Charles, I can save you the effort. The D200 lacks the menu item I suggested and will not show any symbols in the viewfinder or LCD to indicate which VR setting you have the lens set to.
But Ken Rockwell's guide to the lens has a big clue: VR takes a moment to stabilise, so you ideally need to half press the shutter release and wait a second or so before firing the shutter.
I don't want to plagiarise his excellent article, so instead suggest that you click here to read what the man has to say himself. He discusses the benefits of your lenses VR early in the article, but you may want to skip right down the page to the heading, "How to use the VR".
Ken has also created an excellent alternative D200 users' guide, click here.
Good luck, and please take a moment to rate my reply.
P.S. If the hotlinks don't work then the 18-200 lens review is at:-
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/18200/18200-vr.htm
and the D200 guide is at:-
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d200/users-guide/d200-users-guide.pdf
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Handholding the camera and with the lens zoomed to 150mm or 200mm, take pairs of pictures with and without VR at relatively slow shutter speeds (1/8 second to 1/125 second). Compare each pair side-by-side on your computer. The screen on the camera is too small to show good detail.
Can you see any difference between the VR and non-VR pictures?
That's the problem! There is a lot of variability of course, but on average the detail looks the same, on computer. I'm looking for a "trick" that might get around the variability, to be sure.
Which body do you have? On most of them there is a menu option to either have VR constantly active when the camera is on or to only activate it when the shutter release is pressed. The default is the latter setting as it increases battery life very considerably. With VR set to be constantly on you'll clearly see the effects through the viewfinder when using a telephoto lens of more than around 150mm for a full frame model and 100mm for an APS-C sized lens.
Thanks for the response. I have the D200, never thought to look there in the menus. I'll do that. FYI, I really don't see anything that looks like VR in the viewfinder.
Thanks for the response. I have the D200, never thought to look there in the menus. I'll do that. FYI, I really don't see anything that looks like VR in the viewfinder.
Thanks for the response. I have the D200, never thought to look there in the menus. I'll do that. FYI, I really don't see anything that looks like VR in the viewfinder.
Thanks for the response. I have the D200, never thought to look there in the menus. I'll do that. FYI, I really don't see anything that looks like VR in the viewfinder.
Thanks for the response. I have the D200, never thought to look there in the menus. I'll do that. FYI, I really don't see anything that looks like VR in the viewfinder.
Thanks for the response. I have the D200, never thought to look there in the menus. I'll do that. FYI, I really don't see anything that looks like VR in the viewfinder.
Thanks for the response. I have the D200, never thought to look there in the menus. I'll do that. FYI, I really don't see anything that looks like VR in the viewfinder.
Thanks for the response. I have the D200, never thought to look there in the menus. I'll do that. FYI, I really don't see anything that looks like VR in the viewfinder.
I didn't mean to stutter, stupid database kept saying "try again"--!
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