Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I'm surprised that there are so few reviews for this lens.
I wanted a telephoto for years so I bought an old used manual focus Nikon 300mm f4 lens. I was able to get good sharp photographs when shooting outdoors in bright sunshine with the aperture closed down a few stops. But without the split prism focusing in less than very bright environments, I was never certain when I was in focus except by looking at the green dot in the viewfinder which is distracting while trying to keep your eye on a moving subject. Auto-focus is a must on a big telephoto.
I traded it in (the advantage of buying from a local camera store) and bought a new Nikon 300mm f4. Before leaving the store, I photographed a few items inside the store that had bar codes. I photographed hand held with the aperture wide open at about 1/100 second. I zoomed in on my D300 LCD and I could clearly read the tiny numbers at the bottom of the bar codes. The images were perfectly sharp.
I ponied up an additional $1K and bought it. Hey, it was my wedding anniversary and my wife asked what I wanted; this was it. I then took another series of photographs of a sharp barcode on a bottle. This time, I used a tripod for consistency. I do this test with each lens I buy. The only other lens that had this quality as the Nikon 85mm f1.4.
I could see no difference in sharpness or contrast regardless of aperture. I then photographed a house for sale sign up the street. The lens quickly and quietly locked in on the sign. Again, zooming in all the way on the camera's LCD, I was able to easily read the very tiny print at the bottom of the sign (at 200 ISO).
The lens is fairly lightweight so I didn't have any problem hand holding it. It weighs about the same as the Nikon Micro 2.8 lens (not sharp wide open). I don't think I could have held the 300mm f2.8 lens for very long.
Because the lens isn't heavy, by holding the lens hood with one hand and having a good body stance, I was able to take good shots as low at 1/100th of a second. Some photographers claim their photographs were taken hand-held as slow at 1/20 of a second but I find that hard to believe.
While the f4 model doesn't have VR (I love VR) and is only 1 fstop slower than the nearly $6K f2.8 300mm lens, it's about 1/4th of the price of the 2.8 and weighs 1/2 has much (3 pounds vs. 6 pounds). On a Nikon D300/D700 with a battery pack or a D3/D3s, carrying around a 300mm 2.8 lens has got to hurt after awhile.
One review described the f4 model as a "poor mans lens". I hand hold my lens with either a D3s or a D300 & battery pack since the subjects move too erratically to use any type of support. Let me tell you, the weight aches after awhile. I can't imagine adding an additional 3 (THREE) pounds. The f2.8 model is meant to be hand held otherwise why have VRII? I pity the poor man that has to hand hold the 6 pound lens for more than a few minutes.
Yes, the 2.8 lens is one stop faster and the VR will give you an extra 2-4 stops, but with an FX body I found you can crank up the ISO to at least 3200 or 6400 with no degradation in picture quality. Unless you have very challenging light situations, the f4 300mm model may be the perfect lens.
The only negative aspect of this lens is that under very low light situations with a 1.7 teleconverter, the lens has to hunt. I have to manually focus then press the shutter so that auto-focus kicks in.
I love the 5 year warranty (I send in the warranty card via Certified Mail -- you only have 10 days so mail it in quickly) and I scan the filled in warranty registration card and proof of purchase). Nikon just fixed, for free; not even any shipping costs, my broken 18-200mm gray market lens that was about 2 years old.
[May, 2010 update: Some people have told me that Nikon no longer will fix a gray market Nikon lens]
Lens actually comes with a decent soft case.
I don't understand why other reviewers have complained about the tripod collar. It seems perfectly good to me. It's not solid metal like the old manual focus lens that I returned but it looks rugged enough for me.
I tend to be very fussy; perhaps to a fault. It's my personality. I wind up returning or exchanging many (most?) items that don't live up to my expectations. But, I'm definitely keeping this puppy.
Some friends came over one night and they brought their young daughter who didn't like being photographed (2 year olds tend to be cranky especially when they're tired). I used the 300mm lens on a DX body so that she didn't have a camera in front of her face; I was about 10 feet away. Since all I had was a few house lamps on, I had to photograph at wide open at f4. I was surprised that every single eyelash was tack sharp. The lens had no problem auto-focusing in the dim light. What a lens!
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Nikon 300mm f/4.0D ED-IF AF-S Nikkor Lens for Nikon Digital SLR CamerasThis high-power 4.3x telephoto zoom is a versatile and lightweight answer to bringing family action closer. Fits all Nikon SLR cameras but optimized for automatic-focus models
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