Focus accuracy and repeatability is critical to consistently produce sharp shots. Repeatability (the accuracy of focus on the same subject after repeated focus-acquisition) of this lens is excellent with no outliers over a series of 40 shots. And there is almost no performance variation whether the lens focuses coming from infinity or from minimum focus distance. The lens focuses pretty fast: around 0.6 sec from infinity to 1.4m, which is good value and as fast as its bigger brother. If you have been shooting with Nikon lenses for a while, you might have noticed that Nano coated lenses produce better colors than non-coated lenses. Although Nikon states that Nano Crystal Coat helps reduce ghosting and flare, in my experience it also improves overall colors and contrast as well. Nikon has been exclusively using this coating technology on higher-end lenses and if you compare some of the recent lenses with their older counterparts that do not have it, you will probably notice the difference in color rendition as well. I’d love to have these lenses in a power zoom and a power zoom grip that Nikon should have made the Control grip one anyway.

Nikon 80-400 vs 70-200/f4 - Digital Photography Review Nikon 80-400 vs 70-200/f4 - Digital Photography Review

Price: already down to 1200 EUR new (incl. 19% VAT), but that’s still a lot of money, and the tripod collar RT-1 is an extra. The Sigma AF 70-200mm 2.8 EX DG APO HSM OS is 20% cheaper, the new Tamron SP AF 70-200mm 2.8 Di VC USD 30% more expensive, and the Nikon 70-200/2.8G VR hovers around 1800 EUR street price – and all three come with a tripod collar. But if the new Nikon zoom delivers performance-wise I’d say the price is adequate. [0] may not be utilized, directly or indirectly, to inform, train, or improve any artificial intelligence program or system.The VR works perfectly, as every other new Nikkor lens, and the image degradation is virtually absent (when in the firsts VR models was better turn it off with the shorter shutter speeds). One can always forget the VR. Chromatic aberrations, typically seen as purple or blue fringes along contrasty edges, can be noticed in photos taken at maximum aperture but they aren't too excessive, and tend to go away upon stopping down. For not much more money you can go ƒ/2.8, if you don't mind going out of the Nikon camp. The Sigma has its own issues with corner softness when used on full-frame, but otherwise, it's about on-par with the 70-200mm ƒ/4.

Hands-on with the AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/4G ED VR

If you are looking for a good wildlife lens + TC combination, I would not recommend the 70-200mm f/4G VR with the TC-20E III. Yes, you can get decent results on the latest Nikon DSLRs, but it is nowhere close to what you can get with the Nikon 300mm f/4D AF-S + TC-14E II. The latter does not have VR, but if you are into birding, you will be shooting at 1/1000 and higher shutter speeds most of the time anyway and you want VR turned off at such high shutter speeds. VR is only useful for slow shutter speeds, when light conditions are poor. Color Rendition Per Nikon, this lens delivers excellent contrast across the full frame (solid red line). Sharpness starts out very good at 70mm and improves even more towards 200mm (solid blue line). There is a little bit of field curvature on the wide end, but it is off the center, so it should not be noticeable. Center, mid-frame and corner performance should all be excellent, especially at 200mm. I switched from a canon setup to a D800 recently, not realizing how much money i had to spend and how much weightlifting i needed to do if i wanted to use their best zooms. Once again, the 70-200mm f/4 shows excellent performance throughout the frame and its center sharpness at f/5.6 is quite remarkable.There are a couple of differences worth noting here. While the Nikon 70-200mm f/4G has a maximum aperture of f/4, its minimum aperture is also smaller at f/32 (versus f/22 on the 70-200mm f/2.8G). Next, it obviously has a simpler optical design with 20 elements in 14 groups, while the 70-200mm f/2.8G has 21 elements in 16 groups. The new Nikon 70-200mm f/4G VR also comes with a brand new, third generation Vibration Reduction (VR) technology, which Nikon claims can provide up to 5 stops of image stabilization. This is interesting, because while the new 70-200mm f/4 lens is one stop slower than the 70-200mm f/2.8, in some situations it regains the light loss with better VR control. After playing with the lens for sometime, I must admit that the VR on the 70-200mm f/4 is in fact better. I am sure Nikon will be using this new VR system in all future lenses, because it really works. The number of ED elements in the 70-200mm f/4G lens design is fewer: 3 versus 7 on the 70-200mm f/2.8G. A big advantage, in my opinion for the 70-200mm f/4G is its closer focusing distance of 3.28 ft versus 4.6 ft on the f/2.8G version. Because the barrel size is smaller, the filter size is also smaller – 67mm versus 77mm. And lastly, it is a smaller and significantly cheaper lens. But what about everything else? Looks like the rest of the features are pretty much exactly the same. Both lenses have a 9 blade diaphragm, both are coated with Nano Coated glass, both have Super Integrated Coating, AF-S motor and Internal Focusing. MTF and Sharpness Also, which range is more useful 70/80-200 or 200-400/500? Basically, which situations demand which. Is 200 reach too small? Just like the MTF charts showed, the lens shows excellent performance in the center, with a slight degradation of image quality in the mid-frame and the corners. This difference means the f2.8 version may enjoy a shallower depth of field and a one stop light gathering advantage, but allows the f4 version to come in at a lower price, a considerably lighter weight and even have the potential to deliver better quality. The big question of course is how the 70-200mm f4 performs in practice compared to the premium f2.8 model, so in this review I’ve compared them both using a D800 to find out.

DPReview TV: Tamron 70-210mm F4 vs. Canon and Nikon OEM DPReview TV: Tamron 70-210mm F4 vs. Canon and Nikon OEM

I would get the 200-500 for wildlife. This lens is truly amazing judging by the photos coming out these days.Lastly at 200mm, we see superb center performance wide open, but at the cost of corner performance. Stopped down however, the lens reaches superb performance across the frame. The advantage of the 80-400 is that is a one lens solution to that range, and is smaller, lighter, cheaper than option 2.