teski
March 5th, 2003, 12:35 AM
Here are some thoughts and pics. I posted the same thing over at dpreview....
My 70-200 arrived today from Canoga Camera. I have only taken a few pics as it arrived late in the day (thanks UPS) and it was my turn to pickup the little one from daycare. Anyway, here are some of my thoughts with a few pics. Please remember that these are just quick test shots and shouldn't be used as a final decision maker on the quality of this lens. :-)
I'm not going to duplicate every point that the pro reviewers have made (such as the functions of the switches), but will touch on the main things I noticed and liked or disliked.
First thing was the box and nylon case for the lens were quite long! The lens case that comes with the 70-200 is the same nylon zipper type case as the one for the 80-400 but obviously longer as the 70-200 is a couple inches longer.
Right out of the case, you notice the lens is longer and skinnier than the 80-200 AFS and the 80-400 VR. I actually like the smaller diameter as it feels very comfortable in my hands.
The tripod collar is very cool! While on, it is very solid...Much more so than the 300 f/4 or 80-400 collar. The coolest thing about it is the way it comes off. There's a dove tail mount on the lens and the collar slides into it. There is a latch on the collar that snaps into place and then you screw the knob on the side of the collar to tighten it down. It is very quick and easy to get the collar off. When the collar is off, the lens is very comfortable to hold.
Something else new, is the lens hood. There's actually an added locking mechanism on this one. There's a little push button you have to push to release it when reversed for storage or when it's on normally and you want to remove it. I like this addition.
One thing that feels a little odd are the AF lock buttons. Nikon placed them very far forward...Between the focus ring and the front of the lens, so you need to reach a little to access them. I think this is just something to get used to.
So, I mounted the lens on my S2 and started playing around. The VR works very well! I took shots from 1/6 on up. I had plenty of blurred pics due to my not being used to holding the lens and not used to the VR, but when I did get it set, I was very happy with my pics. Here's a sample of a shot at 1/10 sec.
http://www.tedescofamily.com/70-200/xbox-small.jpg
Is it tack sharp? No, but for 1/10, I'm happy. BTW...Excuse the blowout on the right. :-)
The other thing that is VERY nice on this lens and has been mentioned before is the bokeh. Here's a shot of a tree in my yard with moss on it:
http://www.tedescofamily.com/70-200/Moss-Small.jpg
The focus speed is awesome...Very smooth and quick. I've been spoiled by the AFS on my 28-70, so I am very happy to have this on my telephoto too.
I haven't mounted the lens on my tripod yet, so I can't talk to that.
Here's one more shot that I think came out well:
http://www.tedescofamily.com/70-200/little-rock.jpg
If you want to see the settings for each of these, I've posted them on my page:
http://www.tedescofamily.com/nikon_70_200.htm
That's all that I can think of right now, but feel free to post or e-mail me with questions. I am definitely happy so far.
Teski
My 70-200 arrived today from Canoga Camera. I have only taken a few pics as it arrived late in the day (thanks UPS) and it was my turn to pickup the little one from daycare. Anyway, here are some of my thoughts with a few pics. Please remember that these are just quick test shots and shouldn't be used as a final decision maker on the quality of this lens. :-)
I'm not going to duplicate every point that the pro reviewers have made (such as the functions of the switches), but will touch on the main things I noticed and liked or disliked.
First thing was the box and nylon case for the lens were quite long! The lens case that comes with the 70-200 is the same nylon zipper type case as the one for the 80-400 but obviously longer as the 70-200 is a couple inches longer.
Right out of the case, you notice the lens is longer and skinnier than the 80-200 AFS and the 80-400 VR. I actually like the smaller diameter as it feels very comfortable in my hands.
The tripod collar is very cool! While on, it is very solid...Much more so than the 300 f/4 or 80-400 collar. The coolest thing about it is the way it comes off. There's a dove tail mount on the lens and the collar slides into it. There is a latch on the collar that snaps into place and then you screw the knob on the side of the collar to tighten it down. It is very quick and easy to get the collar off. When the collar is off, the lens is very comfortable to hold.
Something else new, is the lens hood. There's actually an added locking mechanism on this one. There's a little push button you have to push to release it when reversed for storage or when it's on normally and you want to remove it. I like this addition.
One thing that feels a little odd are the AF lock buttons. Nikon placed them very far forward...Between the focus ring and the front of the lens, so you need to reach a little to access them. I think this is just something to get used to.
So, I mounted the lens on my S2 and started playing around. The VR works very well! I took shots from 1/6 on up. I had plenty of blurred pics due to my not being used to holding the lens and not used to the VR, but when I did get it set, I was very happy with my pics. Here's a sample of a shot at 1/10 sec.
http://www.tedescofamily.com/70-200/xbox-small.jpg
Is it tack sharp? No, but for 1/10, I'm happy. BTW...Excuse the blowout on the right. :-)
The other thing that is VERY nice on this lens and has been mentioned before is the bokeh. Here's a shot of a tree in my yard with moss on it:
http://www.tedescofamily.com/70-200/Moss-Small.jpg
The focus speed is awesome...Very smooth and quick. I've been spoiled by the AFS on my 28-70, so I am very happy to have this on my telephoto too.
I haven't mounted the lens on my tripod yet, so I can't talk to that.
Here's one more shot that I think came out well:
http://www.tedescofamily.com/70-200/little-rock.jpg
If you want to see the settings for each of these, I've posted them on my page:
http://www.tedescofamily.com/nikon_70_200.htm
That's all that I can think of right now, but feel free to post or e-mail me with questions. I am definitely happy so far.
Teski