Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 300mm f/4E PF ED VR Lens

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I also tried the lens with a 2x teleconverter but found the focus slow and unresponsive. Image quality suffered quite significantly being soft throughout all apertures. I would not recommend using this combination. Conclusion Focus accuracy and repeatability is critical to consistently produce sharp shots, especially with large aperture primes. Consistency of auto-focus (the accuracy of focus on the same subject after repeated focus-acquisition) of this lens is good (96.9% as measured in FoCal) with only slight variations and only one real outlier over a series of 40 shots. The lens focuses in around 0.35-0.5 sec from infinity to 3 m depending on whether the AF hunts beyond infinity at the start. This is very fast. The 300/4.0D does this in 0.5 sec . Both the new and the old lens exhibited a tendency to refuse focusing when the target was too blurred, e.g. when focus was set at 3m and the new target was at 7m. This also depends on the target so you should not worry too much. But occasionally you might find yourself in a situation where you need to nudge the lens manually in the right direction or simply try to trigger AF again. With its rounded diaphragm, the 300/4 PF rarely makes any kid of sunstars on brilliant points of light.

I was pleasantly surprised with the sharpness, clarity and color of the photos, and even more so when using the effective VR mode. But perhaps because the lens is lighter than most at this focal length and aperture, Nikon’s motion compensators seem to favor the heavier lenses when the switch is on for super sharp photos as the mass of a lens has a distinct advantage in handheld shooting. In all probability, this is the reason for such a wide range of VR power of 4.5 stops. That said, to play it safe for important photos, I would stay around higher shutter speeds whenever possible and shut if off when on a tripod. There’s no 300mm f4.0 lens from third party manufacturers like Sigma, Tamron, or Tokina currently on offer although Sigma once had the AF 300/4.0 DG APO macro. Distance information is relayed to the camera, so the Nikon body can do all the advanced exposure-related stuff with this lens. [+]With the TC-17E II teleconverter, the new 300mm f/4E VR showed pretty impressive performance, especially when stopped down to f/8. As you can see from the above graphs, the lens does significantly better with this teleconverter combo in the center compared to the 300mm f/4D AF-S. Not all of this is sharp became not all of it is in focus. Depth of field here is only fraction of a millimeter. This traditional AF lens becomes manual-focus-only on the FTZ, with a CPU for full data communication, aperture control and all exposure modes. It has no internal optical stabilization. To me, Nikon’s new Nikkor 300mm f/4E PF ED VR is the perfect storm of everything in modern optics coming together. The quality is there as is the innovation with the Fresnel lens and the lens is sharp. Really sharp! However, in all cases, the overall sharpness depends on the photographer and if you don’t follow the proper technique, all is lost no matter how much the lens is rated. Thus this lens wasn't very popular; it cost more than the earlier version but didn't do much different.

There is about a 1.2 stop difference between the darkest extreme corners and the center of the frame. As you stop down the lens to f/5.6 and smaller, vignetting decreases significantly. Ghosting and Flare The focus ring moves smoothly with comfortable friction, but it does feel a little narrow. If you’re a fan of manual focus this may be troublesome, but as I use autofocus exclusively for wildlife photography, it wasn’t a problem. Lastly, the Nikon 300mm f/4D AF-S does not have a rubber gasket on its mount. This is unfortunate because this means that dust and other debris could end up in your camera and your lens. For this reason, I would recommend keeping a teleconverter mounted on the lens at all times. When I've used this lens on a tripod, I don't need no stinking collar. It's light enough, like the 24-70/2.8, that I just attach my camera to the tripod. It’s not all 100% good news however. There can be some optical downsides caused by the Phase Fresnel element, which are observable under certain conditions. Very bright light can introduce coloured halo’s or flares around the source which could come in to play if care were not taken, especially when shooting with a lot of artificial lights in the frame. Personally, I didn’t come across a situation where this presented itself. That’s not to say I avoided scenes that might show it up, more so that I simply shot as normal and being that I photograph wildlife, there are rarely bright light sources of the specific type that would cause the issue to appear. I would hazard a guess that this is something that needs to be more carefully considered if you’re a nighttime cityscape or wedding photographer, but in the majority of wildlife situations, it’s certainly not something I would worry about.

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It won't autofocus with the cheapest AF 35mm cameras like the N55, but if you focus manually, everything else works great. Even if you lose autofocus, these cameras have in-finder focus confirmation dots to help you. Just for fun I tried it on my 1988 Nikon F4. It autofocuses, but there is no VR. It meters and auto-exposes — but it only shoots at f/4, which is where we usually want to shoot it.