Please forgive me ahead of time for the extra long sentences, and bear in mind that while this review won’t go thoroughly overboard with discussions about distortion and falloff and other camera nut scientific details, I will be talking somewhat technically throughout the review. As such, I forgive you if you head back to the page of Google search results you found this review in to look for a less geeky write-up.

Initial impressions

Aside from the initial excitement and anticipation after my dad told me my present was something I’d been wanting for a while, I knew I was moving up in Nikon-land when I opened the box of the 55-200mm VR. I guess it really was worth spending some quality time with the small 18-55mm beforehand as I improved my shooting technique to (unknowingly) prepare for this lens.

The lens is finished in textured plastic that’s actually a bit nicer than that of the D40 body – it has a more pronounced texture that assures confidence in the hand. The zoom ring on the barrel of the lens is surrounded with ribbed rubber, and is sufficiently large for comfortable zooming.

Nikon only designed the 55-200mm VR with the more simplistic AF-S system found in lenses like the 18-55mm (both the VR and non-VR enabled iterations), and the non-VR version of the 55-200mm, which doesn’t support grab-and-go manual focus override. As such, the focus ring is locked while the lens is set to autofocus (and does rotate during autofocus servo operation – very noisily at that), and switching to manual focus mode involves flicking the top switch in the small control cluster on the side. Also, the focus ring does have a bit of play while locked, which seems normal of this caliber of AF lenses.

The included bayonet-style hood attaches to the front of the lens, outside the 52mm diameter filter thread, and also attaches in reverse for convenient storage. Speaking of the filter thread, it doesn’t rotate during focus operation – this lens is adorned with the IF (Internal Focus) designation, making it more convenient to use with filters like circular polarizer or graduated density filters. (I bought a polarizer immediately after receiving the lens.)

Build quality is otherwise okay, on par for an affordable telephoto zoom. Zooming action is not quite silky smooth, but works just fine.

Performance

The 55-200mm, being an AF-S series lens, focuses fast in most situations (I’ve been able to achieve focus during plays on the dimly lit stage in my camp’s dining room). The lens can go from infinity to its closest very fast, much faster than on my 18-55mm, though also much more audibly – it makes a slight screeching sound when passing through its focus range.

Being a slow, variable aperture lens, the 55-200mm VR won’t let you use fast shutter speeds in very low light, or achieve extremely shallow depth of field (though at 200mm you definitely see compression of the subject on the background). Despite this, I can shoot with the 55-200mm in low light with my SB-400 speedlight (in full TTL auto mode) at f/7.1, 1/80 of a second, and ISO 800, and get decently exposed photos (albeit they tend to be somewhat grainy thanks to the D40’s noisy sensor).

Nikon’s Vibration Reduction technology is absolutely essential when shooting handheld at any focal length beyond, perhaps, 55mm, and works amazingly well. Hold down the shutter button half way, and the image in the viewfinder becomes amazingly stable while the camera attempts to achieve focus. At a sporting event, set your camera to continuous-servo and dynamic-area autofocus, and follow a moving subject while holding down the shutter button half way – you can follow with ease, and the focus will keep up with your movement.

Image quality

Here’s the part that camera nuts could go on and on with. I’ll try to condense my opinions.

The 55-200mm VR tends to have decent bokeh around the minimum focusing distance, and with care (stop down the aperture if you need to), subjects can be kept very sharp. Falloff, or vignetting perhaps, is noticeable in photos I’ve shot outdoors. Chromatic aberrations are okay – certainly much better than with the 18-55mm. I haven’t really noticed any distortion, as I’m not exactly shooting skyscrapers with a telephoto lens.

The punchline

If you’re a soccer mom or baseball dad who wants a cheap but useable telephoto zoom lens for the little league games, or want to compliment your kit lens with something longer, go for the 55-200mm VR. It’s cheap (compared to, say, the professional Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VR, which rolls in at about $1,900), light (also compared to that lens, which I can attest will send you to the gym), compact (it kind of fits in my LowePro Nova Mini bag), and generally gets the job done. I’m certainly happy with mine, and I continually get great shots from it.

If you want more reach, the new just-grab-the-ring-to-focus-manually AF-S system, or possibly even better AF performance, try out the full-frame Nikon AF-S 70-300mm VR, which, as even Scott Bourne claims, has merit. If you want a truly professional lens, take a look at the AF 80-200mm f2.8 (non-VR and non-AF-S), or prepare to take out a second mortgage for the AF-S 70-200mm f2.8 ED-IF VR. But if you’re not pro, chances are the simple 55-200mm VR will serve your needs.

One of Facebook’s cute features allows one to have large threads that multiple people can reply to, even if some of the initial recipients of the first message are not added as a friend to any other person in the thread. This could translate into the thread continuing to be replied to for months, which is what is really bothering me.

Facebook doesn’t really want to help stop what it, in effect, spamming of friends. You could consider this feature to be some type of friend spamming mechanism, since every time a member of the message thread replies, you get an email from Facebook announcing it. As I found out, there isn’t even a way to unsubscribe from the thread – so if your friend’s friends are abnormal and find that a multi-recipient thread is the way to chatter about useless topics, there isn’t even a way to pull yourself out of the madness.

Here’s an email exchange I had with Facebook support:

from Facebook Support

reply-to Facebook Support

to ****@gmail.com

date Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 7:26 PM

subject Re: INBOX: A thread is sending me unwanted messages

mailed-by facebook.com

Hi Michael,

Unfortunately, the ability to remove yourself from a thread is not yet available. I am sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for the suggestion. We will certainly keep it in mind as we continue to improve the site.

Thanks for contacting Facebook,

Jackson

User Operations

Facebook

—–Original Message to Facebook—–

From: Michael Perlman (****@gmail.com)

To: info@facebook.com

Subject: INBOX: A thread is sending me unwanted messages



User id: 516******

Description of problem: One of my Facebook friends sent a message to all of his friends (including me) at the time. Now, people originally brought into the thread are still replying, and I continue to receive unwanted messages (and emails from Facebook telling me about the replies, as a result). Is there a way that I can be removed from the thread?

Browser: Opera/9.50 (Windows NT 5.1; U; en)



—–End Original Message to Facebook—–

Supposedly, Facebook is known for being super-sensitive to some types of misuse of the site (case in point: Robert Scoble was suspended from Facebook for testing an unreleased data-mining tool from Plaxo, and many others have been kicked for sending a few too many messages or having too many friends), but from my experiences, they are way off bat in terms of keeping users from annoying each other.

My free copy/copies of Vista Ultimate arrived last Thursday and a simple manila bubble mailer. Inside that master envelope were two Windows Vista Ultimate discs (one 32-bit version, the other 64-bit, and each with a distinct license key), and a brief note thanking me for participating. However, I’m not quite ready to install. Here’s what my rig (if one can even call it that) has under the hood:

• Intel Pentium 4 running at 2.93 GHz
• 1 GB DDR2 SDRAM
• 80 GB 7200 RPM SATA I hard disk
• Intel GMA 900 integrated graphics

Needless to say, this is one woos of a computer. I doubt that it can run Aero Glass. But that’s not the only reason I’m not throwing Vista on yet: I live on XP, and simply upgrading from XP means that I’m virtually stuck with a brand-new OS, with a very difficult recourse if I don’t like it.

But with every problem, there’s a solution, and mine is to install Vista on a new hard drive (my current one is too small to adequately partition for Vista) and dual-boot. Let’s keep going with that thought: How about installing Vista on an eSATA (external Serial ATA) disk? That would allow me to transport the drive to another computer if / when I need / want to. In my case, it’s as simple as installing an eSATA expansion bracket, as my system was probably built before the eSATA spec even existed.

The hard drive I’m eyeing is the Western Digital 500 GB My Book Studio Edition, which includes a plethora of interfaces (USB 2.0, FireWire 400 and 800, and eSATA II at 3 Gb/sec) and has a form factor similar to that of my current Western Digital My Book 250 GB Essentials Edition. The Studio Edition drive features a sleek casing and plenty of storage space, and happens to work with all of my currently used computers.

Every great idea comes with a party who suggested it. I’d like to thank LifeHacker for mentioning the Windows Feedback Panel program. Also, it was nice having @SoloTech to chat about the program with.

To emphasize how teenagers have such a strong influence in today’s media, I’d like to hold an event where teenage media producers – primarily podcasters (audio and video) and bloggers – can meet each other and share their experiences in producing new media. Since I’m located in the New York City area, I’d like to invite teens from all over the city, and those willing to come in from surrounding Westchester, Suffolk (rather far from Manhattan) and Nassau counties, and closer towns in New Jersey, to a teen media meetup in Manhattan. My goal is to hold the event sometime before the summer and at a popular public venue in Manhattan with a very social environment. Teens of the ages ~13 to 19 are invited for this special event.

If you are a teen new media lover in the metropolitan New York area, and would like to meet others who share your interest, let me know. Leave a comment below or head over to the contact page, and tell me a little bit about yourself.

The Lowdown: Basics of Using Twitter

The essence of using Twitter is quite simple. Sign up, give them your phone number, IM network ID, or both, and send a message to the service that tells your friends what you are doing.

Now obviously, most tweets aren’t directly saying what a person is doing. They could describe what he is thinking, who he’s speaking to, what funny picture he took recently, what video he uploaded or just watched on YouTube (and for the latter of those, as well as links to any site, Twitter integrates the TinyURL address shortening service), or just the fact that the person is awake.

Twitter for Interactive Communication

Much of the fun in Twitter is having conversations without having to set up a new environment for the “conversation instance” – no need to set up a chat room in AIM or the like. Just preface your thought with the “@” symbol followed by the name of the person you’d like to direct your thought toward. As a result, the person you addressed will receive your tweet, regardless of whether or not he follows you on Twitter. In essence, you can start a conversation with any person or group of people who is/are member(s) of Twitter.

The Addiction to Twitter

Part of using Twitter is being constantly involved. It’s quite obvious that if you tweet once a month you will end up being immensely un-popular within the Twitterverse. What many people end up doing is tweeting about anything and everything going on in their lives, in some cases almost every few seconds. In return, that person’s followers will reply, and make their own tweets, etc. There is a certain element of fun involved with being constantly updated of what your friends are doing. For me, there is so much that I almost got my phone taken away by my principal for receiving a text message from Twitter during school hours (despite that, of course, I receive dozens of them a day from those whom I follow). No wonder they call people like me Twitterholics…

Impact of Twitter on “Traditional” Social Networking

Twitter redefines social networking as we know it, mainly because the service primarily provides us with real-time updates of the things that our friends are up to. It’s provides a somewhat more personal relationship with people who we don’t actually know personally, because, essentially, we can have a one-on-one conversation with them without actually developing a real relationship.

Also, and this is strictly IMHO, the randomness of Twitter gives us a sense of relationship building. For example, I’ve been following Daniel Brusilovsky on Twitter essentially since I met him, and through both “@” replies and direct messages (a feature available to friends who follow each other), we’ve developed a much stronger relationship with each other.

In other words, Twitter provides a platform for connecting with people, not just “meeting” them. The terse nature of tweets makes forming connections faster and easier, and the real-time functionality brings us closer to those with whom we communicate.

The first new enterprise I’d like to introduce is the MichaelTech Podcast. Podcasting has only made sense to me for a relatively short while, during which I’ve listened to several tech podcast, like Leo Laporte’s This Week In Tech (TWiT), and Daniel Brusilovsky’s Apple Universe. Both producers have shown me the ropes (although not necessarily personally), and given me at least the technical skills required to record, edit, and publish podcast episodes.

Joining the MichaelTech Podcast is a companion blog. On the WOrdPress.com-hosted blog, I will be writing about recent tech stories and product releases as well as my own articles and tutorials.

Speaking of podcasts, I’ve joined Daniel Brusilovsky’s network of sites as the typed content editor. Most of my work in that area revolves around the fact that many people who write online don’t have particularly expansive writing skills. To make it short, I read over Daniel’s blog posts before publishing, edit them for spelling, grammar, and tidy up the HTML formatting in the posts (I keep telling Daniel that the Qumana blog editor for Mac OS produces atrocious HTML). It’s work that I’m quite sure is appreciated by both Daniel as well as all visitors to his sites.

Finally, live media has also taken a place in my mind, mostly thanks to Chris Pirillo’s 24/7 live broadcast. As you can see in the header navigation tabs, I’ve added a live page to the Educated Network site. That special page displays my UStream.tv broadcast channel, as well as a live chat room (powered by the WyldRyde IRC network) that anyone may participate in. If you’d like to join the chat, all I ask is that you follow WyledRyde’s community guidelines, which includes keeping the conversation clean and peaceful.

1. Chris uses the free program for Mac OS X called CamTwist to embed the chat in the video. The chat is rendered by an IRC client for Mac OS called Colloquy, and is embedded in the video stream using CamTwist’s picture in picture functionality. Both are free programs.
2. Ponzi is Chris’s wife, and Wicket and Pixie are his dogs.
3. Chris used to host of several television shows on ZDTV / TechTV / G4TV, most notably the show Call For Help, in which Chris managed to produce several bloopers (which made it to NBC’s 100 Most Outrageous Moments).
4. In general, Chris is an all-around computer geek/nerd/[choice of related adjectives]. He produces videos via his live show, runs the blogging network LockerGnome, and does a lot of other stuff I don’t quite know about (but still tech related). Type “what is chris” into the chat room at live.pirillo.com (minus the quotes) to get the official description.
5. Chris’s current computer setup includes a Mac Pro (with dual Intel Xeon quad core processors, of the January variety), two 30-inch Dell UltraSharp 3007WFP monitors, a 17-inch MacBook Pro, and a Mac mini (which is used solely for broadcasting the live video stream, and is connected to its own DSL internet connection).
6. Bonus #6: Chris’ chair is a Grahl Synchron 8. It’s outrageously expensive, as Chris tries to describe on video.

For comments or more questions, join the chat at live.pirillo.com or drop Chris a line at chris@pirillo.com (his public email address). “We’ll ‘e ya later!”

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend ManyCam at all. While I was uninstalling it, after finding it to be not incredibly useful, it erased all of the start menu shortcuts on my system! I don’t know whether it was the developers’ fault, Nullsoft’s (or whoever wrote their installers), or my own computer’s fault or glitch, but it sure is annoying.

The quick moral of the story: Don’t download ManyCam! And if you already have it installed, find a way to manually remove it (files, shortcuts, registry keys and all). If you uninstall it, ManyCam will make your life miserable.

This year, I have a number of new pieces of ski apparel, listed as follows:

• Rossignol ski pants
• Under Armour ColdGear mock-neck
• Falke ski socks
• LL Bean 3-in-1 parka
• The North Face Thresher hydration pack (hopefully the one-half hour I spent washing it out got rind of the nasty chemical taste)

This trip is really supposed to be a snowboarding trip, where my classmates will learn to snowboard (possibly without professional instruction). However, I opted to continue skiing, for two reasons:

• Skiing is usually significantly cheaper.
• Since I already know how to ski, why waste a trip on trying something I might not like?

In conclusion, I have a strong feeling that this will be one of the best ski trips of my (very young) life, based on the current weather forecast and my experience with skiing.