you can't use it to taking sweeping panoramic shots. You also have to be several feet away from an item to get this lens to focus, so you can't use this lens as a stand in macro where you're just trying to get more detail by zooming. You also need to think about what you want to focus on taking pictures of before you go out to shoot--for me, making a conscious decision to go out with this lens and only shoot distance really makes me notice different things. And leads to some great and different pictures. If you're looking to expand your range at a reasonable price, I can't recommend this lens enough. I feel like it's completely worth it!

I purchased and used this lens right away on a vacation where we took a few hundred pictures in several different lighting and action environments. In short, I love this lens. It works well as a standard zoom lens. The 55-200mm rating is equivalent to about a 300mm zoom for those familiar with 35mm film lenses, because the imaging area of the Nikon SLRs is about 65% the size of a 35mm negative. Thus, the ~11x zoom is quite impressive. Zooming in all the way, it is tricky to get sharp focus 100% of the time, as it would be for any zoom lens, but with VR (vibration reduction) turned on, this is helped and with enough lighting, vibration isn't an issue. VR isn't a miracle cure, especially in lower lighting conditions, so the more you can do to steady the camera, the better. I think the VR does help significantly, but you'll still need to be mindful of doing what you can to steady the camera. Another nice use of this lens is for portrait-type work. When used for candid or portrait shots, the zoom makes beautifully rendered shallow depth-of-field shots (where the subject is in perfect focus, but the background is blurry.) Manual focus on this lens isn't perfect, but for the price, you can't expect too much. The focus ring is fairly loose, not stiff, so you can focus quickly, but it can be difficult to manually focus with great precision. Also, there are no markers or anything to tell you where you're focused, so you'll have to do it all visually. Generally, though, auto-focus works well in most scenarios. Lastly, if money were no object, I may select the 18mm-200mm lens. We have the 18-55mm and with this 55-200mm, you do have your ranges covered, but there were times we wish we didn't have to change the lens for wide angle shots. But at 2x the cost for the full-range lens, I'll stick with this lens and having to switch between the two, as money is an object for most of us and this is still a very fine lens. I'm looking forward to many more beautiful images from this lens.

Obviously, I did not give a rating of 5 because this lens is the best lens ever, but because it's quite a deal for its price. If I could, I'd give it a 4.5. If you bought a Nikon D40/40x/60 with an 18-55mm lens, this should logically be your next choice. First, here are the cons: 1. Painfully slow (aperture of 4) 2. Slow AF - it takes just a slight but noticeable second longer to auto focus compared to an average lens (55-200 is not exactly ideal for shooting sports, especially if you're using it with D40/D40x/D60). 3. Build quality - the first impression of this lens is that it feels and weighs super cheap... probably because it is. Light weight is not necessarily a bad thing, though it does take away the enthusiasm when you wait a week for your lens to come to find out that it feels and looks cheap. But on the bright side, with all else being equal, lighter is (almost always) better and convenient. The only real annoying problem out of the three is the aperture, so my advise: get a flash. This obviously isn't a complete "solution" but hey, if you don't have one, you need one anyways. If you have one, then you shouldn't have problems exposing the pictures correctly despite the low aperture. If you have a problem with slow AF and cheap build quality, just live with it. AF isn't all that slow. Besides from these problems, everything else is great - I really didn't expect such a great quality from a 200 dollar lens. Barrel distortion is negligible, pictures are sharp (especially around the center), bokeh is beautiful, and I haven't noticed much chromatic aberrations or vignetting. It's got Vibration reduction that allows me to shoot about 2 stops lower (may be add another 1/3 more), it's got IF which is somewhat useless but cool to have because the size of the lens doesn't change as you focus. I mean, for 200 dollars, what more do you want? If you want to look for other options, you're probably looking at 18-200mm VR (about $650). Now, in my opinion, 18-200mm isn't all that great because it has a lot of distortion at 18mm, it's not very sharp around the edges and you may become annoyed with the lack of friction as you carry it around. Although there's no way to beat the convenience of 18-200mm, I would argue that the quality of 55-200 is better, at about 1/3 the cost ($210). If you're lazy or if you want to backpack in Europe with minimal equipment, then 18-200 would be your choice. But if you you want better pictures at lower cost, 55-200mm is the way to go. If you have money to burn? then well, you're a lucky bastard. 70-200mm is in a league that is completely different than 55-200, so it's not even worth mentioning. The 70-300mm VR ($479) seems like a good choice, especially if you bought the 18-70mm ($310)lens to begin with. But since I have yet to use a 70-300mm, I shall not compare it to the 55-200mm. CONCLUSION: great, great lens for its price. It's even better if you just bought an 18-55mm and you're looking for your first zoom lens.

It's a great little lens, it works well, and the customer service wasn't bad either when I ran into delivery issues.

For the price it's a nice lens. You will be able to take some good long range shots. But here's a little something that beginners who are buying this lens for it's function in such a low price range, should know. It works at f/4 to 5.6. This means that the aperture of the lens is very small. Therefore, it won't function so well in low light as much as it does in bright light. Also you will not get as much depth of field effect in you shots if you intend to buy this for shooting such pictures. Unless your subject is standing far away from the BG, depth of field is not something that you can achieve easily with this lens. Having said that, it's a good lens for the purpose that it serves. I get good long range shots in broad day light. When I need some really good depth of field in my pictures, I switch to my prime lens but of course, you end up sacrificing the long range.

I've had this lens for just over a year now and feel able to comment after a fair bit of use on the Nikon D90 and 3000. The Nikkon 55-200mm is an entry level telephoto type lens that has auto focus and vibration reduction capabilities. It compliments the 18-55mm kit lens on the D3000 nicely and is ideal for portrait, wildlife and sports photography plus day to day use at the lower end. The build quality of this lens is definitely reflected in the cheap price but don't let that put you off as it is adequate enough as long as you look after it. When zooming in and out the movement is smooth with no creaks or juddering. On a big plus side its quite light in weight which when walking around (Hill walking/climbing) for upto eight hours makes a big difference. I've had brilliant shots from Derbyshire, The Lakes and Snowdonia. The vibration reduction feature is brilliant in my experience. At full zoom it really comes into its own and there is a very noticeable difference with it on, far better quality pictures optically and clarity is excellent. You will notice that as you half press the shutter release your image will suddenly stabilize, great stuff. There is some softness and fringing at the edges at 200mm but. . .more often than not your subject will be central at full zoom therefore this won't be a problem! Standing approx 1metre away and at full zoom you can get some cracking macro shots with detail. I've taken some great shots of butterflies, bees and other insects/flowers during the summer. This is also a great portrait lens. Stand back, full zoom with a wide aperture and you get a sharp subject with a nicely blurred background. I took this kind of shot of each person (with my partner) at my partner's 50th a few months ago to make a montage. Even cropped they're sharp which is down to the VR function when on full zoom. I've sent quite a few copies out and they were all very impressed thankfully! I whizzed around each person like lightening and this lens was a pleasure to use. So, yes I really like this lens! At this affordable price (compared to the 70-300mm) you're getting great functionality as an avid home photographer. Like for like its not 'that' different to the 300mm except in build quality and of course zoom! With a great auto focus and vibration reduction, lightweight too you can't go wrong in my opinion. If you're happy with the 18-55mm and 18-105mm kit lenses on the D3000 and D90 then I'd definitely go for this. Highly recommended. If. . .you're thinking of astronomical photography (connecting this to a telescope) I'd go for the 70-300mm! Hope this helps, good luck!

大変良い商品をありがとうございます😊

Great product, company shipped very quickly

Un buen objetivo el Nikon 55-200 para complementar el que viene en el kit 18-55. Mi nikon es la d3200 y me da una perfecta luminosidad. Su estabilizador funciona muy bien y su enfoque automático es muy rápido. No es GII, simplemente es G. Viene acompañado de un parasol Nikon y de una bolsa para el transporte. Te sirve perfectamente para hacer fotos de cerca (distancia minima de 70 cm), por lo que no tienes que cargar con dos objetivos cuando vas de excursión. Considero que he hecho una buena compra. Su precio muy inferior al de una tienda convencional. Construido en plástico, como todo ahora, y bien terminado. Con este objetivo, tengo cubiertas mis necesidades de fotografía para mi Nikon d3200. Lo recomiendo para los amantes de Nikon. Se recibe perfectamente embalado, en su caja original.