Many readers do not believe that Nikon will announce a new 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 ED VR full frame lens, some even think it’s impossible to produce a lens with such focal length.
Here is another rumor for you: Kelby Training (paid subscription required) has a series of videos online called “A Day With Jay Maisel” where he walks around NY with Scott Kelby talking about the way he works. Kelby was asking Jay Maisel about the 70-300 VR he shoots all the time on a D3. He was saying how much he liked it and then out of the blue mentioned that he had heard about an 18-200 FX lens Nikon was possibly going to make, and that he was excited about it.
Unfortunately the video is not freely available, but maybe some readers that have subscriptions can confirm and quote the exact line.
Jay Maisel website can be found here, I know what you are thinking… I could not find any EXIF data on his images.
Jay Maisel is no stranger to Nikon – check out this link.
Update: Here is the transcript of the proper portion of the Kelby video “A Day with Jay Maisel – Lunch”, Part 1 (at 5:28):
“Scott: You’re overseas on a project, how’s that.
Jay: Yeah.
Scott: You have to use one lens for the whole project, what is it?
Jay: It changes, right now it would be the 70 to 300.
Scott: You’re really loving that lens aren’t you.
Jay: Oh yeah. I like the 18 to 200 but it’s not a full frame lens.
Scott: No it’s not. That’s what’s interesting for $500 that it works on the full frame cameras.
Jay: Now I think… and you know how free Nikon is with prognostication of the future, they would lie just to keep in practice. But I think there may be an 18 to 200 full frame, and if that happens I’m buying it.
Scott: Oh that would be the first lens I would buy.
Jay: But the 70-300 is still terrific.”
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BTW, Nikon D3s and 24mm 1.4 (higher price) are currently in stock on Amazon.