Nikon has a long history of making professional 70-80 to 200mm focal length zoom lenses, but aside from the very old 70-210 f/4 AI-S and AF lenses, it has never had an affordable and lightweight constant aperture f/4 model in its line. With its arch-rival Canon making a 70-200mm f/4L lens since 1999, and the high cost of the 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II model, Nikon was often criticized for not providing an f/4 alternative. After many years of delays, Nikon finally announced a lightweight alternative to the f/2.8 version in October of 2012 – the AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/4G ED VR, which is designed to work on both full-frame (FX) and cropped-factor sensor (DX) DSLR cameras. Your comparing the bokeh-thing to composition is not totally exact as composition is the fact to "cut in the reality" which is unavoidable as one cannot take a picture of the whole world, while bokeing is a volontary way to over-extract a subject from its context. As an act of exaggeration it has to be compared to its diametral reverse: the will to take a picture of as much things as possible, which lead us to the fish eye lens. I’m setting up a shoulder rig with a manual Zoom gear and using autofocus with the 24-120 S f/4 for now . What does this all mean? It means shoot the lens at f/4 with confidence at any focal length and only stop down if you need to increase depth of field.

Nikon Z Lens Roadmap (Updated October 2023) - Photography Life Nikon Z Lens Roadmap (Updated October 2023) - Photography Life

Weighing only 850g, this lens is relatively lightweight and compact, especially when compared to Nikon's f/2.8 70-200mm lens, which weighs almost twice as much. The lens barrel is constructed form high quality plastics and the lens mount is metal, with a rubber gasket to help prevent the ingress of dust and moisture into the camera. Unfortunately the lens itself is not weather sealed though. The lens balances well on the Nikon D700 used for testing and should feel right at home on even Nikon's more compact entry level bodies due to the light weight. Most of the other third-party lenses listed above have Nikon Z equivalents already, so they don’t interest me as much, although they could still make sense if you’re trying to save money. NIKON Z7 + TAMRON 70-300mm F/4.5-6.3 @ 114mm, ISO 64, 1/30, f/5.6 Nikon Z Lenses Announced So Far Imatest only managed to detect 0.149% barrel distortion at 70mm, which is a very mild amount of distortion and shouldn't cause any issues day-to-day. However, at 200mm Imatest detected 2.28% pincushion distortion, which is reaching the levels where it may become noticeable in normal images. If straight lines are paramount, you'll be glad to hear that the distortion pattern is uniform across the frame at both ends of the zoom range, which should make corrections in image editing software afterwards relatively straightforward to apply. The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple. In general the impression of build quality is that of an upmarket albeit not pro-level lens: A high quality plastic construction combined with a weather sealed metal lens-mount, and nine rounded aperture blades.

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Vignetting was also good, with the FX bodies showing maybe two-thirds of a stop wide open at 70mm, a full stop at 200mm. At f/5.6 I’d call vignetting ignorable on FX bodies. On DX bodies its mostly ignorable even wide open. To test the effectiveness of the image stabilization I did a series of over 40 test-shots hand-held at 200mm with VR=ON at 1/25 sec and with VR=OFF at 1/200 sec. Rating the sharpness of those images at 100% magnification on a scale from 0…5 the sample of images with VR=ON was skewed towards a better sharpness over the sample with VR=OFF, although the latter sample had the benefit of a 8x faster shutter-speed. So VR on this lens gives you an advantage of more than 3 stops. When re-doing this test at 1/13 sec the sample with VR=ON on average showed less sharp results than the reference-sample. So indeed something between 3 and 4 stops of effective stabilization is possible with the latest VR version 3. These represent the best results I ever saw in testing image stabilization so far. Excellent! Summary and verdict In terms of features, the Nikon 70-200mm f/4G ED VR has quite a lot to offer. It has an internal focus (IF) mechanism and a Silent Wave Motor, allowing you to use manual focus even when you are in auto-focus mode (denoted with the usual M/A sign on the lens barrel).

Nikon 80-400 vs 70-200/f4 - Digital Photography Review Nikon 80-400 vs 70-200/f4 - Digital Photography Review

Smaller in all dimensions than the more costly F2.8 70-200mm, the new F4 zoom is slimmer than the AF-S Nikkor 24-120mm f/4G ED VRand about half as long again. It features a 67mm filter thread, unlike the more standard (for high-end Nikkors) 77mm. Falloff of illumination towards the corners is fairly well controlled for a telephoto zoom lens. At 70mm and maximum aperture the corners are only 0.98stops darker than the image centre and at 200mm the corners are 1.38stops darker. Visually uniform illumination is achieved with the aperture stopped down to f/5.6 or beyond throughout the zoom range. In particular, the 70-200mm f/4 is a nice pairing with DX bodies, such as the D7200 or D500. But I tend to shoot with it even on my D810.As I have already said above, the Tamron 70-200mm Macro lens does not really belong here – it should have been the new Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 SP Di VC USD lens instead. Since the lens was not available for the Nikon F mount at the time of testing, I could only obtain the old Macro version. I certainly have plans to test the new Tamron lens, because it seems to be comparable to the Sigma 70-200mm and a good alternative to the Nikkors. When I read about Nikon’s announcement of the new Vibration Reduction III technology in the 70-200mm f/4G VR, I was a little skeptical that it would be in any way better than VR II. While image stabilization technology is certainly effective on any lens, I never quite agreed with Nikon’s bold “4 stop advantage” claims in their VR II. In my experience, 2-3 stops is a more realistic number. So when Nikon announced VR III with “5 stops of advantage”, I wondered if it meant an improvement of 1 stop over the realistic 2-3 stops, or another marketing lie. As I noted, the zoom ring goes from 70-200mm in less than a quarter of a turn. So the combination of smooth and short distance means I can almost reliably move focal length with just a touch of my thumb, a bit unusual for Nikkor designs, but very welcome.

Nikon 70-200mm f/4G VR Review - Optical Features Nikon 70-200mm f/4G VR Review - Optical Features

This telephoto zoom lens from Nikon is something Nikon users have been crying out for, for years. It covers the popular 70-200m range with a constant maximum aperture of f/4, which means this lens is considerably lighter weight than its f/2.8 equivalent. It also sports Nikon's latest Vibration Reduction technology, which promises sharp hand-held images at shutter speeds up to five stops slower than would be possible without. Nikon's Nano-Crystal coatings have also been applied to lens surfaces to help suppress flare and ghosting. Measuring 78x179mm and weighing 850g, this is a travel-friendly lens that’s easy to stow and carry, and is comfortable for prolonged periods of handheld shooting. It’s also light enough to not require a tripod mounting ring for shooting with a tripod or monopod, although Nikon offers one as an optional extra. The lens is also compatible with Nikon’s 1.4x, 1.7x and 2.0x teleconverters although, with the last of these, the widest available aperture narrows to f/8.If you don’t need f/2.8, you don’t need the more expensive lens, basically. The 70-200mm f/4G is has no significant flaws to speak of, resolves well on even the highest megapixel count bodies, yet saves you size and weight over its older sibling. The zoom ring is marked at 70mm, 85mm, 105mm, 135mm, and 200mm focal lengths, and goes from 70 to 200mm in less a quarter turn. The focus position window has no depth of field or IR markings, and has 3.5, 4, 5, 7, and 10 foot markings, plus 1, 1.2, 1.5, 2, 3, and 5m markings, as well as infinity. The focus ring goes from minimum to maximum in just over a quarter turn. If you don't want or need VR, this lens remains a popular choice. It's about as sharp as the new Nikon at ƒ/4, and has its own problems at 200mm. It even has a dedicated macro mode, though magnification at this setting is only 0.17x (which is bested by the new 70-200mm ƒ/4 with 0.24x).

Nikon 70-200mm f/4G AF-S VR Lens Review - DSLRBodies Nikon 70-200mm f/4G AF-S VR Lens Review - DSLRBodies

AF: AF-S with SWM (silent wave motor), so it does work on D60/3×00/5×00-bodies, manual-focus override by turning the focus ring [+] Nikon 70-200mm f/4G VR seems to render bokeh highlights the worst in this group. The outer edges look OK with some visible fringing, but the inner part of the circle certainly does suffer from the dirtier look. If we look at the less visible highlights, I cannot see that much difference though.

Dpreview is at the Photo Plus Expo tradeshow in New York, and we were given an exclusive opportunity to get our hands on a pre-production sample of the new 70-200mm. Although we weren't able to save any images, we were able to get a feel for the handling, the AF speed, and the efficiency of the claimed 5-stopVibration Reduction system. Coated optical glass elements certainly help with handling ghosting and flare on the 70-200mm f/4G VR. Take a look at how it handled direct sun when compared to the rest of the group: With the introduction of the 70-200mm f/4G VR, Nikon completed two sets of lenses for professional and enthusiast/budget use. The high-end professional “trinity” is comprised of Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G, 24-70mm f/2.8G and 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II, while the enthusiast/budget set contains Nikon 16-35mm f/4G VR, 24-120mm f/4G VR and the new 70-200mm f/4G VR – all stabilized constant aperture lenses, albeit with a little overlap. In this review, I will not only go over the features, specifications and performance of the Nikon 70-200mm f/4G VR lens, but will also compare it side by side with its bigger brother, as well as other third-party lenses like Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG APO OS HSM and Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 Di LD (IF) Macro. Unfortunately, I was not able to obtain the latest Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 SP Di VC USD lens for comparison, because the Nikon mount version was not available yet. The Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/4G ED VR is Nikon’s newest addition to the popular range of 70-200mm zooms. But this time it is not a replacement for an older lens but an alternative to the top of the range AF-S 70-200/2.8G ED VR.