Focus is very sharp and the lens takes almost no time at all to auto-focus. Image quality is the best in my kit, on par with my prime lens. Smooth, creamy bokeh with next to unnoticeable chromatic aberration or lens vignetting. 70-200mm Zoom covers a wide focal range and vibration reduction keeps images clear at 70mm and even 200mm. I love that I can focus as close as 4ft away. The infinity - 2.5m (10ft) switch makes focusing almost twice as fast, nearly instant focus on subjects even in dark or low light.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
It is a sturdy built Nikon lens with a full range wide-aperture and smooth operating adjusting rings. With this lens the zoon adjustment ring is closer to the camera. For me, I like this orientation better because I prefer to control the frame and let the camera take care of the focus. The later model lens switched the orientation placing the focus adjusting ring closer. If you prefer to control focus then you will want to buy the later model lens. I like not having to use a flash for most indoor and outdoor shoots due to the wide aperture and large lens that fill the imager with light. It is a big lens which is OK for me when the quality of image is the most important thing.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Pictures are tack sharp, it seems that Nikon did not compromise on quality. the VR system is very efficient, you can hand held this lens and have perfect pictures with 1/60s at 200mm, very handy for action photography or events. As expected, this professional grade lens is heavy, but if you need a 2.8 aperture ,VR and top quality, this is the price to pay. If you can leave with F4 only, the 70-200 f4 has identical performances and is much lighter and smaller to carry around. Overall it is a very specialized lens with top notch performances in its domain. This lens is compatible with almost all Nikon teleconverters and can be extended easily without noticeable image deterioration. Definitively one of the best lenses (if not the best) for low light situations requiring wide aperture like theater, dance, indoor sports or requiring small depth of field: studio, portraits... Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Name: Nikon calls this the Nikon ED AF Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 D Optics: Sixteen elements in eleven groups. Three of them are of ED glass. Diaphragm: 9-bladed diaphragm with nine conventional straight blades. They make a nice 9-sided polygon at all apertures, unlike the AF-S that simulates a circle at larger apertures. Filters: Uses standard 77mm filters. Close Focus: About 5.5 feet, which is pretty good. That's about a foot less close than the AF-S when I compared the two directly, and about the same as the 180/2.8AF. Size: 3.4" (87mm) around by 7.4" (187mm) long. Weight: 2 pounds, 14 oz (46 ounces total or 1,300g) Case: It comes with a fairly useless case. Just put it away someplace for when you sell the lens. Nikon Product Number: 1986, in catalog as of spring 2008. Performance This is an extremely sharp lens. I have only shot with it a couple of times. Distortion performance is also good for a zoom: 80-115mm: fairly neutral 200mm: some pincushion distortion It has the usual light falloff. Here's a page, made at 200mm by someone else illustrating the falloff. Autofocus is accurate. In real photographs the focus is always dead on at f/2.8. This is important to me, some other lenses' focus errors exclude me from being able to get good results wide open. I like this lens because of this. Oddly I've heard a couple of others have inaccurate focusing at f/2.8 at 200 mm on a D70. If you want to use this on a D70 I'd check this carefully. The one I used worked great on my F100, and just as many other people see this lens working flawlessly, no, spectacularly, on their D70s. I'm unsure if it is free from the ghost problem flawing the 80-200 AF-S. AF speed is almost as fast as the AF-S on an F100. Don't worry about this difference. It does of course make more noise and jump around more than the AF-S does while focusing because the big front lens group is rotating at blindingly fast speeds. Jump around? Yeah, this is because of the torque reaction you get as the big front element starts and stops rotating almost instantly while driven by the camera's AF motor. In the AF-S lens the elements that move for focusing are the smaller internal elements.Read full review
This is still the best lens for Nikon in the 70-200mm range. Now there are some great third party lenses where you can still get a great product and save yourself lots of money, but this is the type of lens that can last for as long as you do photography and then some. This is my heaviest lens thus far and will likely remain my heaviest lens so it takes getting used to. Don't think you will be carrying this around your neck for hours on a shoot.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
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