Which lens for an Ideal One lens Solution

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John Gledhill

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Hi.
Looking to buy a lens which is an ideal one lens solution, I have at the moment a Nikon 18-55mm lens and a 55-300mm zoom lens which I use with a Nikon D3200, but I'd love where I just need the one lens, I do lots of sport photography, especially cycling photography, so I shall be using the lens for the up coming Tour De Yorkshire.

The lenses which I have been looking at, are either the "Tamron 16-300mm f3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD Macro Lens for Nikon" or the "Nikon AF-S DX 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3G ED VR Lens" but can not decide which is the better lens. Which one would be better for quality at close ups and zoomed out?
Cheers.
 
John Gledhill said:
Looking to buy a lens which is an ideal one lens solution,...Cheers.
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Mark G said:
It'd be worth reading THIS before committing to a one lens fits all.
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I once had a Sigma 28-300mm which wasn't the best lens ever made but I do think that these lenses can make pretty good holiday and day out lenses if you go into this with your eyes open, have realistic expectations and use the lenses to their strengths. A few thoughts for the OP...

- These lenses aren't going to offer state of the art image quality but they may be perfectly ok and even good for whole images viewed normally.
- There may well be some softness wide open and you may well need to stop down a bit to get the best from these lenses.
- The limited aperture range of f3.5-6.3 may be the biggest issue as if shooting in less than wonderful light you may need to raise the ISO to get a decent shutter speed, especially when stopping down a bit to get optimum results.
- There may be some barrel and or pincushion distortion but some correction may be possible post capture or indeed these little nasties may not be visible depending upon your subject.

I found that my Sigma 28-300mm performed best when used in good light with a higher shutter speed and when stopped down a little to photograph natural subjects and I've taken some of my favourite shots with that (long since sold lens) and actually I do miss it from time to time.

If you don't expect state of the art test bench results and use these lenses to their strengths you may be happy enough but as per Mark above I'd advise proceeding with caution and only buying when you know the limitations and strengths of these superzooms.
 
kevshore said:
The nikon 28-300mm is a cracking little lens. :)
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28mm won't be wide enough for cycling on a crop body but I loved it on my D600.

Of the two mentioned I would go for the Tamron as the extra 2mm at the wide end could be quite significant and useful for the low down corner shots.

That said, you need to consider the exposure triangle in view of the standard Yorkshire as you will need a decent shutter speed for this and an all-in-one lens won't really help (although the high ISO on the D3200 is pretty decent).
 
All superzoom lenses are a compromise. They will never be especially sharp, they are always slow at the longer focal lengths, sometimes distortion is a problem (though that's correctable) and focussing isn't especially quick either. If you can live with that then they are a tolerable solution, though they may not be much worse than your existing outfit lenses. If you want better image quality than those lenses then you need to be looking at a smaller zoom range, possibly adding a second body if you don't want to change lenses between shots.

FWIW I have a Sigma 18-250 HSM and older Sigma 28-200. I would say the 28-200 is optically better than the 18-250, but is more bulky and heavier. I used the 18-250 on holiday in Canada a couple of years ago, and ended up going back to my 18-55 (Sony) kit lens because it had better image quality and handling. Some of the images from the 18-250 were good enough to print to 30"x20", but generally were not as good as I would have liked.
 
I've got an 18-250mm zoom, and probably 10 other lenses, primes and zooms, which deliver better image quality. It still takes more of my photos than any other ingle lens, because despite its several deficiencies it's still the lens my camera wears when I'm just carrying the camera around just in case with nothing specific in mind. It can instantly switch from photographing a workman on a high roof to a bee in a flower. I sometimes even bung it in my camera bag even though I'm carrying a 16-50mm and an 80-200mm, both top quality constant f2.8 lenses, just because nothing beats it for quick response to the unexpected transient opportunity. I'd hesitate to use it for a cycling race, however, unless I could rely on sunlight. It would be a lot better than nothing, but on an A4 print, possibly even A5, noticeably worse than any other lens I've got with the appropriate length.
 
I'm quite happy with a Tamron 28~300 on my 5D. Know its limitations and act accordingly...

26156450310_5e38a0e7b8_b.jpg
 
Here's one from my Canadian trip, Sigma 18-250:

IcefieldsParkway-08310_zpsa1935f4d.jpg~original


It gives the sort of quality you'd get from a good superzoom compact - fine for web work and modest prints if you don't mind the limitations.
 
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