ARRRG! My beautiful lens has warts!

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You buy a brand new lens and as soon as it arrives you run out and eagerly test the baby, only to discover it has warts (flaws). Lenses and cameras are like relatives, so if there is a fault you generally won't read about it anywhere.
The Nikkor 18-200mm vr is my favorite walk around lens. It does everything! The range is so huge I can't live without it. However, this lens does come with some features I don't especially care for. Pincussion distortion and aweful vignetting are my least favorite features. Another problem commonly associated with the Nikkor 18-200mm is zoom creep. Most of the time this is of no consequence but sometimes, when it's important that the lens remain at a certain focal length, the problem does become annoying.

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I photographed the garage door because of it's obvious straight lines and nice white color. This image is straight out of the camera, all I did was resize.

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This is the same image processed by DxO Optics Pro. This amazing transformation is performed automatically, with no input from me. The software reads the EXIF data and applies the needed changes automatically. It will work with all major cameras and lenses.

Another majorly inconvenient feature of this lens is vignetting with the lens wide open.

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Most of the time this is an easy fix with the photoshop clone tool but sometimes the vignetting can be quite aggravating and difficult to fix. Run your images through DxO before doing any editing and these problems will be fixed automatically.

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Same image, straight out of the camera but processed with DxO. I have made it a habit of processing all my images with DxO as soon as I get to my computer because this software is true magic.

The problem of zoom creep is easily remedied with one of those "WWJD" vinyl wrist bands. Slip it on the lens and leave it there. No more zoom creep. I have applied this same fix to my Tamron 200-500mm lens and it works perfectly for both.

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Instead of "WWJD" I had them imprint the bands "NIKON" to make it look official.

For car shows, some landscapes and other odd images I often use the Nikkor 10.5mm fisheye. I love the effect, so usually I do not care about "fixing" the fisheye look.

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I personally like this effect when used on interesting buildings as well as cars.

However, if you do want to "fix" this really cool effect then DxO comes to the rescue once more.

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DxO lets you have it both ways and for a lot of people this elimates the need for one lens.

I hope this short article is of help to you and makes photography a bit more fun.

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