Mr Brown rolled up last evening and dropped off my xmas present to myself. First impression was most positive.....focus was precise, the VR was absolutely incredible as Nikon appears to be breaking new ground, handling as well as any, certainly not as cumbersome as the 2.8 model, it renders exceptionally well and is sharp from corner to corner. I am satisfied to say the least.

AndreasE wrote:
Lance B wrote:
Impressive images from the 70-200 f4, Andy!
Thank you for the kind remarks.

BTW, I got the D5200 earlier this week and even with the very high resolution 24MP DX sensor the lens performs very well. The new VR is supporting the high spatial resolution (for hand held images). I truly like the lens - it's great.

rgds,
Andy


Thank you very much for the info.

Here is a photo + 100% crop last night from the D800+70-200 @ 200mm f/4.

Photo:

Just to add my $.02. I shot with it over the past three days while touring around on my splitboard for a couple assignments. Overall, this lens gave a great first impression. AF was fast and accurate, images are sharp across the frame when stopped down to f5.6 and still very good at f4. It was great coupled with the D600 for a lighter setup when weight is important but you can't sacrifice image quality. After three days of use in the mountains I'm very happy with the purchase and excited to have a lighter combo for days when I am going a little deeper into the backcountry.

@snapsy,
thanks for your new years photo - I like it :-)

Tonight I had the Nikon V2 connected via the FT-1 adapter to the AFS 70-200mm/4 VR

Nikon V2, AFS 70-200mm/4 VR ,ISO 160, 120 sec exposure, f5.6, 1920x1080

I just shot some long range shots with the 70-200/4AFS and TC20EIII on my D800 and I have to say I'm fairly impressed. VR worked extremely well and at f/11 the centrol 90% of the frame is pretty darned good with everything looking sharp except at 100% where you can see some lack of crispness. A little bit of sharpening works wonders though.

Pictures to prove it happened coming later on tonight.

John

Here's a hand-held shot from my D800 with the 70-200/4 AFS + TC20EIII plus a circular polarizer.

Is it pixel-level sharp, no, but it's really very very good. It can be tough to tell how sharp things are due to looking through a couple miles of sea level air, but based on my experience it's more than acceptable.

Here's a 100% crop with only AA-filter recovery level of sharpening.
Note the atmosphere is pretty wavy, especially on the boat.