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The image quality was decent, but fairly soft wide open. I found the autofocus was too slow for my liking. If you plan to shoot sports with fast action, you will probably be disappointed. I tried this lens out for a few weeks. I was shooting it on a Nikon D300. The zoom on this thing is great, but the zoom is worthless if you can't get the autofocus to track fast enough for moving objects.Anyway, if you're looking for a lens with good zoom capabilities and will be photographing mostly still objects, than this lens is great.
Not being an AFS focusing system, it sports that old "M/A" focus control, and it also still has a manual aperture selector. It feels balanced on any of Nikon's larger cameras, but it is quite a handful. Honestly, I tend to hand-hold the lens more often than not, so I usually have the tripod collar removed altogether. Otherwise, the controls operate smoothly and it does feel to be built to last.From an optical point of view, I found the lens to perform better than I expected. In the end, I felt like the choice was to "settle" for this product, or spend several times more money on (say) the excellent 200-400 zoom instead. At longer focal lengths in darker spots, it also tends to hunt. Or, I suppose you could wait for the next upgrade, but I've already been waiting a few years with no result.
I chose the 80-400, but I have to say that it's the one Nikon lens purchase I've had the most trouble getting excited over. Which isn't to say that it's not a high quality lens - it is, it's just showing its age. At both extremes (80 and 400), I notice photos are a little soft in the corners with the lens wide open, but if you use f/8 or smaller, results are uniformly sharp corner to corner (this is only really noticeable on an FX sensor.DX cameras are very good even wide open). Contrast and color are also good, and images generally have that "pop" you get from any top quality lens. As everyone else points out, the autofocus system is somewhat slow and noisy if you're used to AFS lenses. I find it's large enough to get in the way of where I'd naturally want to put my hands. The 80-400 is slightly less contrasty, making some shots appear a little "flat", and the 80-400 also seems slightly more prone to flare when pointed in the direction of a bright light source. I've learned to simply switch off the autofocus and use the manual controls in these situations.
I find the VR system works well, and with the lens zoomed out to 400mm, I can usually get sharp results with shutter speeds in the vicinity of 1/100 second, maybe a little less. Not that it isn't a great product - it is - it's just that it seemed like a step back in time since this lens hasn't kept up with the features of Nikon's phenomenally good pro lenses throughout the rest of the product line. The lens itself is large and heavy, somewhat "thicker" than say, a 70-200 2.8 - but not by a huge amount.
The other comment on construction quality is that it really looks like a "legacy" product. Overall, I guess I'm happy with this lens, but this is one of those lenses that I'll be looking to upgrade as soon as Nikon comes out with an AFS version that's hopefully about a stop faster and not triple the price.
I wanted a lens over 200mm for my arsenal and unfortunately, if you stick with the Nikon brand, there aren't too many options. Unlike some, I find the tripod collar adequate, although I understand many recommend the Kirk collar as an important upgrade. I have the latest 70-200 2.8 lens, and at 200mm, I'd say that images from the 80-400 are nearly - but not quite - as good overall.
This lens has excellent sharpness and fine color/contrast handling. It will a perfect every day lens.
Very good lens if you take the time to learn how to use it correctly. Ignore reviews of people having delivery problems, which is the reason this lens only has 4 stars so far.
Like other reviewers have commented, it is noisy and slow compared to my other lens. It seems to hesitate between shots of a moving object. At times it doesn't communicate with the camera and I have to take the lens off, rotate a ring and then replace the lens. It doesn't do well with low contrast and small subjects.
If you aren't taking action photos or of small objects, then you might really like this lens. Because the extension is made of metal, it seems to retain the cold from inside, so that when I go outside, the lens fogs worse than my other lens. It is a lot heavier than my 75 - 300mm lens. I am using this lens with my D90 to take nature photos. I like to photograph birds and dragonflies and wanted to get this lens for the extra reach it would have over my 75 - 300mm lens. It is hard to get this lens to focus on a flying bird and it goes out of focus faster than it goes into focus. It does get closer, but I haven't gotten a shot yet that I would say made this lens worth the money I spent in buying it.
If you're impatient like me, then you will probably go ahead and buy this model since there is no telling when the newer model will be produced. I didn't want to wait and now I wish I had. I'm just an amateur and so I depend on the autofocus. I might have to do this twice before it works because it gives 2 different error messages that require me to rotate the ring in the opposite direction.
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