18-200mm lens for my 40D

[Lucky23]

Hey guys,

I was thinking of getting an 18-200mm lens simply as an everyday, every occassion (well.. most occassions :P) sort of lens. Mainly because i don't think i can really afford to buy multiple lenses to cover such a range.

At the moment, i'm still very new to photography and haven't really found a specific style to shoot in. For this reason i assumed the 18-200mm lens would be good for me as it would provide some versatility.

I'm thinking about getting the Sigma 18-200mm f/3.5-6.2 DC OS Lens. Oh yeah.. are the HSM lenses only for Nikons?

Also did a Google search and came across the Canon EFS and the Tamron 18-200mm lenses. After about a couple hours of reading reviews it became info overload.

Has anyone had any experience with these particular lenses or have any advice on purchasing a lens with similar zoom range (sorry... i'm still learning the proper terminology ).

Does anyone have any rough ideas of how much this would cost me?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

Lucky