18-200mm F3.5-5.6G NIKON DX AF-S VR ED IF SWM (72) AUTO FOCUS MULTIPURPOSE ZOOM LENS

One of the best kit lens replacement there is for nikon DX systems. If you wish to keep only one lens for daily usage this has to be it. Other kit lenses are unable to compare up to it, D80 kit lens 18-135 lacks the range to 200mm and VR, D90 kit lens 18-105 lacks the range even more, both of which are not as well built as the 18-200 and lack the focus distance scale as shown about. 

One of the advantage of the nikon original over 3rd party 18-200 lenses such as those from sigma and tamron, is that at the tele end, it maintains a F5.6 aperture, the others are F6.3, now although its only 1/3 stop, it make a pretty significant difference in the shutter speed, which is important when shooting at the tele end. It also has a much better built than either of them and maintains sharp, contrasty images at wide open apertures at each focal length. 

One more very good reason to get this lens, is that it maintains a min focusing distance of only 0.48m throughout the full zoom range, now that is really something, most telelens above 200mm have min focusing distance of 1.5m. Though there are talks that a compromise is being done and at 200mm, 0.48m, the angle of view is not really that of a 200mm, but hey its saves the need for a macro lens, why not?

Image taken with lens by LENS.sg staff: