Sony 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 E-mount lens - Available from September 2010

I must admit that when I've first seen the Sony NEX-5 EVIL camera, I wanted to buy it. I was searching for in local stores, but couldn't fund the NEX-5 with the 18-200mm lens. After reading dpreview's news about the announcement of the Sony 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 E-mount lens availability, I realized that it wasn't even shipped. I didn't want to buy the NEX-5 only with the 18-55mm lens. Many photographers who have bought the NEX-5 or NEX-3, will be very happy to hear about the availability of this image-stabilized telephoto-zoom lens on September 10, 2010.

It seems that the Sony NEX-5 Mirrorless camera, equipped with the 18-200mm OSS lens, will be a perfect combination for hobbyist travelers and outdoor photographers. For many hobbyist photographers, the Sony NEX-5 mirrorless digital camera is a very good alternative to a dSLR camera, in my opinion. I personally want to wait and see how the lens performs in lab test and outdoor testing. From what I've seen with the 18-55mm, I wasn't very excited with the optical quality that this lens delivers. Buy hobbyist photographers just want to shoot pictures and carry light equipment gear, so for them, it probably won't be a real issue if the lens doesn't perform well.

Everyone still holding their breath till the Photokina show, when Canon will hopefully unveil its new compact dSLR cameras. The Photography world is very exciting, and when a product's life-cycle comes to its end, the web start rumbling and tumbling and hoping for good news to talk about. Sony E-mount 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 telephoto-zoom lens is another step for Sony for start dominating the compact interchangeable lens cameras' market. You can read my blog post about the 2010 Mirrorless Cameras Market Share in Japan and get an idea how popular it has become.

I know that many of you still keeping their wallets shut, and waiting for the new announcement from Nikon and Canon. It feels that this Photokina 2010 show, we will probably see many new lenses. As dSLR and Mirrorless cameras are becoming more popular among amateur photographers, more lenses will be produced for this reason. I remember buying a Canon DSLR only because Canon has a larger selection of lenses to choose from. Not every country enjoys a large selection of Sony E-mount lenses, and many photographers choose other brands because of that reason alone. So I guess Sony will be one of the brands that will show its lens manufacturing strength on Photokina Show 2010.

Anyways, 18-200mm F3.5-6.3 E-mount lens will be available from September 10, 2010. Estimated retail prices stand on $800.