Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 OS HSM Lens - My Travel Partner

After months of debate and exhaustive research, I finally decided to get myself a lens I was interested in acquiring for my DSLR. Since, my Nikon D40 DSLR doesn't have an in-built motor, I needed to get a versatile lens that had a motor inside it which could help me while auto focusing any fast moving objects.

Now, getting such a lens was a daunting task as it would be too expensive and India doesn't have a big market base for photography equipment. I searched my city and found that here Sigma lens weren't available and the Nikkor ones were too expensive without including the 15% VAT. Nikkor 18-200mm VR lens would have been a better choice, if I had real deep pockets filled with loads of Ghandhi heads! But, looking at my budget, I should be lucky to get a Sigma. :D

Finally, I asked my friend Fenz in Mumbai to get me a Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 OS HSM lens for me which has set me back monetarily by 23 grands. This is a sort of an all rounder lens with an F mount for Nikon camera and would cover approximately 11x zoom range, good enough to be on your camera while travelling as it covers the wide- to tele- photo range without the worry of having dust in your sensors while changing lenses.

With the 1.5x camera crop factor the lens would give an amazing range of 27-300mm range on a 35mm film camera. Further, I heard that the OS - Optical Stability system is the best of its class, but not a real silent performer. It gives you a 3-4 stops advantage while shooting hand held in tight situations, but it would be of any use just in case you use a tripod.

The only itch is that I still haven't received it in my hands to try and test this baby! I'm hoping that the calender jumps to 15th April, when I get this lens and go around shooting some great street scenes in Delhi the next day. This is not a fast lens but would be much better in comparison to the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens and would cover a good range for my bird & candid street shots. It should be a perfect travel partner for a photographer as one lens and the camera would suffice instead of a whole camera bag filled with an assortment of lenses.