Nikon 70-210mm f/4 AF

[wedding_photographer5]

<p>Anyone tried this lens? How does it perform on a d700 or d3s ?</p>

<p>If performance is OK, this is a hidden jewel. Constant f/4, small and light, and dirt cheap!</p>

<p>Basically, I'm looking for a lightweight and cheap telephoto with good - not stellar - performance for casual use when I don't want to carry my f/2.8 zoom. </p>

<p> </p>

[Hector Javkin]

<p>I had the 70-200 f/4-5.6 AF when I was shooting film. It which focused quickly for a screw-drive lens, and was not a bad lens, but the f/4 was considered to deliver better quality. I don't know whether you would like it on a 12MP body.</p>

<p>For a lightweight lens in this range, I like the Nikon AF-S VR 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G, which some have praised only within focal lengths 70-200. The hummingbird photos in my portfolio were shot with this lens at 300mm. Of course, I expect that the 70-200 f/4 would sell for much less, and might indeed be a hidden jewel.</p>

[chip_chipowski]

<p>I had this with my D50 several years ago and I was not blown away. I like the results from my 70-300VR much better. You are right though, it is a pretty good value for constant f/4.</p>

[dan_brown4]

<p>It's hard to beat the "plastic fantastic" 80-200/f4.5-5.6D-AF. $75 at KEH, I keep one in my everyday bag and use it more than any other telephoto I own. Tiny, airweight, and plenty sharp, even at f5.6, and downright crips at f8-11.</p>

<p><img src="http://www.dlaab.com/photo/Df/Df_80_200.JPG" alt="" /></p>

[andylynn]

<p>The lens is just "okay", not "great". It's very similar to the Series E lens. Not as good as what you can get these days, though. The Nikon and Tamron 70-300 VR lenses are a bit more expensive, but if you're looking for a reasonably light weight zoom in that range with good image quality and value for money I'd take one of those instead. </p>

[mervyn_wilmington]

<p>There have been a lot of views on the f4 constant over the years. If you did a search you might well find them. It became something of a cult lens.</p>

<p>I thought it superb. I used it with film Nikons and then my D700. I thought it so good I finished up with three! They all performed very well, although there was a batch that had problems in actually achieving focus - at the long end I think. None of mine had that problem.</p>

<p>One downside is slowish focussing. However, if you can cope with that, you might find it provides very good results. </p>

<p>It was only in production for about 18 months. There was a view that is was very expensive and that put off amateurs. There was another view that its plastic appearance put off professionals. It was replaced by non-constants: nowhere near as good in my opinion.</p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>The old (and unbelievably ugly!) 70-210mm AF f/4 Nikkor gives acceptable quality with my D700. On my D800 it doesn't fare so well. There's some lateral CA that becomes noticeable at moderate magnification, and a fair bit of corner and edge smearing. Although it's a constant f/4 lens the IQ at f/4 isn't great on a D800, with some loss of contrast and definition.</p>

<p>On Bjorn's scale I'd probably rate this lens a 3 to 3.5. Optical construction appears identical to the Series E 70-210 Nikon zoom, but the mechanism has obviously been re-jigged to allow a closer focus across the zoom range.</p>

<p>If you can get the lens cheap enough, I'd say "why not?". You can always sell it one again if it doesn't suit your needs.</p>

<p>PS. The purely manual 80-200mm f/4 Ai-S Zoom Nikkor gives better IQ all round. It's about the same size and possibly a little heavier than the above AF zoom.</p>

[Richard Williams]

<p>I've used one quite a bit on a D300 and I'm a fan, agreeing with positive reviews like these:<br>

http://www.dantestella.com/technical/70210.html<br>

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/21296861<br>

I must give it a good test on the D800 to see how it holds up on FX at higher resolution. It's much smaller and lighter than the Nikon f/2.8 zooms, but you can of course get even lighter variable aperture zooms, which will generally focus faster (though as Dante Stella points out, racking all the way between close focus and infinity, where the f/4 shows its AF speed limitations, isn't something you do that often). I'd say give it a try if you can find one in decent condition at a good price.</p>

 

[thomasherren]

<p>I had one together with a D700. Performance was varying from mediocre to excellent, but rather unpredictably. I don't know why. In the meantime, I sold both and replaced them by a D750 and 70 - 200mm f/4VR. At f/4, it was quite soft. Compared to the 70 - 210mm f/4 - 5.6 it was noticeably better. But the 70 - 210mm f/4 E series was at least equal in IQ, but much heavier (and MF of course) and with less light transmission.<br>

A very good lens was the plastic 80 - 200mm f/4.5 - 5.6 with 52mm filter. Small, light and sharp. I regret I sold it.<br>

A source of further information might be: http://www.jsvfoto.com/NikonZooms</p>

 

[chuck]

I will guess autofocus performance with any non-D screwdriver AF lenses, like this 70-200f4 AF, would be poor on a high

pixel count DSLR.

 

The reason is without distance encoder, the lens would not feed back to the camera any data about its actual focal

position. So the autofocus becomes an open loop system, and any slop in the screw driver AF system would become

uncorrected focusing error.

 

I wonder if anyone has done any systematic studies of the focusing precision of different generations of Nikon AF lenses

on cameras like the D750 and D810. My guess is pre-D Screw driver lenses would have the worst focus precision. AF-D

screw driver lenses would do significantly better. AFS lenses would do even better still, because it would be closed loop,

and it would have minimal slop.

[mervyn_wilmington]

<p>I had d and pre-d lenses - 50mm, 60mm, and 35-70mm - at the same time and used them on my D700. I could never see one jot of difference in performance, including when flash was in use. I thought the d was supposed to help with the latter.</p>

[chuck]

Maybe you should try again with a 24 or 36 Mpixel camera.

 

Without the provision to feed the actual focal distance of the lens back to the camera, the AF system has to operate on a

open loop to prevent excessive hunting. This means phase detection AF system has little or no ability to compensate for

the slop in the focus mechanism. Feeding the actual focal distance back to the camera allows the AF system to operate

in a closed loop. This allows the camera to compensate for mechanical slop. Canon started using closed loop AF

system sometimes after EOS-5D Mk-2. Nikon probably started roughly around the same time. This would put the start of

the closed loop AF system in Nikons at some point between D700 and D600.

[mervyn_wilmington]

<p>I think that I had made it clear that my experience was with a D700 only. That said, I never had sharpness problems be they focussing or otherwise. I have to admit that very occasionally the lens could be subject to hunting.</p>

<p>I have now moved over, after 30 years with Nikons, to a Fuji XT1 so I am not in a position to try the lens with a higher pixel camera. The move to Fuji has caused no anguish....</p>