Price

If you're looking to buy this lens think more of it as a 70-220 or so, beacause of the lousy performance beyond about 220mm, and compare with other lenses in that range

The lightweight build of this lens is as you would expect at the price. Unfortunately the performance at 300mm is not great, in fact its not really usable with very poor sharpness.

Lightweight Very good to good sharpness Very inexpensive Very little chromatic abberation (CA) at shorter end of zoom

Slow lens means use of tripod in some low light situations and even then it's hit or miss. Lacking tripod collar which could have helped to minimize camera shake.

I've read a lot of reviews slamming this product. I have to disagree. Sure it's no f/2 200mm Nikkor, but for what you are paying, you simply can't expect that kind of performance. It has a plastic body. Not a big detactor to me as it is a relatively "cheap" lens and a plastic housing cuts down on the weight. It is also not a "fast" lens. I tried shooting the eclipse with it on the first night I owned it. I was ready to return it the next day. But luckily I decided to give it another shot on my way back to the camera store. Given ample light, it takes very nice shots even at 300mm. Sharpness is great up until 200mm and then fall off curves very slowly until you get to 300mm, as and noted, all of that is dependant on the amount of available lighting. It's MFT rating is also higher that the more expensive ED lens, go figure. I would have liked a collar mount and a non-rotating focus lens (IF), but then again I would have liked a couple grand to buy a pro lens. For what you spend this is a great lens, as long as you recognize and capitalize on it's applicable uses.

Similar Products Used:

70-300 ED 80-200mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S

Seriously Cheap - under £100 new which is even cheaper than the Tamron Version or the Sigma DL - for £55 used mint with warranty it`s a no brainer as an emergency tele for casual work.. 9 blade iris with curved blades, Nice.. Smooth zoom action

CA, Distortion, weak contrast, soft wide open at 300mm (Like all these cheapos) Slow focussing, useless lightweight MF ring which doesn`t even have a mark on the body for the distance scale

Plasticky budget long telephoto similar but a lot cheaper than the 75-300 series in canon and the Sigma 70-300 DL but no worse - made by Tamron for Nikon bt lacking the macro facility of the Newer Tamron model.. I never expected miracles and bought it as a throw in the bag emergency tele and it`s no hidden Gem, suffers the same faults as all these plastic toy teles - soft at 300mm wide open (where it`s likely to spend most of its time) and good at 70mm, suffers CA (as expected) and not exactly high contrast.. Worth getting the Nikon badged one as it`ll have a higher resale value when you tire of it and buy something more capable . the Sigma 70-300 APO Macro Super is a better lens though costs a lot more... Nikon owners are lucky as Canon want big money for their 75-300 / 90-300 clunkers and are if anything WORSE optically. I`ve given it a Three because it`s cheap and reasonably cheerful..

Similar Products Used:

Nikon 80-400VR, Sigma 70-300DL and APO Macro Super - tamron 70-300LD Macro (Basically the same lens as the Nikon but with Macro)- Canon 75-300 USM, 75-300IS, 70-300DO IS..

Nothing

image quality, (contrast, sharpness, color bands, etc)

This is the only Nikon lens that I dislike. At 300mm it gives very soft images and lots of internal reflections when a stong light source is present (incl. sunsets). It also gives green and purple color bands around light objects. I have seen it in all of my full moon shots for example. I think it may also be misalignment during fabrication. Feels like cheap plastic, takes pictures as a light plastic lens.

Similar Products Used:

many others

Light Good value for money Ideal for travel

no apeture ring but hey for $200AUD who cares. Slow especially zoomed to 300mm

I purchased this lens approx 2 years back and have had some fantastic results. As per previous review I agree it is of fairly inferior build quality compared to primes but having said that, the price paid and results acheived (sharp pics,nice contrast) I think it's a great lens. I'd recommend not getting the "Champagne" coloured version as it looks quite plasticky & toyish especially when mounted to a black body. Autofocus can be slow & when hunting from min focus distance to infinity it sounds like a sick robot after a few pints.

Customer Service

none

Similar Products Used:

Nikkor 28-105mm D

Good centre sharpness for the price. Lens hood included. Nice wide zoom ring, with good rubberized surface.

Plastic lens mount. Light plastic overall build. Not well-suited for tripod use, but too slow at the long end for most handheld photography. Significant pincushion and barrel distortion at the two extremes of focal length

This lens gets you into a telephoto zoom cheaply, but there are significant compromises. Compared to even medium-price zooms intended for consumer use, the build on this lens is extremely cheap, with a plastic lens mount, and light plastic everything else. It has no special glass whatsoever (no extra dispersion, no aspherical). In practical use, it certainly can produce photographs that are more than sharp enough for normal-sized prints, and up to 8 x10 or so. However, it produces significant distortion of straight vertical lines when zoomed in and zoomed out - pincushion distortion at one end, and barrel distortion at the other. So, if you're going to be photographing scenes that have buildings in them, expect to see the straight edges of buildings to be slightly bulging in or out unless they are right in the centre of the photograph. However, this isn't a problem if you are photographing animals, trees, flowers, etc. This is an autofocus lens, but a cheap one. So, the focussing ring feels very light indeed if focussing manually. Too light for much practical use that way. In autofocus, I tested it with a Nikon F80, and while it worked fine, the camera did hunt more to achieve focus than it did with say a 28-80 zoom, on anything that wasn't of high contrast. Before buying this lens, consider whether you really need a 300mm zoom at all. This is a relatively light zoom, but it's still front-heavy enough, when fully extended and with the supplied lens hood, that it easily vibrates a little when the camera is mounted on a tripod. When zoomed in at 300mm, given the fairly small maximum aperture of the lens, it will be difficult to achieve sharp photos without using a tripod. Yet, this lens does not have a tripod collar, so you have no choice but to attach the tripod to the camera body. A long zoom that is too slow for handheld use but not well-suited for tripod use might be considered relatively useless by some, at least at the longer end of the zoom. I suspect that many people who buy this lens (and others like it from other makes) think it's a good complement to the 28-80 lens that came with the camera. Hmm, 28-80, 70-300. That pretty much covers the whole ranges of most useful focal lengths. However, unless you're going to be using the 200-300mm range for shooting subjects like animals, flowers, etc., with the camera and lens mounted on a tripod, the longer focal lengths aren't going to be of much use to you. If you need a lens like this, a better value might be found in a Tamron 28-300 or 28-200 zoom lens, or in Nikon's other 70-300 zoom - D series instead of G, with ED glass and a metal mount. It's about twice the price, but still very reasonably-priced. The 70-300G can be very useful, when used by someone who is aware of it's limitations. You won't want to do architectural photography (which can include a lot of travel pictures) with the lens zoomed at either the wide or the long end, unless distortion is acceptable to you. You will also get best results from having the aperture stopped down to f11 or so, but, be aware that at the telephoto end of things, this practically mandates using the camera supported on a tripod or bean bag, etc., since the shutter speed will be too slow for handheld photography. Similarly, the very cheap build-quality may not be a problem for occasional use. However, I should mention that when I used it, I found that some of the plastic mount's finish rubbed off on the metal lens mount of the camera, subsequently making it harder to mount a lens with a proper metal mount (it had to be twisted harder, as if sticking on the plastic material that had rubbed off), and not providing a very good feeling about the plastic mount's longevity. My feeling, after having owned this lens, is that it's still too expensive for the limitations it has. If a long telephoto zoom is essential to your photography (and you really have to consider whether this is really so), I think it would be best to save a little longer and get the 70-300D Nikkor. On the other hand, you might get more real-world use out of a good 28-105 zoom. If you do decide to get the G, get a good tripod along with it - even a mini-tripod. I got some good results at 300mm by using a mini-tripod pressed against my chest - but I had to be very careful about remaining perfectly still. In the end, I disposed of the lens. It wasn't of much use for walking around city photography due to the distortion.

Similar Products Used:

28-200 Tamron

Weight (lack of it) Build quality Price

minimum aperture

I bought this lense specifically for motorsports photography and although I havent tested it in that field as yet, I have made extensive useage of it shooting wildlife. With some really fantastic images used in conjunction with my Fuji S1 pro digital. The lense is extremely light, well constructed and great value for money. Some reviewers have slated this lense, but im getting great results from it and love it.

Similar Products Used:

Nikor 28-105 AFD F3.5/4

The lens body is plastic and very light. I found the build quality to be very good (if you don't equate weight with quality, as many do).

Image quality

Decided to try this lens on the S2 based on reviews that I read. I shot roughly about 100 images outdoors hand held at various focal lengths. The results were extremely poor. Probably the worst I have ever taken. Returned it the following day.

Customer Service

not needed

Similar Products Used:

Various Nikon and Sigma zooms

Staggeringly cheap (in the UK), light, great results for the price.

Flimsy construction, not much pride of ownership.

This lens is so cheap they are practically giving it away. Cheap construction, and flimsy feel, but surprisingly good results. I took it on a trip to Mauritius, and came back with some superb shots from it.

Customer Service

not tried

Similar Products Used:

Many similar zooms

small and light weight

Too many to mention, soft and no contrast. One ED lens doesn't make it.

This is the worst lens I have ever used. I've used many Nikons lenses and this is worse than my old six digit 43-86 lens. Which is probably the worst Nikon ever produced. Do yourself a favor pass this one up and even more important don't waste your time with the G lens. I don't know what Nikon was thinking with this lens or the G lenses. They are junk.

Similar Products Used:

Nikon 24-120, 70-210 D both are excellnet