I used to have the 70-200 VR 1 when shooting on my D300. I'm thinking of buying the lens again for use on my D800, but I was wondering if anyone had experience with it stopped down (F8-11) at infinity, for landscape purposes. I'm aware of the vignetting and poor corners, so I was wondering if those issues clear up for this use case.
Stopping down does not solve the corner-sharpness issue. Unfortunately, landscape photography at the long end of the zoom range seems to be exactly the VR1's weakness.
As far as I researched, it seems that the VRI will work perfectly with FX as long as it's for subject isolation purposes rather than landscape edge to edge sharpness which the VRII and the F/4 excel at. However, I very well could be mistaken
Extreme corners are soft at pretty much any aperture. At least on my copy. However this is only extreme corners, most of the rest of the frame is great. For me, it is rare that I have extreme corners in focus. So it does not bother me, but for someone who can have extreme corners in focus, this lens may not work.
