help me decide please

[OsmosisStudios]

DOnt go back to that store. Seriously.

VR is almost essential for anything above 105mm thats being handheld in anything but bright sunlight, especially so for slower consumer-level zooms that are affordable to the rest of us

[inkista]

The usefulness of VR depends in some measure on your subject matter. If your subject matter is still and you plan to handhold, it can be invaluable. If your subject matter is moving very quickly, then VR may not actually give you any gains over a non-VR lens.

It comes down to a rule of thumb for eliminating camera-shake blur from a photo: you should always shoot with a shutter speed of 1/focal_length or higher.

So, without stabilization (and assuming you have decent handholding technique) if you're shooting at 300mm, you need to shoot at 1/300s or faster to eliminate camera shake blur.

If you have VR, that shutter speed can be lowered by a few stops, as long as the shutter speed is still going to be fast enough to freeze the action of the subject you're shooting.

However, if that action is very fast (birds in flight, running toddlers, sports, etc.) you may have to use a higher shutter speed anyway just to freeze the action. If you have to go faster than 1/focal_length, then VR is probably not going to be buying you anything, and you may be better off finding a lens with a larger maximum aperture.

In addition, you can also purchase and use a monopod as a support instead of using VR, and probably get similar results. Obviously, a monopod is more of a pain than using VR, but it's also a lot cheaper and will work with every lens you own.

So, whether VR is something you want in a lens depends on what and how you plan to shoot.

[sk66]

My 2c...having spent plenty on lenses and spending more...skip them both. Get a full frame fast lens....wait if you have to. But that really depends on your budget and enthusiasm.....I love my 18-200 OS (same as VR but sigma) but I will be replacing it with a 70-200 f2.8 when I'm ready....A faster lens is always better than making up for a slower lens with VR IMO...For a long lens....I'm keeping my eye out for a 400 or 500 f2.8...but that's probably 4x the cost of my sigma 50-500 and 2x the cost of my camera body...but I find myself enjoying quite a bit of wildlife photography and the slower Sigma inhibiting at times....

For occasional/incidental use, the slower lens is fine and probably a better choice....