AF-S FX NIKKOR 80-400mm f.4.5-5.6G ED Vibration Reduction Zoom Lens with Auto Focus for Nikon DSLR Cameras

I don't consider myself a Nikon "fan boy." However, I currently use Nikon DSLR's and lenses in most of my photography pursuits. In the film days I've used Canon 35mm, Fuji medium format and Nikon 35mm. Like many of you I'm a nature photographer and mostly shoot landscapes but now and then I enjoy shooting wildlife, birds in particular. My primary wildlife lenses are the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR (the older VR-1 Model) and Nikon 300mm AF-I f2.8D (from the early 1990's and no VR) both of which I usually match up with a Nikon TC-20e III. While the 70-200mm fits nicely in my camera backpack along with my other lenses, the 300mm does not and like all of Nikons 300mm f2.8 lenses it's a beast--big and heavy. That necessitates planning ahead. Ever since this new 80-400mm came out, I've been intrigued by the possibility of replacing the 70-200mm and 300mm with it. And because it size is similar to my 70-200mm, it will fit in my backpack. I'm not bothered by the slower aperture of f4.5-f5.6 because I almost always use a tripod. And with a TC-20e, both the 70-200mm and 300mm become f5.6. I took the plunge but then I had to find out how this new 80-400mm stacked up with the other two. The first thing I did was replace the tripod collar with a Really Right Stuff (RRS) LC-A13 collar and foot replacement. As many reviewers have already stated, the standard Nikon collar does not hold the lens solidly when mounted on a tripod. The RRS collar is solid as a rock and its nice having a lens foot that is already ARCA quick release compatible. I tested all three lenses using a Nikon D7100, my primary wildlife body. All photographs were shot at f5.6 which theoretically gives the 70-200mm and 300mm a slight advantage since they are both f2.8 lenses and unlike the 80-400mm, not being shot wide-open. I used objects in my yard rather than a test chart because I wanted to simulate the types of subject I actually photograph. These included an agave, a very spiny cactus, and a piece of wood with rough grain so I could see how well the each lens picked up the texture and detail of the subjects. Using an ISO of 100, all of the lenses were tripod mounted and the camera was fired using the Nikon ML-L3 wireless remote in mirror up mod to eliminate any vibration. I tested the 70-200mm against the 80-400 set at 200mm and the 300mm against the 80-400mm set at 300mm. And remember, on the D7100 the actual focal lengths are 300mm and 450mm. Frankly I was astounded by the results because the difference in sharpness between these lenses was very hard to see when viewed at normal magnification. At 100% view the 80-400 is slightly softer but not much. Since I usually use a teleconverter on the 70-200mm and 300mm to get them to around 400mm's or more, the 80-400mm is at least as sharp if not sharper at those focal lengths. On a D7100 set to 1.3x crop mode, the 80-400mm becomes a 156-780mm lens. I also found the lens is sharpest at f8-f10. At f11 the lens is still sharp but it begins to be diffraction limited. I also tested the 80-400mm with a TC-14e and the lens performed pretty well. Images are softer but they are definitely usable. On the D7100, the addition of a teleconverter changes the AF system to a single focus point and focusing hunts a little more. With the addition of a teleconverter I found that the lens consistently "front focused." That was easily fixed using AF fine-tune in the D7100's menu. We all have different photography styles and you're needs may be different than mine. But for me the combination of Nikons latest VR, excellent AF all in a package that is small and well balanced really makes this lens a pleasure to use. And now I don't have to decide whether to carry the 300mm f2.8 or not. According to DXO lab, the 80-400mm is even sharper on a D800 so it can double as a landscape lens when longer focal lengths are needed.

I compared the 80-400 to my 70-300. No comparison, of course. 80-400 is much much sharper, especially at 300mm. Sharpness of the 80-400 is very good at 80, 105, and 300mm at f/5.6 and 8, shows some softness at 300mm f/16. At 105mm is looked good compared to my 105mm macro. Note: all lenses Nikon, using D7100. The tripod collar is the weak spot of the lens: there seems to be a slight movement around it. Insignificant for landscapes, noticeable at closest focussing distance. I had no trouble walking several hours with the 80-400 on my D7100 using the Nikon neck strap (that was a test: I am replacing it with a better, wider strap for more comfort). Is it worth around 4 times the price of the 70-300? Very hard to decide: it is much sharper at the long end. Has a somewhat longer reach. But the 70-300 is not bad, and sure weighs a lot less. The 80-400 does not disappoint.

I have had one of the original 80-400mm lenses almost since it was introduced, and it has been my mainstay lens for hiking and finding wildlife. It performed quite well, and while it had its issues, the versatility and weight more than made up for them. This lens takes that concept and upgrades it to amazing levels. There are very few things to be snarky about on this lens. * Takes teleconverters. And still has great AF and sharpness with the 1.4x TC. The old lens doesn't work with TCs. * Much sharper and better contrast. Wow. There is a quite noticeable improvement in optical quality even at normal viewing. The old lens took great photos but was a little mushy. My 600mm prime is sharper, but this is pretty darn good, and I would probably not see the difference except that I was looking at similar bird shots with the 600mm and this lens with the 1.4xTC right next to each other. Without the TC, it's sharp enough that it would be very difficult to see anything to complain about except under lab conditions. * Autofocus is faster. Honestly it's not so much faster than the original 80-400 that you would miss many, if any shots because of it. Continuous tracking autofocus is noisy but is better than the original. For birds, it's pretty good. You lose focus sites with a teleconverter attached because of the minimum f/stop, but it's still pretty darn good. It locked and tracked the airplane for my daughter's first solo flight perfectly. This is a superb airplane/airshow lens. * Close-focus. Still darn good and fast. Good for critters you can get close to. Great for birds at a feeder. * Improved VR. VR will help dramatically for some subjects when handholding, but is pretty useless for fast-moving subjects. VR can help with some nice bird effects, allowing for wingtip motion blur while holding the scene solid. You'll still probably find yourself bumping up the ISO unless you're in full sun with this lens, especially if you are using a TC. Downsides * Really expensive. * Tripod collar is even more lame than the original 80-400mm. You can not release the foot from the tripod collar, which is annoying for handheld use. Get a good collar and removable foot from Really Right Stuff. This is is still a heavy lens, and you will get tired handholding it unless you're in reasonably good shape. If you're going to use it a lot, get some exercise! Taking pictures is a good method :) If you have the luxury of being able to use a tripod, then do so. It will help. Get a gimble head if you can (I like Really Right Stuff - it also does a great job as a panoramic head). Ball heads are lousy for tracking subjects but are quick and easy to set up, smaller and lighter. Some, like the Acratech, do a passable job as a pseudo-gimble when on a good tripod. This lens + the 1.4X teleconverter is an amazing kit for nature/wildlife/airshows/car racing/motorcycle racing etc. I don't have a 1.7X, but the 2.0X is too much of a compromise on finder brightness, f/stop and focus capability for me. This combo is easily transportable and easily handled. Much of the time the 80-400 is enough, and when it isn't, the TC works great. If you can justify the expense, this kit will make you very happy.

This review concerns the seller of the item I bought, not the lens itself. Ordered Nikon 80-400 , AF-S, f4.5-5.6G, etc. in December 2017 from a Mrcui82. Described as "Used, Like New". Was $900 less than New price so I figured it would be a bargain. Arrived with lens caps, but no box, pouch, or manual. Didn't bother me as lens looked in excellent condition and I wanted replacement for my older version of same lens. DIdn't really push it until this past July on a shoot in Denali Natl Park and elsewhere in Alaska. Performance was not good (terrible actually!). Used Nikon D800E and D810. Shooting grizzleys, mountain sheep, goats, etc on hill sides at infinity distances I found focus consistently was off. Usually the spot in focus was on a spot 100 feet or more closer to me. Tried using fine adjust feature built into the camera bodies. Helped a bit. but still not as sharp as other option I had with me (see below). Also it would NOT focus at all at focal lengths less that about 200 mm. View finder just indicated - not in focus. Always used spot focus on both cameras. Finally switched to my trusty Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 with a 1.7x nikon tele-extender. Strikingly different in sharpness visible even in preview mode on camera backs. Got home last week after side trips to Mt. St. Helens and Mt Ranier. Extensive testing showed that problem is intermittent which is even worse! SO called Nikon. Not covered by warrenty since item is used. Repair estimate is $400. Trying to look on bright side, repair plus cost is still less that cost of new lens. but Have lost many great shots, especially in Denali and now have to hassle with return of lens for repair. I believe this is a great lens, but NEVER EVER BUY from this seller. I should add that I have shot with Nikon Cameras and Lenses for almost 60 years. Probably ⅓ of my lenses were bought used. NEVER had a single problem with any of them. Most recent purchases (last year or so) have been the 200-500 lens (Great and sharp with hight contrast- used it for solar eclipse) and the 28-300 for my wife's DX Nikon. Currently my most commonly used lenses aside from 70-200 f/28 are 24-120 f/4, 18-35 f/4 and 105 f/2.8macro - all of which are tack sharp even when RAW files are examined at 3:1 zoom in Lightroom or Photoshop.

Background: I use Nikon D800 and D600 Cameras, and mostly shoot wildlife around the Rocky Mountains region. I was never happy with my old AF 80-400D image quality, so I purchased an AFS 200-400 f4 vrii. The 200-400 is an amazing sharp lens with the price tag and Size/Weight to go with it. I love the lens, but I underestimated the weight issue and It was getting to be a hassle to carry the lens on the trails and even more hassle traveling with the beast. When Nikon came up with the new AFS 80-400 vr, I was exited but then I was knocked off my feet when I saw the price, However I decided to get one and told myself: "If it is not tack sharp, it will go back". Well, Happy to say that this thing is as sharp as my 200-400 f4, and it is so much sharper than my old AF 80-400D that I think I may have had a bad copy of the old one and just did not have any thing comparable to check it against. So If you are upgrading from the old lens you maybe in for a big surprise with this new one. Specially if you shoot with recent cameras. A side from being sharper the new lens has a zoom lock button that is very helpful on the trail. The old one always would creep and the lens would extend while you would walk. With this one you can lock it at 80mm and it will stay put and short. Otherwise the they are similar. Now a few observations; 1- The built quality is Nikon prosumer and not the Sherman tank pro quality. It is good but not impressive at this price. 2- The auto focus speed is not as snappy as my 200-400 which itself is no speed demon either. 3- The auto focus accuracy is great in good light but it gets confused very easily in low contrast and very high contrast areas. One bad habit it has is to go to infinity and stay there and refuse to come back unless you give it some really shiny object to focus on. Every lens has a bad habit and I think I my have found this ones. 4- Some reviews mentioned tripod collar not being good, I find it to be acceptable, maybe not for the price but it is functional and works fine. I always change my tripod collars with after market ones since they are more comfortable to hand cary and also have built in Arca-Swiss plates which is great a convenience and lowers the weight. But I have not find it necessary for this lens. If I were to get one it would be the Kirk model. 5- This lens is a dust pump, it pushes air and dust in to your Camera's sensor chamber. But it is not a big deal if you keep your lens and the back lens cap clean. 6- Finally, If you get one of these lenses and it is not tack sharp at 400mm, (granted, you know what your doing with your technique) you have a bad sample, return it and get a replacement. It appears that some bad copies are floating around. Most importantly beware of "open box deals" or "used like new" ones from third party vendors. It may be a bad one that was returned. Amazon has a 30 day return policy for their used lenses so I would not be worry about Amazon but for others, make sure they have a good return or exchange policy. Knowing what I know now the price doesn't seams to be as bad, even though I think Nikon USA is playing the "soak the early adopter game" and the real price would be around $2000 next year or even this christmas, Which is too bad since it only penalizes their best and loyal customers. However, I would say that the sharpness of this lens makes me forgive Nikon's sins and the lenses minor flaws. It is a keeper. I hope this helps Update 7/31/2013 I tested the Tele-convertors with this lens today, here is the skinny (I am using a D800, The Autofocus may behave differently with your camera): 1- TC14E ii, It works like a charm, no issues with Image quality or Focusing. Just remember it becomes a 560mm f8, and that would not give you much head room for shutter speed, so even though it works I am not sure how practical it would be in real world. 2- TC17E ii, To my surprise theD800's Autofocus worked with this unit. According to Nikon it should not, I am not sure that it will continue to auto focus in lesser light conditions. The image is a little soft and loses some contrast. It is usable with some tender loving/care in Lightroom. Again I am not sure how useful a 650mm f9.5 is in real world, but it works if you are up to the challenge of mastering the techniques needed to use such a long and slow lens. 3- TC20E iii, Obviously you lose Autofocus, but the image is still usable for Facebook posts, a little softer a little less contrast, and since you are at 800mm, f11 the only practical way to use it is to jack up the ISO, so a little more noise you get the idea. All three worked functionally but I would say that I only would be using the TC14E ii. Also, As a side note while I was working with tele-convertors I notice that this lens has more Lens breathing than my old AF 80-400 D. Which is too bad, considering the $1000 premium. If you are going to use this lens just for Flowers, butterflies and other small subjects that you photograph from less than 20 feet, you may want to make sure that you can live with this or consider a prime lens like 300mm f4, you will be happier and $1300 richer. All zoom lenses have some level of breathing but this lens is really bad considering it's price. It is still a keeper for my applications, Did I say it is sharp, Sharp lens is like a rich date, it makes you over look a lot of ugly. Update 12-6-2013 A new discovery, at least new to me. I found out that using this lens, handheld and, at higher shutter speeds, over 1/1000 sec. or so, and with VR on, the VR actually degrades the image rather than improving it. I did some testing after I noticed that some of my images are softer than others even thought they were shot at higher shutter speeds. At first I thought I had missed the focus points but the images had a different look than missed focus or hand shake blurs. They had a very distinct look to them, looked like they have been taken through a dirty screens. That is why I decided to test for it. It seems that the VR actually softens the images at 1/1000 sec. or faster. (The 1/1000 sec is an educated guess on my part I don't know at what point exactly the VR does more harm than good, but I tested it around 1/1000 sec.) This may not be limited to this lens and something general with all VR lenses. I repeated my test with the 200-400 f4 and got the same result. I thought I pass it on.

I use it with a D7100 and a D800. The results are really good. Better than you probably expect. So why only 4 stars? Because of the crappy collar and mediocre packaging. How can a company with so much experience making lenses get it so wrong. A $2,700 lens deserves more protection than a $10 soft sided pouch. And the collar is a joke... small and flimsy. The collar that comes with Sigma's 150-500mm ($1,100) is fantastic. You can easily grip it and it's built like a tank. Nikon could learn something from Sigma. When it comes to simple things like collars and pouches, you are left scratching your head wondering who at Nikon would make these decisions. And the only answer is; the bean counters. In spite of the Nikon's cost-savings, the lens itself is a pleasure to use. If you are into sports or nature photography, this lens is more of a need than a want. A week after you buy it, you'll forget about the cost. If there is no way to afford the lens, find a way. But if you really can't, consider the Sigma 150-500mm, it's an excellent 2nd choice.

This is a great lens. I wanted the versatility of the 80-400mm, but the negative reviews of the original version including slow AF, loud focus changes, and lack of VR in that 13 year old design kept me from buying it. I'm an amateur, not a pro. I have the 18-300mm and the 70-300mm for the DX bodies, but I personally find them not as sharp as I was hoping for at the 300 end. I certainly wouldn't put them on my D800 FX body. The long nikkor primes(400, 500, 600 and 800) are just too heavy and too expensive for my needs. My major concern with this purchase was that it is not currently a "Nikon recommended lens" for the D800. My early experience is that this lens works great with the D800. The lens weighs slightly over three pounds and when mounted on my D800, it weighs 6lb 2oz without the camera grip. It's a little heavy for comfortable causal use, and the advertisement calling this a "travel light on vacation" lens is way off-base. Too heavy and too impressive looking for vacation photography, in my opinion. However, this lens is awesome for sports and nature. The AF is very fast and absolutely quiet with the silent wave motor technology. Most impressively, this is tack sharp at the 400 mm end. I still like the 18-300mm for vacation photography. It supplies a huge range in the compact form that doesn't draw too much attention to yourself while traveling. But Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR AF-S NIKKOR is the lens I've been waiting for sports and nature. I am very happy with this purchase and highly recommend it.

I was about to leave on a trip to Alaska and had ordered a Tamron 150-600mm. It was still on backorder until about 3 days before we left. I finally cancelled that lens and bought this one based on a recommendation by a friend. Wow, what a great lens! It is tack sharp, quick to focus, and just works wonderfully. My only issue is that it is heavy, but that is expected of a quality product. I did buy it in a bundle with a 1.4x converter so it is effectively 560mm with the convertor. At the other end with 80mm it is pretty good for just walking around use. I got some outstanding humpback whale shots from a small moving boat in rough water while handheld, and some other great ones from the balcony of our cruise ship. I have used it in the local area for deer, birds, surfers, bugs, etc. It is always flawless. I will admit I am a photo-gear junkie and own too much stuff, but this really is my favorite "go-to" lens now when shooting outside. I use it often on a tripod so the the included tripod mount is critical for getting a balanced mount, don't try to use the tripod mount on the camera itself while using this monster lens. I also have a shoulder strap that attaches to the mount on the lens when walking around; it provides a good balanced location for hiking around, I would never recommend any sort of neck strap with this lens on the camera, it would kill your neck quickly.