Nikkon AF-S VR Zoom 18-200mm lens.

This is an "OK" lens for day-to-day use; but depending on your budget and how serious you are about photography ... this is how you'd tell if that's the lens for you to use or not!

Most serious photographers would not recommend that lens for the two venues you're talking about .... something more like the 12-24, 24-70 and 70-200 along with a few primes at f1.4 or f1.8 would be the best.
 
lukewoodford said:
This is the lens i have for my D300. Is it suitable for portraits and weddings?

Thanks in advance, Luke
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Its really a walkabout lens for when you dont want a bag full of kit with you. But, saying that, a tog friend of mine used my D200 with that lens ( and my SB800) to do a wedding when his kit was at another function, and all the shots turned out brilliant, even at the evening reception.
So, it can be done, but you should really take Wail`s advice about other lens choices.
Allan
 
lukewoodford said:
Thanks for the help, could you please explain why its better to have individual lenses for different ranges?
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Two reasons.

Firstly, the simpler the lens, the easier it is to design it to deliver high optical quality. Zoom lenses - and especially those with a big range like the 18-200 - have to be incredibly complicated to cope with different focal lengths and different focussing distances. Primes can be simpler, and that tends to mean better.

Secondly primes tend to be faster, ie allowing a wider aperture and therefore faster shutter speeds and better background blur.

But of course the downside is convenience. And (sometimes) price.
 
I used to shoot weddings, albeit on medium format (Bronica SQA), there is no way I would use that lens for a wedding. I never shot less than f4 and generally at f5.6 as the proximity to the couple blurred the background anyway. Point I am making is, use a shorter focal length zoom for the weddings - believe it or not, the 18-70mm budget yields very sharp results, likewise, the 55-200mm VR does also. Each of these zooms has a 3-4x ratio, lens manufacturers have got these off to a tee, the 11x ratio of the 18-200 is far too much a jack of all trades.
 
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