Summary: Great lens

Comment: This is an amazing lens, considering I payed only $455 for it.
Sharpness is very good throughout the range accept 300mm. VR feature comes in quite handy and helps in many situations.
All in all great product and great deal.

Summary: A solid upgrade from the 55-200mm

Comment: All in all, I am very happy with this lens.

I own a Nikon D40x, and up to now I've shot with the kit 18-55mm, the Nikon 50mm f1.8, and Nikon's 55-200mm. I've been getting more and more into nature photography, and the limits of the 55-200 were annoying me, both in terms of auto focus speed and zoom. I thought long and hard about what to do, though. The 70-300mm is an obvious choice, but I also thought I might want to put my money into Nikon's legendary 18-200mm. I figured that 300mm isn't really sufficient for nature (specifically bird) photography anyway, so maybe I should wait and save (for years, probably) until I can afford a $1k+ 2.8 telephoto.

Obviously, I eventually decided to go for the 70-300mm. I did so because reviews are generally positive and because in the field of choices, it was the only telephoto lens I could afford that really made sense. There are lenses from Tamron and Sigma that reach this focal length, but the usually lack either an internal focus motor (which I need on my D40x) or VR (which I personally need because I usually shoot without a tripod). One thing that I was also ecited about was simply owning a lens from a class above the 18-55mm and 55-200mm lenses, which the 70-300mm lens is.

The 70-300mm exceeds the 55-200mm in more ways than the obvious increase in focal length. Images are remarkably sharper and colorful through this lens. It's a subtle thing, but I'm much more often impressed by the saturation and contrast of the photos I get from the 70-300mm than I ever was with the 55-200mm (This may be in part because the 70-300mm is corrected for 35mm cameras, whereas my D40x has a sensor smaller than 35mm. Because of this, some of the outer portion of the lens, where optical problems are more common, are outside of the my camera's frame). I would be pained to go back.

Using this lens is also much more pleasurable than using the 55-200mm. The build quality feels much more solid and rugged, the focus ring is a true grip ring and not the dinky thing on the end of the 55-200mm's barrel. The lens does not creep, which is nice for me because I like to go out romping on foot with the camera strap over my shoulder. The lens stays put.

Autofocus is really fast compared to the 55-200mm. A faster lens would do better, but for the amount of light that this lens takes in, it does a stellar job. It's also quieter than the 55-200mm.

One difficulty I have had with this lens in comparison to the 55-200mm is that it is much heavier. It's not uncomfortable to walk around with, but hand held shots are a little more unsteady for me due to this extra weight. My arms will get used to it in time. :)

So, if you are looking for a solid telephoto lens that is relatively affordable but still a step up from the bargain 55-200mm lens, this is a great choice. If I had bought a Sigma or Tamron I would probably be feeling some remorse about giving up on the great build and features of this lens. If I had bought the 18-200 I'm sure I would appreciate the do-almost-anything convenience of it, but I would have spend even more money than I did on the 70-300mm for the same focal length range I already had in my two kit lenses.

One last thing to mention is the speed of this lens. It's not super fast by any means. I have to actively think about light levels and ISO in a way that I might not if I had a faster lens. But of course this is good practice anyway. I miss some shots because of low light, but this is really just a matter of how much money I can afford to spend on a lens. I wouldn't fault this one for not being a 2.8.

Ideally, I would have the 18-200mm lens and a really nice 2.8 telephoto at 400+mm, but until the day that I have that kind of money, I'm very happy with the 70-300mm.

Summary: good lens

Comment: Cool lens and i used it in my trips ,
good to capture the landscapes and portraits

Summary: Focus=Slow

Comment: Focus=Slow it's a deal breaker for me. I'm getting the 80-200 2.8- Yeah it costs more but as they say the poor man pays twice.

Summary: VR, is it all hype? No it's not.

Comment: I was hesitant to spend this much money on a lens especially because i am only an amateur photographer. My brother owns this same lens and we both upload pictures to a photography website. Anytime he uploads any pictures of Birds his pictures where aways crisp and much sharper than mine. I didn't understand because we both had a Nikon D80 and both 70-300mm. I started to get frustrated because i could not produce the same quality pictures. Then he informed me that he used the VR lens. I read up on the whole VR and was amazed at some of the shots i found online. aAnyway i recently came into some money and decided to pay the $[...].

Here are 2 pictures, one taken with my regular Nikon 70-300mm and one taken with this 70-300mm VR lens. Both where shot of the same subject in the same lighting, using the same aperture. The subject is only the writing on a blender shot from across the kitchen at full 300mm so you can see the text on the front of the blender.

See the difference for yourself.

Normal 70-300mm
http://thexfilez.webng.com/70-300mm_normal.jpg

VR 70-300mm
http://thexfilez.webng.com/70-300mm_VR.jpg

All i can say is, to get a picture this sharp at about a 15th or 30th of a sec in low light to me is well worth it. I haven't tried it on any bird shots outdoors yet.