On January 07 I pre-ordered from Henry's and sat back for what I believed would be a longish wait. The announced ship date was February 05 and I did expect some waiting.
What convinced me to take a chance and pre-order before there were any reviews or independent opinion? I had very little to lose. I had confidence that Nikon could not afford to dissappoint by releasing a lens that was inferior to it's predecessor.
I was a fanatical user of the old version of this lens and almost from the time that I bought it, I (and many others) awaited the addition of VR. After all, Nikon had updated all of it's long lenses with VR and the 300 f4 update was beginning to look like it may never happen.
As a previous owner of the 300mm f2.8 which I sold because it was too bulky there was also the hope, that with a VR update there would also be an upgrade to the optics - similar to what Nikon did to the 80mm - 400mm zoom which was much sharper than the earlier one.
On January 18 I got the ship notice from Fedex and on January 19 I had it in my hands. As chance would have it my friend invited me to go birding on Amherst Island the following morning. Amherst Island, in the St. Lawrence River, is famous as a place where one can find all sorts of Raptors in winter, especially Owls. Most Owls are hunkered down in the 'Owl Woods' but a couple of Snowy Owls usually roam the open, windswept areas of the island.
It was bitterly cold -18C and very windy as we walked across the icy shore looking for a Snowy Owl.
This lens was so small and light that I just hooked it to my Blackrapid strap and forgot about it as I needed free hands to navigate the ice. I always boasted to my friends about the ease of handling the old 300mm f4 but this was in a different league altogether.
I had the TC14E II teleconverter on ... something that I rarely do anymore. Since I started using the high resolution D7100, I found that I could get sharper images without the teleconverter by additional cropping. With numb fingers and heavy gloves I chose not to mess with the lens or the camera settings so the first shots with this new lens were wide open (f5.6 with the teleconverter) usually not the sharpest as one usually has to stop down but the images were more than acceptable.
We found the Snowy Owl and even got him in flight.
Another view of the Snowy Owl.
These are massively cropped images (I didn't calculate but greater than 300%. I make no apologies as that is my style ... shoot wide and crop .... else I would be lugging around a 600mm. You will see some CA and softness if you expand but I have lots of pics with the old lens shot under similar conditions to compare with. If I can get an Owl to sit still long enough for me to get a frame filler that would be a different story.
There have been many images posted on forums taken with this lens. Many of these are designed for 'pixel peepers' and are high resolution straight out of camera for comparison. This is a blog and is impressions and not a Review. I too am waiting for the detailed Reviews in particular my most trusted Reviewer Nasim Mansurov in Photographylife.
This Red-tailed Hawk image was - a good test for the VR. As we were driving on the highway I spotted it in a tree. My friend who was driving screeched to a stop on the shoulder and started backing up. I know that the Police are cracking down on distracted drivers meaning cell phones, but birders can be the most distracted of all. As we backed up closer to the Red-tailed, I realized that it was going to fly so I shot through the window with the car moving over the bumpy gravel.
The next day I headed to a place where I could get some consistent subjects. The Moira River flows through downtown Belleville and always has an assortment of Canada Geese, Mallards, Mergansers and Goldeneye. My first shoot was disappointing. Many of the shots seemed just slightly out of focus. I decided to do something that I should have done from the start - check the Autofocus calibration. To my great relief, the lens was backfocused and I changed the offset to -10. I determined this by the crudest and simplest method - forget about Lensalign and other fancy methods - I stood on my deck and shot a birdfeeder on another deck 60m away. I changed the AF Fine tune in increments until I got the the sharpest image.
So back to the river. This time the results were much more satisfying.
A Female Common Merganser.
she turned
With some Friends
Goodbye
A pair of Common Goldeneye
A Mallard on ice.
Taking off
Back at the Birdfeeder, a Tree Sparrow
A Hoary Redpoll
So am I finally satisfied? Was it worth the wait?
Yes and Yes.
1. Improbably small and light. Half the weight of the old lens and 2/3 the length.
2. 4.5 stops of VR
3. Shorter minimum focusing distance than it's predecessor 1.4m vs 1.45m
4. Bokeh the same as the old lens (in my opinion).
5. As sharp or sharper than the old lens.
If this had been just an update to VR I probably would have balked in spending the extra dough. The old lens list at about $1500CAD and the new one at about $2200CAD but the new lens is much more than just the VR. The biggest difference is the size and weight reduction. It certainly won't inspire respect from the big guns at a bird shoot, but this is one case where I can say with confidence that bigger is not necessarily better.
The Fresnel lens design is not new having been used by Canon in their DO series on a 70 - 300 and more recently the 400mm f4 DO but Nikon seems to have nailed the design and has 2 patents out for additional lenses using this technology (including the 200mm - 400mm f4)..
The other take away relates to AF Fine Tuning. It is so important and yet most photographers have never done it. You can spend a lot of money buying new lenses and cameras when the lens calibration is the issue. When I had the 300mm f2.8 I was so disappointed until I tuned it and it magically came to life.
I finally decided to put my trusty 300mm f4 up for sale. It was somewhat emotional but there is no point having hardware sitting and gathering dust. This lens is a worthy successor and only when the reviewers put this in the Lab and there are more commenters will we know if it is really as sharp as the 2.8. I don't really care, my back, my arms and my chiropractor love it too.
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