AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G IF-ED

I just received my first VR lens. I was very excited. I tried to take some indoor shots with it right after I opened the box, handheld, at 1/10s. That is the meaning of VR, right? It didn't work. The pictures are blurred. It is still a lens, not a miracle. This lens is not for indoor, 50mm f/1.8 or f/1.4 will suit better for that purpose. It has other shortcomings too: it is rather bulky, much heavier than the non-VR 70-300mm G, auto-focusing is not that fast and easily get confused when shooting complex scenes (this might has more to do with the D50 body though).

At this point, I thought, maybe I should not give up searching for a good 180mm ED AIS manual focus lens (auto ones are good of course, but rather expensive and bulky). VR does have its limitation.

Once back to the real world, I become very happy with this lens. I am able to get sharp pictures handheld at 1/50s or faster, not guaranteed, but with high confidence. A new lens like this always brings you something fresh. For example, I found out today we have more than one racoons in our backyard:

From 70-300mm VR

I have not mounted it on a tripod yet. But the lens is sharp enough. There are more important things that I want to worry about than sharpness. What I like most about this lens is its color rendition. I know it will be great. Even the non-VR non-ED $100 70-300mmG has pretty good color rendition. This one costs five times more. It gonna give something.

From 70-300mm VR

A very small amount of color fringing can be seen at the long end when wide open when shooting backlit scenes:

From 70-300mm VR

It is very acceptable and stopping down the lens will totally solve the problem. Again, as I rememberd, CA is not an issue even for that non-ED non-VR version. Nikon's coating technique must be very mature now.

You can find more sample shots at my Picase web album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/westernfort/70300mmVR