Choosing between the popular 55-200mm VR zoom lens or the newer 55-300mm VR

[ajtyeh]

This will be a gift to my gf who i bought a Nikon D3000 last christmas. I wanted to get her a zoom lens this year for her birthday. I know very little about cameras. The reviews for both VR lens are very good. The 55-200 is $190 and the 55-300 is $360. Is it really worth two times the price. And if so, is it worht it for a beginner photopgrapher such as my gf. Thanks for the input.

 

[fralexandr]

i dunno anything about the nikon lenses, but i think the 300mm range is worth it, especially if you're going to take pictures of birds or other far off things. I brought my pentax 50-200mm on a boat trip and could have used some more range for some of the shots.
shots taken with the pentax k100d on the DAL 50-200mm alot at the 200 range
the close ups on birds are because we were throwing popcorn off the ship >.<.
just for a comparison until some nikon users show up.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fralexandr/sets/72157625349605528/

i'm kind of looking at getting a sigma APO/tamron/quantaray 70-300 w/ macro switch (1:2), as it's a cheap and flexible lens. if you don't mind going used ebay tends to have them around $80 (quantaray branded), or amazon might have it for $150 new. The tamron (and sigma non APO apochromatic lens coat) exhibits significant purple fringing on some shots though, but the tamron is slightly sharper. I'd probably prefer the sigma APO variant.

http://www.amazon.com/Sigma-70-300mm...0102642&amp;sr=8-3 $180
http://www.amazon.com/Tamron-70-300m...0102667&amp;sr=8-4 $165 shipping
(the links should be for nikon mount)
neither of these lenses are on par with the 55-300 (they are noticeably worse), but they provide more flexibility due to the macro and are cheaper.

 

[cparker]

To me, unless there is a need for much more telephoto performance, it's a no brainer. Get the 55-200 VR and save the money and, if you want, apply it towards the 35mm 1.8 "normal" lens. I have that combination myself. The 55-200 VR is excellent and 200mm on a crop camera is equivalent to 300 on a full frame camera. Another thing to consider is weight. the 55-200 is very lightweight. At 55mm it serves as a great portrait lens as well. As to the 35mm 1.8, right now it's my all time favorite lens period. I use it almost exclusively on my d40 and rarely touch the telephoto. But I'm sure I'll get back to the 55-200 lens at some point. It's just that the flexibility of having a fast "normal" lens, that can be used "wide open" in low light, is just addictive. I should add that at 55mm I've used the 55-200 in low light situations to great effect. I just had to pop up the ISO very high and take several shots at a relatively slow shutter speed. It actually worked, usually one of the shots would have no visible motion blur. This is a well known "trick" that's fun to play with.

 

[Pneumothorax]

Depends if you need the reach. I guess since this is for GF purchase you're not really interested in full-frame? The 55-200 and 55-300 are both very sharp lenses. The 55-300 to me is even sharper than the 70-300 VR on a DX body of course. So it all comes down to if you need the reach or not. I'd go to a local camera store and demo the difference between 200-300mm to see if you need the range or not.