It sounds really tempting: No more changing lenses and minimal luggage. Like many others, I was ready, in terms of to be achieved image quality to make any concessions and so I gave my wife a few years ago, this lens hoping to be able to free myself from the Objektivwechselei A Tamron should it be because of my generally positive experience. But unfortunately never really knew to convince me this superzoom.
If you want to construct such a lens with such a huge zoom range, of course you have to make compromises. The light intensity is more borderline and low for producing auto focus comes with the large focal length and the small maximum aperture cope remarkably bad. Well, that was expected. The distortion in wide-angle and telephoto position, are not a problem for me as a RAW-users, as this can be corrected with two clicks. However, this lens offers a quite weak image quality. It simply lacks the contrast (also using the supplied lens hood) and the sharpness is also fairly low. Focused manually insufficient results at times of the (really quite good) kit lens 18-55mm zoom, which I think is very unfortunate. In addition, the autofocus is getting worse, there is the less light.
Nevertheless, this objective has in my opinion its raison d'être namely the clientele for which it was designed (not only priced). Fresh beginner or absolute opportunity photographer will certainly have their delight with this lens. Even for a few snapshots on holiday, it is very well suited. There must be no change of objective and the focal length range is really a great thing. Initially one pays just not so on the intricacies of imaging performance and is (unconsciously) anything less, because you do not know it differently - I speak from experience.
Also shows itself in practice fast as a very low maximum aperture restricts soon and the worse are the lighting conditions, the worse works of Autofocus And I'm not talking about the dark night! Hardly dawns it easy, it will be difficult. Consider that you just can keep out of the hands eg 200mm focal length 1/320 sec still so (200mm x crop factor 1.6 = 320 -> 1/320 sec.).. In blazing sunshine does it all a little better, but for these image quality you do not necessarily lug an SLR, here it also does a good bridge camera.
Hence my conclusion:
So tired of me doing for beginners, casual photographer and travelers, where the quality of the holiday not a primary selling point is the Tamron 18-200mm quite suitable. To use an All-in-One makes already fun, but the mentioned loss of quality you have to be aware. In addition, it must be used only outdoors in good weather. Beginners with some claim to their photos but I would advise to add itself this objective and instead use two lenses, which cover the focal area, insofar as this allows the luggage to be carried. Also Tamron builds good alternatives here. If you already own a Canon 18-55mm (II), a Tamron 55-200mm for around 90 euro could be a better and cheaper alternative - a Canon 55-250 IS Better yet II So if you had indeed two lenses, however. It this is almost the same thank-quality photos and free.
Advanced photographers I want to hide in this review consciously. For what can be only conditionally recommended for beginners due to the aforementioned problems should immediately fall through the cracks when advanced users. For me personally, this was rather a bad buy.
