Well I am a little slow trying new technology sometimes and the Nikon VR lens has been out about a year now. I always shoot with a tripod and a long lens and have found a few instances when hand holding the camera/lens combo while still getting sharp images would have been more beneficial. The one instance that comes to mind as I write this is shooting from the drivers seat of a vehicle. One solution is to use a beanbag in the window and rest the lens on it. In my not so humble opinion this option bites the big one because stability is not very good. Another option is using a window pod which mounts onto the window frame and then you mount your ballhead and camera onto the window pod. This option is very stable but it can be limiting especially in the movement area. I find that when using a window pod the depression angle is very shallow and using a flash can be a challenge. Many times I have come across a subject and have not had time to set up the window pod and lost the image because of it.

My solution to this problem is now without a doubt the Nikon VR lens. I am going to skip all the specific technical details of the lens, with the exception of a couple, for you can find them anywhere. This lens is an 80-400mm zoom which is more versatile for wildlife photography then the 80-200mm zoom because of the longer focal length. The lens has a medium fast aperture of 4.5-5.6 and I believe Nikon chose well as a larger aperture would have made the lens much heavier for hand holding. With the VR technology added to the lens the f5.6 aperture is no big loss.

The one negative with this lens is the focusing speed. It certainly is not a speed demon by any measure. I believe the AF is adequate for most situations and the focus limiting switch helps tremendously in this area. When the limiting switch is set to full the lens will focus from about 7.5 feet to infinity. With the limiting switch set on limit the lens will focus from about 16.5 feet to infinity. Using the switch wisely will improve the focus speed in a big way.

Now on to the good stuff! Vibration Reduction (VR) Skipping all the gory details VR will take the motion blur from camera shake out of the image. Nikon claims a 3 stop slower shutter speed when hand holding the camera/lens combo. One other negative is that Nikon converters will not make use of VR which is too bad. However, Kenko pro model converters will allow you to use this lens with VR. Autofocus will also work with the Kenko converters but it is dog slow. After I received my lens I took it out and gave it a try. I photographed a bird perch near my feeders with and without a Kenko 1.4x Pro converter. The images below are the result.

Nikon D1X with iso @ 125 lens zoomed to 400mm @ f5.6 and 1/50

Nikon D1X with iso @ 125 and lens zoomed to 400mm @f5.6 and 1/30 with Kenko Pro 1.4x TC

Looking at the above two images you can really see that the VR part of the lens works great! I for one am impressed by the fact that I can hand hold a 400mm lens at 1/50 of a second shutter speed and still get sharp images. I next wanted to see how the lens stood up to an actual bird image. I waited in my blind until one of the resident dove flew onto a perch and photographed the dove with the VR lens.

This image was captured with a Nikon D1X with the iso @ 125. The lens zoomed to 400mm @ f5.6 and 1/50 with an SB-28DX set to - 1.3 compensation.

If you need to hand hold a long lens and don't mind a bit slower AF speed then this lens is for you. It is not the end all of lenses but it will most certainly get the job done with room to spare. This VR lens is going into my camera bag and I expect to make good use of it on a frequent basis.