Verified answer

The 70-300 would be a better compliment to your 16-85 (great lens BTW). I have an 18-70, that I love. I have used the Nikon 18-200, but it was a little heavy for me and did not seem quite as sharp and vibrant and my 18-70

The 18~200 is very flexible, however, for wild life is is very lacking unless the wild life is at the house party down the street... 200mm is nothing when it comes to a "telephoto" for wildlife UNLESS your staking skills are on par with the best of Native American Indians. The 4x lens offers little help when critters are a acre away and in reality need to be darn near spitting distance away to get a good framed shot. If not, you get a awful lot of scenery in your image.

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However, 18~200 is a great general all purpose lens, a street lens, a lens that is on the camera for most anything, all the time. I say - most - because it has limitations for the serious taker of pictures. It is not the 'sharpest' of lenses, but not bad for most. It's 200mm is as said, weak for real wild life work unless your 20 ft from the bird feeder or at zoos. I don't think it is too heavy at all, not when I may have a wider lens and a more telephoto lens with me over my shoulder in the bag.

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It has quite a nice close focus ability which is nice and helps in it's general appeal and f/stop speed is off set some by the VR built in but out here in the desert southwest we seem to have a lot of light most of the time so it doesn't need the 2.8 speeds, cost and weight associated with it either. I do have fast lenses for low light shooting if needed or when wanting to control DOF better.

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Not knowing what body you have I would suggest maybe, just an idea, is to find a older manual 300mm f/4 or 4.5 for the tele, try the 18~200 as your "carry lens" and look into a 16mm rectilinear fish eye for a wide angle. If.. you need low light lenses, manual lenses of 1.8, 1.4 and even 1.2 in the Nikon mount are still had for almost chicken feed prices and there has never been anything wrong with Nikkor manual lenses other than the fact everyone has gone soft n lazy thinking they need automatic "everything' and have forgot how to shoot on M...

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I have never sold a Nikkor lens once bought... Camera bodies, yes, many times, but lenses once purchased stay in the stable and while some may get out once a year, like a good friend, they are always there. I now have 3 D-SLR bodies (and looking at a 4th, the D-800) taking my lenses and sometimes I will grab a body with lens installed instead of fumbling with changing lenses... However, to each there own.

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My choices.. a super wide to short zoom, the intermediated wide to small telephoto, then a set bigger (super) telephoto for when you DO need one. Nikon also has (had) a 500mm mirror lens that is only 6" long and very light. Some people swear t them, and some swear by them.. All I know is I love mine and it is sharp..!

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Full frame flat fish eye (super wide) to 500mm (super telephoto) in just 3 lenses. Toss the 60mm Macro in there and the bag is complete... 16mm to 500mm and almost seemless...

200mm is too short for wildlife. The 18-200 will not be as good as your 16-85 in that range. The 70-300 is also better build.

If you are into wildlife you need the longer lens. With a 18-85 and 70-300 you can shoot almost anything except distant wildlife. You can ad a 1.4 converter or 2x converter to help but your lens will become very slow.

neither, but then i don't use nikons...

depends what you are wanting to shoot...

the 18-200mm will give you greater range... the f/2.8 version would be better... but you'll get problems around the limits of the lens...

for wildlife, i would recommend the sigma 150-500mm... but only if you are serious...