If you are looking for a good general-purpose lens at an affordable price, then the 18-135m Nikon will deliver. Whilst a street price around £200 / $300 it will interest especially those buying into one of the lower and medium-price-range Nikon DSLR's. It may be sold as a standard fitment in a "kit" deal. Later, if upgrading the camera it will remain a useful compact optic. That usage may give it an appeal to the owner of a top-rank DSLR not wishing to be burdened with the bulk of a more state-of-art design. Those in such possible market sectors will not be looking for fault free, large scale enlargements. Within its limits it is an honest lens with a particular focal length span that, surprisingly is currently unmatched. It is recommended, but don't expect too much at this price.
Why should you care what I think?
My relationship with this item: Editor review
Conclusions at a glance
Would you recommend this Item: Undecided Pros: long focal range, price Cons: fringing, Vignetting at 18mm
Last updated: Wednesday, 27 February 2008
User Lens Reviews
Average user rating from: 55 user(s)
Overall rating (weighted)
3.5
Sharpness
3.5
Build Quality
3.5
AF Speed
3.4
Value for Money
3.5
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Nikon lens review, Saturday, 15 May 2010
Overall rating (weighted)
5.0
Sharpness
5.0
Build Quality
5.0
AF Speed
5.0
Value for Money
5.0
I bought this lens for my grandson who was going to Italy for a month. I worked with a great seller on Amazon and he did everything he could do to make this purchase friendly and helpful. I would buy from this seller again, and definitely check with Amazon anytime I need something new.
And I think my grandson might appreciate some other options for his Nikon camera. He's already taken some great pictures with it.
Bought a new D80 it came with a 18-135mm lense. Have had problems with the lense and camera making connection. To the point when I had a one of a kind shot and the unit failed me. NOT GOOD. Today I noticed that the lense aperature is not shutting down. Took the lense off camera and can see a few fingers hanging down. I take very good care of my camera and am distressed - MAD - this is happening. I have had the camera for over 1.5 years. The lense should not fail like this.
Very sharp lens from Nikon, Friday, 09 October 2009
Overall rating (weighted)
4.5
Sharpness
5.0
Build Quality
5.0
AF Speed
4.0
Value for Money
4.0
This lens is sharp and light and provides you with 7X zoom. Excellent walk-around lens. The built quality is not great though with its plastic mount. Lacks VR. But excels in sharpness, so if you like sharp and you like the range, this is the one to get.
SHARP 7.5X consumer zoom, Saturday, 26 September 2009
Overall rating (weighted)
3.5
Sharpness
4.0
Build Quality
4.0
AF Speed
3.0
Value for Money
3.0
I've been using this lens for about 10 months. I use it on my D60. I mostly use primes because they are so much faster (better for low light) and they are far sharper than any zoom that I can afford. So for any camera I own, I usually have one zoom that will do the job when no primes can. This lens fits that role nicely.
This lens has what many negative reviewers say: Pincushion distortion at the extreme wide end and vigneting at the extreme tele end. However, the image sharpness and color rendition is really good with this lens at every focal length and if you use NIKON Capture NX2 the distortions at all focal lengths are removed perfectly (that is the great thing about using an image editor made by your camera manufacturer...). This is consumer grade so it is SLOW. Use outdoors during the day or use the flash.
I paid $200.00 for this lens brand new...I know I got a great deal and I don't regret it at all. The construction is basic consumer grade (plastic city...)so I think a reasonable price for this lens is [...] ...TOPS. If you can find a great deal grab it. But be careful mounting and unmounting and try to avoid dropping the lens or your camera with this lens attached! You are paying for LOTS of glass here! It is difficult to make a lens sharp at every focal length on a zoom this wide but they did it really well.
Bottom line: this lens could be cheaper due to build quality but the zoom range, extreme sharpness at every focal length (for a consumer zoom), and good color rendition make it worthy of a 4 star review in my opinion.
And oh yeah, someone said something about bokeh in these reviews...Anyone who is buying this lens and is complaining about bokeh just doesn't know enough to know better. If you want bokeh get a fixed focal length lens with a wide aperature (f1.4 or f1.8). I know of no zooms under $1,000.00 that have decent bokeh. Lenses to try for better bokeh: Nikon 35MM f1.8 DXS G ($[...]), the 50mm F1.4G ($[...]), the Sigma 50mm 1.4 HSM ($[...]) or the BADASS 85mm 1.4 (BIG effin' bucks). You get what you pay for and you should be paying for GLASS to get great shots NOT cameras!
Impressive for a kit lens, destined to be a kit le, Thursday, 25 June 2009
Overall rating (weighted)
2.5
Sharpness
3.0
Build Quality
2.0
AF Speed
2.0
Value for Money
3.0
It's difficult to write this review without substantial bias and background, but the best way to write this review is to speak from experience.
I got this lens with the Nikon D80, which many people have cited (somewhat accurately) as among the most notorious for soft images. (I do have objections to that, and I do say that a great prime lens such as the 50mm f/1.8 produces very sharp images.) The camera I received had focus problems; after fixing them, the problem was somewhat corrected, but I'm willing to consider the possibility that I got a bad copy of the lens.
While problems can vary from copy to copy, some problems are bred by design. The pincushion distortion is prominent all the way down the barrel. It's most noticeable in cityscapes and any other subject material composed of straight lines, and after five months and more than 2,500 pictures, I see the distortion in some of my nature photography, as well. As you've likely seen in the customer image gallery, the lens does perform well in spite of (and, in a few cases, because of) the distortion. But more often than not, the distortion is less than aesthetic; while there are lenses that barrel-distort an image for aesthetic effect, this is not one of them.
Unfortunately, Photoshop can't adequately fix many of the images that suffer from the distortion. There's only so much distortion that can be corrected, and the 18-135mm lens frequently meets or surpasses that limit. The easiest pictures to correct are those in which the subject is far away, but if the images have objects in the more immediate foreground, I can't fix the image well without significantly distorting those objects.
Nevertheless, there is minor compensation at the very least. A feature under CS3's Filter > Distort > Lens Correction compensates for some of the distortion. For total control, I use Edit > Transform > Perspective, and I use the "Switch between free transform and warp modes" to bring up a grid that enables me to "pull" sections of the image.
The bokeh in this lens is a significant issue, as well. The lens does a poor job blurring the background; spots of light are not blurred out smoothly, and many highlights show a great amount of detail. To my eye, it's the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. My prime lens produces good bokeh, and using it as a comparison to the 18-135mm has helped me understand how critical bokeh is to a picture. Fortunately, Photoshop can compensate if I add a mask, completely Blur out the background image, and paint over the parts of the image that are supposed to be sharp. But it's frustrating to have a lens that doesn't get good bokeh directly after I fire the shutter. There's only so much an image can be doctored before it becomes blatantly obvious.
Chromatic aberration is a minor issue with this lens, especially in low-light situations. For example, one of my lightning pictures shows a considerable blue fringing around the power pole and a lot of red fringing around the lightning strikes. But when it comes right down to it, chromatic Aberration borders on splitting hairs, especially since the optics were never destined to be professional-caliber. Plus, chromatic aberration is nicely remedied by Photoshop's RAW tools, and uncorrected aberration is not obvious when I zoom out the image, anyway.
Because I received this as a kit lens, I investigated this and other lenses well after buying the camera. I learned most of the pros and cons just as I was shooting pictures. One of the major pros is the focal length; the low 18mm and the high 135mm zoom appear great practically and logistically. Another major pro is the width; not many kit lenses boast of a 67mm diameter. Perhaps the biggest pro in my book is the minimum focusing distance; eighteen inches on a zoom lens gives me a useful macro to work with.
Granted, this lens has a lot of great features that look appealing on paper, but the cons can render those features null and void. The lens works great as a kit lens and serves its purpose a notch higher than many other kit lenses, but if you have the opportunity to buy the camera body separately and purchase a higher-quality lens down the road, you will likely consider the extra money well spent.
Impressive for a kit lens, destined to be a kit le, Thursday, 25 June 2009
Overall rating (weighted)
3.5
Sharpness
4.0
Build Quality
4.0
AF Speed
2.0
Value for Money
4.0
It's difficult to write this review without substantial bias and background, but the best way to write this review is to speak from experience.
I got this lens with the Nikon D80, which many people have cited (somewhat accurately) as among the most notorious for soft images. (I do have objections to that, and I do say that a great prime lens such as the 50mm f/1.8 produces very sharp images.) The camera I received had focus problems; after fixing them, the problem was somewhat corrected, but I'm willing to consider the possibility that I got a bad copy of the lens.
While problems can vary from copy to copy, some problems are bred by design. The pincushion distortion is prominent all the way down the barrel. It's most noticeable in cityscapes and any other subject material composed of straight lines, and after five months and more than 2,500 pictures, I see the distortion in some of my nature photography, as well. As you've likely seen in the customer image gallery, the lens does perform well in spite of (and, in a few cases, because of) the distortion. But more often than not, the distortion is less than aesthetic; while there are lenses that barrel-distort an image for aesthetic effect, this is not one of them.
Unfortunately, Photoshop can't adequately fix many of the images that suffer from the distortion. There's only so much distortion that can be corrected, and the 18-135mm lens frequently meets or surpasses that limit. The easiest pictures to correct are those in which the subject is far away, but if the images have objects in the more immediate foreground, I can't fix the image well without significantly distorting those objects.
Nevertheless, there is minor compensation at the very least. A feature under CS3's Filter > Distort > Lens Correction compensates for some of the distortion. For total control, I use Edit > Transform > Perspective, and I use the "Switch between free transform and warp modes" to bring up a grid that enables me to "pull" sections of the image. But there's only so much an image can be corrected without making it worse, and the lens tend to produce images that surpass the limit.
The bokeh in this lens is a significant issue, as well. The lens does a poor job blurring the background; spots of light are not blurred out smoothly, and many highlights show a great amount of detail. To my eye, it's the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. My prime lens produces good bokeh, and using it as a comparison to the 18-135mm has helped me understand how critical bokeh is to a picture. Fortunately, Photoshop can compensate if I add a mask, completely blur out the background image, and paint over the parts of the image that are supposed to be sharp. But it's frustrating to have a lens that doesn't get good bokeh directly after I fire the shutter. There's only so much an image can be doctored before it becomes blatantly obvious.
Chromatic aberration is a minor issue with this lens, especially in low-light situations. For example, one of my lightning pictures shows a considerable blue fringing around the power pole and a lot of red fringing around the lightning strikes. But when it comes right down to it, chromatic aberration borders on splitting hairs, especially since the optics were never destined to be professional-caliber. Plus, chromatic aberration is nicely remedied by Photoshop's RAW tools, and uncorrected aberration is not obvious when I zoom out the image, anyway.
Because I received this as a kit lens, I investigated this and other lenses well after buying the camera. I learned most of the pros and cons just as I was shooting pictures. One of the major pros is the focal length; the low 18mm and the high 135mm zoom appear great practically and logistically. Another major pro is the width; not many kit lenses boast of a 67mm diameter. Perhaps the biggest pro in my book is the minimum focusing distance; eighteen inches on a zoom lens gives me a useful macro to work with.
Granted, this lens has a lot of great features that look appealing on paper, but the cons can render those features null and void. The lens works great as a kit lens and outperforms many kit lenses on the market, but if you have the opportunity to buy the camera body separately and purchase a higher-quality lens down the road, you will likely consider the extra money well spent.
Great Value for the price., Saturday, 13 June 2009
Overall rating (weighted)
3.5
Sharpness
3.0
Build Quality
3.0
AF Speed
3.0
Value for Money
5.0
So now you've got your Nikon DLSR and you've read the books and seen the videos. Wow your camera does all sorts of things. Three months later you are still taking all kinds of great pictures but you notice that 95% of the time the camera is in Auto mode. Welcome to the real world of photography. And that bag with all that stuff you just had to have ? Yeah, six months later you see that only dorks and noobs carry that crap around. So you only want one lens on your rig and some kind of filter- lens caps are silly too when outside. So which one lens ? Well The Nikon 18-200 would be the way to go, but maybe you don't want to drop $600 on a lens. So the next choice is this lens. At half the price its a great lens to leave on all the time. You won't miss the reach of the 200mm that much. Just be careful when you buy from Amazon shopping. Half the places selling are selling gray market. refurbs, demos , used , etc. You gotta read the fine print. Have fun.
Handy and good lense when not wide open. Mine brok, Monday, 08 June 2009
Overall rating (weighted)
3.5
Sharpness
3.0
Build Quality
4.0
AF Speed
3.0
Value for Money
4.0
This lens is versatile. If the lighting is good it produces decent images. It's not very fast, but sufficient for my use (very basic) most of the time. The extra zoom is very handy but I've noticed when the lighting is a Bit low (e.g., outdoor early evening), the pictures come out way too dark.
I used this lens lightly for about 1.5 year before I took it off to try the new 50mm lens I got for Christmas. 6 months later I put this lens back on the camera and it wouldn't focus. During the 6 months it was not used it was just sitting on my desk. I don't know how it could be broken! Now I have to send it back to Nikon for repair and it won't be back on time for a big trip coming up. So now I am looking for a new lens. I am seriously considering the 18-200vr lens. If you have the extra few hundred dollars, I say get the 18-200vr lens. Otherwise stick with the standard kit lens and save up the money for the 18-200vr lens.
After buying the Nikon 18-135 lens and also the lowest price from any website from ebay to Amazon this is now my everyday lens that I use. Thanks for the great price and a quality product.
I love my 18-135 Nikon lens. I find it works for about everything I take pictures of. There are very few times I take it off. A great purchase for my everyday use. [...].
perfect range, light, fast focus, Wednesday, 15 April 2009
Overall rating (weighted)
4.0
Sharpness
4.0
Build Quality
3.0
AF Speed
5.0
Value for Money
4.0
I bought d80 because of this lens. 18 to 135mm is a perfect range for one lens. I didn't want to switch lenses so this was the solution. There are a lot criticism in amazon reviews about this lens, but just know that all Zoom lenses have distortions. Nikon lens makers decided to make this into a sharp lens and sacrificed on distortion part. The thing is there are plenty of photographers titled PRO in flickr who love this lens. I'm not a pro, but I've seen their photos and the lens seems to work just fine for them.
Like they say, it's not the camera or the lens, but the photographer who can shoot great pictures. The reason for 4 stars is the price. This is a great deal with d80, but I wouldn't pay $350 just for the lens.
excellent Resolution but poor construction. Mine f, Friday, 20 March 2009
Overall rating (weighted)
3.0
Sharpness
3.0
Build Quality
3.0
AF Speed
3.0
Value for Money
3.0
The lens has excellent resolution, and quite nice image quality. Not as good as the 18-70, but the longer zoom reach was worth it for me. Problem is, it is too fragile a lens. Mine stopped focusing after a 5 inch fall INSIDE a padded photo bag. And a friend of mine had the same problem with no apparent reason. I wouldn't recommend it.
I am a novas photographer at best i got this lens in the D80 kit and have been shooting with it for over a year, like most people I didn't have thousands of dollars to spend on a lens, and I feel that it is a wonderful lens as well as versatile. I have taken it hiking my kids have played with it and it is still going. As far as the statements this is a good lens for an armature but not a pro well check out Nikon's site were they have pros shoot with all different cameras and lenses and I feel a true pro can work with anything handed to them. So in my opinion if you and looking for something to learn with this is a great lens and don't let all the so called pros out there scare you off. You don't have to spend thousands of dollars to take good pics just believe in yourself and don't give up
no problem with the product but had shocking service from both amazon and adorama camera, i purchased on one click ordering and realised afterwards my daughter's address had changed, and both pointed fingers at each other and refused to change the address, before it even shipped out. camera shop staff refused to elevate my complaint to a manager, and once i posted a negative review i got a response from a manager whom simply said it was amazon's fault. unbelievably shocking customer service.
