The 70-200mm f2.8G ED-IF VR, What a Sweet Lens!!

I made the purchase of my 70-200mm f2.8G ED-IF VR lens recently after selling off my tried and true manual focus 300mm.f2.8 ED-IF and for the first time in my photography career, I made the move away from a camera bag full of beautifully fast “prime” lenses to a more compact bag with zoom lenses. In my experience as a photo-journalist, I’ve shot my fair share of professional and collegiate sports in many indoor arenas where the ambient lighting can change up to one f-stop so having a lens with anything but a minimum of a fixed f2.8 was totally out of the question.

Nikon is presently offering a $100.00 rebate on the purchase of the lens so that was my incentive.

The Nikon 70-200mm f2.8G ED-IF VR is the latest iteration of this zoom lens design in the Nikon compendium at this focal length. The lens comprises of 21 elements, of which five are of Nikon's Extra Low Dispersion, ‘ED’ glass, hence the lens bears the gold band and nameplate, which distinguishes this lens from other Nikkor’s other non-ED glass lenses.
The lens utilizes all of Nikon’s latest technology in lens focusing drives in the form of the internal silent wave motor and their VR image stabilization technology.

The lens comes shipped from the factory in a nicely padded black textured nylon bag with a Velcro tabbed flap with “Nikon” on it, that flips over a parallel zippered inner front panel. Gone are the hard cylindrical leather covered cases that ‘ED’ lenses used to be shipped in.
The ends of the lens come protected with the usual rear lens cap as well as a newly designed front lens cap which allows its removal with a simple pinch of the thumb and index finger. This new design allows for this cap to be taken on and off the lens with the lens shade on. The lens shade is in fact the ‘tulip’ style scalloped design that must be attached to the front of the lens in either two specific orientations with a quick quarter turn of the bayonet design, supplemented by a thumb screw latch to keep the shade from accidentally getting knocked off if bumped.

The lens barrel of this lens is made of magnesium alloy for weight reduction purposes, similarly to what Nikon has done with their entire line of ‘prime’ super telephotos from their 300mm f2.8 to their 600mm f4.

The two rubber gripped adjustment rings on the lens barrel are for manually focusing the lens and also has three buttons for activation of the focus lock feature during auto-focus mode while the control ring further up the barrel is for zoom or change in focal length of the lens. The focus ring rotates fairly smoothly without the gritty feel of Nikon’s earlier design auto focus servo/motors and drive system.

The focal length ring on my lens was still a bit stiff due to the newness but this should get smoother with more use. Continuing on up the lens barrel to the end where the bayonet lens mount and electronic contacts are, you will find a soft rubber gasket which Nikon has begun to employ in their D series lenses to keep out dust particles. What you will not find is an aperture ring on this ‘G’ series lens.

Toward the back half of the lens, on the side of the barrel is the control panel with a number of slide switches each activating/deactivating the AUTO and MANUAL focus, focus range limits, VR ON/OFF and VR modes for “NORMAL” and “ACTIVE”.

The tripod mount is similar to that of the earlier lens with a rotating collar that can be tightened down, to stop rotation, however it doesn’t come off completely as the earlier design lens. The platform or foot of the tripod mount will detach but I like to use it as a handle for carrying and as a grip for hand held exposures.

The VR system employed in the lens seems to be a small gyro that you can actually feel change its rotational axis orientation when you are hand holding the camera with lens and rotate the camera from shooting horizontal to a vertical grip.

The lens offers VR in two modes "NORMAL" and "ACTIVE". “NORMAL” should be selected when shooting normally hand held while “ACTIVE” selected and used when shooting hand held from a moving vehicle. If panning or shooting with the camera mounted on a tripod, turn the VR feature off to conserve power and to avoid having the gyro’s rotation cause vibration and camera shake. It’s rather interesting how the gyro motion will cancel the slightest motion from hand held exposures but will wreak havoc on a fixed (tripod mounted) camera.

The resulting images shot hand held with this lens at relative slow shutter speeds are astonishing, as many of these shots could not have been achieved without the VR feature. However, common sense must still be exercised in setting the appropriate shutter and ISO sensitivity speeds for a given shooting situation. This is a 'VR' "Vibration Reduction" lens, not a 'VE' "Vibration Elimination" lens.

The auto focusing is “blink of an eye” fast and is fairly smooth and quiet. Utilizing the focus range limit minimizes the lens “hunt” for focus when shooting distant subjects.

This lens will be a welcomed companion on a second camera body for sports assignments either as a grab camera for football or clamped onto a railing and fired remotely for baseball. This range of focal lengths works beautifully for portrait or fashion work when one doesn’t want to haul around the 300mm f2.8. Using this telephoto/zoom lens, allows the ability to utilize selective focus when composing a shot, which I find quite useful for fashion and portraiture. The subject can be tack sharp and the items in the field beyond and perhaps in the foreground can be left to go slightly out of focus.

This lens on my D200 and any of the ‘D’ series camera bodies by virtue of its ‘D’ sensor increases the focal length of the 70-200mm x1.5 to an effective 100-300mm f2.8.
Because of the lens design and layout of element grouping in the lens barrel, it is not advisable to shoot with light sources too close to being directly in line with the lens as there will be a greater tendency for these light sources to cause ghosting or flare when the light enters the lens barrel and reflects and bounces internally between lens groups.

So far with my D200, the images I have captured so far have been consistently exposed and were sharply focused on whatever I had focused intended to focus on. The minimum focus distances are 4.9 ft in auto-focus and 4.6ft in the manual mode respectively.

I can recommend from experience the use of Nikon teleconverters TC-14E II, TC-17E II, and TC-20E II. They will increase your lens reach without degradation of image sharpness. Although these will cost a few dollars more, having the matched optics and focus controls are like the VISA commercial, “Priceless”.


The 70-200mm f2.8G ED-IF VR is a very capable lens that will cover a great range of telephoto needs from medium to long focal lengths. The lens is both, quick, quiet and precise in focusing as well as being fast in terms of its f2.8 aperture throughout its zoom range. Again, because this is a “G” type lens, this version of the lens can only be used with the N, D and some F series camera bodies that are capable of electronically controlling and setting the aperture.

With the 70-200mm f2.8G ED-IF VR lens on the D200, you essentially have a 300mm ED-IF VR f2.8 lens for less than half the price of the Nikkor 300mm ED-IF DII VR. Where else can you get this type of performance for this price?