Nikon Nikkor 70-300mm F4.0-5.6 D-AF ED Lens

Pros: extreme optical quality, excellent construction, includes case and integrated lens hood

Cons: excellent price point vs its bigger brother the F/2.8...but still expensive. Lens collar

The Bottom Line: It may be an F/4 but you save $4000! and get awesome performance. It works fantastically well with Nikon teleconverters.

Review: The second you start looking at telephoto lenses longer than about 200mm you will start to see a HUGE upward spiral in price. Your jaw will drop when you see the $5000 price tag on an F/2.8 Nikkor 300mm or the $10,000 F/2.8 400mm. You might ...

Pros: Faster, ED glass, lighter, cheaper

Cons: No rotating tripod collar

The Bottom Line: Nikon's update of the venerable 75-300 Nikkor is a bit lighter, a bit faster, and has better resolution.

Review: The recently introduced Nikkor 70-300 f4.0-5.6 ED AF-D lens replaces one of Nikon's most popular consumer zooms, the 75-300 f4.5-5.6. The old model 75-300 was much loved by backpackers, hikers, cyclists, and travelers because of the wide range of focal...

Pros: Inexpensive, wide range of focal lengths, good performance for the money.

Cons: Not very rugged, no direct manual control on older Nikons.

Review: Say you've purchased a Nikon D70 or D50 DSLR, and you're looking for a good lens to extend your telephoto range. You'd like to buy a really good Nikkor ED lens, but spending $1400 seems a bit much for your $800 camera. If so, this might be the perfect ...

Pros: Fast, light, portable!

Cons: Not extremely heavy duty, be careful in transport

Review: This lens certainly has a lot going for it. Aside from the obvious, Nikon made, it is light and easily fits into the portable gadget bag. It is easy to focus and maintain sharp images even without a tripod at the 300mm setting in any daylight condition. ...

Pros: Excellent resolution and contrast. Robust design but with a relatively light construction.

Cons: Tough enough for hobby use, but probably not robust enough for professional use.

Review: Having recently bought a Nikon D2X camera I became aware that my 70 - 300mm G lense was not producing crisp, contrasty pictures, particularly at 300mm and in relatively poor light, using a tripod. Well the 70 - 300mm ED zoom lense arrived to-day and I've ...

Pros: Price is low for a lens that covers this range.

Cons: It has ED glass but it doesn't pay off

The Bottom Line: Nikon is pushing cheap consumer lens that just don't make the grade.

Review: I just shot a roll of fuji reala through my F-5 using this lens. I have to say I'm VERY unhappy. I looked forward to the ED glass giving me sharp contrasty photos. It failed in both categories. Not only was it not sharp (I used a heavy tripod) but the...

Pros: Light, inexpensive, relatively small

Cons: Very poor AF (constantly hunts), lots of chromatic aberration

The Bottom Line: This lens let me down. The images are not what you would expect from a ED glass and the autofocus system is poor.

Review: I read a ton of reviews before I picked up this lens and one thing is clear. Nobody agrees about how good or bad this lens is. Some seem to love it, while others really don't like it at all. I finally came to the conclusion that those who didn't ...