First off the lens won't match up to my 300mm 2.8 in terms of speed and image quality. However, that thing is impractical to travel around with. That said, I'm very pleased with this lens. I bought it for a surf trip to Fiji and it performed really well. I had good light, so I never experienced it hunting around. Shooting from a boat in the channel, the riders are coming at you fast. The lens kept a good focus on the subject in a rather dynamic environment. The images produced even all the way out at 300mm were quite sharp and with an FX camera at max resolution can be reasonably cropped. I included a couple typical shots that were taken all the way out at 300mm.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
This lens has good aspects too, the reach is nice, especially on a DX format where the 70-300 will actually be equivalent to 150-450. BUT, despite a pretty effective image stabilization, the quality you get from your photos is no sufficient. I'm just back from a photo trip and brought back a few incredible photographs, not a single of those I kept out of the 50 Go (2000+) images shot, came from this lens. My old 70-200 Ai manual focus gives much better results when sufficient light is there. Overall my advise is not to buy this telephoto zoom. at least not at this price, and not if you plan to zoom past 150mm.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I have a 80-200mm 2.8 D lens which is built like a tank and performs better than this. But for half the price, a lot less weight, and extra reach to 300mm; this lens can't be beat. It has a pretty good VR system and relatively quick auto focus. It's much lighter than the pro lens and performs almost as well. It's cons are: slower f-stop 4.5 vs 2.8, variable aperture (dependant on zoom), some purple fringing (which can be fixed in post processing), and a more fragile construction. My first copy of this lens rolled off a park bench onto a wood boardwalk (2.5 feet tops), it was even sheathed in a neoprene lens pouch, and it stopped focusing. I tried to live without it, but the 2.8 is too large/heavy to drag around for everyday shooting. The long focal length gives a pretty great out of focus background separation for portraits. I usually bring this, a 50mm and 28mm prime to family outings.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
The lens VR focuses fast. It is very active in servo mode as well. This is a good for landscape, outdoor events, museums, auditoriums, and kids recitals. Also when you don't want to drag around heavier 400mm lenses. Indoors it gathers enough light for portraits with it's 67mm lens element with or without flash. Although you need 4 to 10 feet of space behind you to get personal or group party shots... at 70mm you need to back-up! The 67mm lens element is wide enough to garner enough light at medium ISO and above. So you don't have to use flash. Although the further back you are in relation to target you must raise the ISO as well. Or just switch on flash. The one hindrance... Close up flash photos. On most Nikon SLR's the stock flash will cast a shadow of the long barrel on anything up close. The only work around is to increase the ISO with no flash. OR get a hot shoe flashbulb to take photos. Read full review
Verified purchase: No
This lens is great, it pretty fast, pretty light, and does everything pretty well. I've gotten some stunning images from it. It's not going to be as good of a low light or sports performer as the incredible 70-200 2.8 Nikkor, BUT it is also a FRACTION of the price, gives more focal length, and it is nearly half the size. It would be a great travel lens if you needed a telephoto with you on vacation or something along those lines. It's still light enough to walk about with and it's not as massive and obvious as the 70-200. For the price, it can't be beat. Autofocus is fast enough and image quality is pretty impressive overall. Loves daylight.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I had previously already had this lens so I knew it's capabilities. Great magnification, great auto focus and great image stabilization at maximum magnification. I also like the large diameter lens size so taking pictures in low light is still possible. I can take handheld pictures from 200', crop them to about 50% and still have sharp pictures. My only complaint is that that at maximum magnification and with the hood in place, it makes for a long lens, roughly 10" plus camera depth and there is no tripod mount for the lens and it gets a little front heavy as a result. That being said, if it was so bad I wouldn't have bought a replacement!
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Very pleased with this lens so far. It wasn't easy to find a compatible lens for my camera so I was really happy to find this. I live in Canada and this was shipped from Japan so I was hopeful that there wouldn't be any issues. I wasn't disappointed!
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I tried the lens for the first time today. I found I can't get too close to the subject. With a 70mm minimum focus, I needed to stand several feet away to get the AF to work. I also found that shooting in Full Auto, the lens can't find little birds in a tree. Instead it focused on the WHOLE tree and little birds might or might not look sharp. But if I kept the subject isolated and simple, the lens was very detailed even from great distances. Now I just need to learn how to isolate my subject in a crowded field of vision.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
I think it's a very nice lens. The color and contrast are very good. I've gotten lazy shooting with wider lenses with VR. The VR works well on this one, but you still need to try and steady yourself more so than with the wider lenses. The lens is very sharp, to 200mm. It get's a little soft after that, but the photos are still nice. I've shot some landscape and some portraits with it. It works well for both. The bokeh (background blur) looks pretty good, to me. I've been very happy with it. Focus get's a little soft in the corners, but for the price I'm not sure you can beat this lens for cameras without built in focus motors. I'm not sure what the resolution will be like, after upload, but I've added a photo taken with the lens.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
This was a great value to get used - not sure about full price for this lens, although I am not a professional, just taking pictures of my kids sporting events! Indoors (Hockey) I was having a hard time with the lighting, but more messing with the camera settings will help some. Outdoors (Soccer) is is AWESOME. it is heavy, but on a D7000 it is not terribly out of balance. i think it would be even better with a full size camera
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
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