Who's using the new Nikon 80-400 lens w/ stabilizer?

I'm considering purchasing this lens and would love to hear if your

satisfied with the optics and etc?

I've been using it for over a year now, and have been very successful in competition with the results, both handheld and on a tripod. I use a tripod whenever possible (with the stabilization turned off.) Other club members have similar experiences.

I guess I have to add another link for the image

George, it would be a decent lens for $400. It excels at producing extremely soft images. What a piece of garbage - I am surprised that Nikon puts there name on it.

I have had one for a little over a year and love it.

George,

 

I have had the lense for a little more for than a year and am basically satisfied. The image quality is very good and the zoom range is very useful when you don't want to carry a large number of lenses. BUT!!!! The autofocus is incredibly slow (don't bother trying flying birds) and the VR function, although it does work, isn't all it's hyped to be. It takes a while for the VR to lock in so you can't just point and shoot without waiting or else you will get worse shakiness than if you had the VR turned off. It's better to just use a tripod. Many of the pictures I have posted here were taken with this lense (especially the Galapagos and Yellowstone pics) if you want to look at some examples.

I've been shooting with the lens for about a month and I'm satisfied with it. I agree with the comment above about the VR. It takes about 1 sec for it to kick in, so this makes it less suited for action work.

 

After hearing about how slow the AF is, I was expecting a real dog, so I was pleasantly surprised by the AF speed. It's not the fastest, but it's accurate. Also, there's a convenient MF/AF switch on the lens which makes it easy to prefocus. There's also an AF limit switch that can be helpful.

 

I haven't had the lens long enough to evaluate the sharpness, but so far it's looks pretty good to me. If there is any softness, it's not in the 80-300mm range. Flare control is phenominal. You can point right at the sun or at just about any angle to the sun with no problem, even without the hood that comes with it.

 

I've read complaints about the tripod collar. I personally don't have any blurry pictures that I can blame on the collar.

The tripod collar on mine is miserable. VR and AF behavior is body dependent. If you don't have an F5, F100/MB15, or D1/D1X/D1H, VR and AF don't perform as well and jog shift blur will occur intermittently at 1/30 and faster on lighter weight bodies.

 

The 80-200 AFD f/2.8 and 80-200 AFS f/2.8 are clearly better optically and have real tripod collars.

I have been using the 80-400 VR for over one year and am very happy with it. Images are all sharp with good contrast. Autofocus is slow and could be a little faster. (When I need fast autofocus I'll use my 80-200 2.8 AFS). I just returned from Eco-Challenge - Fiji Islands and all of the pros were using that lens to cover the event. They all liked it fine and were producing some great images. If you need one lense that can just about do it all, the 80-400 is probably it.