Nikkor-​70-​200mm

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I own the pre­vi­ous ver­sion of this lens with the orig­i­nal VR, but the 70-​200mm f/2.8G ED VR II is the cur­rent ver­sion with an improved Vibra­tion Reduc­tion sys­tem and it cor­rects a bit of vignetting on full-​frame cam­eras, as hap­pens with my orig­i­nal copy.

I’m going to say some­thing here that I can repeat on my other com­ments about Nikon lenses that I own — this lens is phe­nom­e­nal! It’s wicked sharp! It focuses quickly. Using the VR, I can still get sharp images in low light or while bounc­ing around on truck shoot­ing wildlife (OK, Dis­ney wildlife).

This lens is a work­horse. Solid con­struc­tion with a metal bar­rel, which means it can take some knocks, but also weighs in at roughly 3.5 pounds. You can extend the focal length of this lens using one of Nikon’s tele-​converter, like the Nikon TC-​17E 1.7 con­verter that I use to increase the max­i­mum range from 200mm to 340mm. It main­tains an f/2.8 aper­ture through the entire focal range (though the aper­ture drops a bit when using a tele­con­verter). The front ele­ment accepts 77mm fil­ters, which is a com­mon size.

This lens, along with the Nikon 14 – 24 and the Nikon 24 – 70, makes up part of the Nikon Tri­umvi­rate, or the Holy Trin­ity Accord­ing to Nikon — as some peo­ple like to call this col­lec­tion. There’s a good rea­son for such hyper­bole, though. Each of these lenses is awe­some in its own right, but they make up a col­lec­tion of opti­cal super heroes for any Nikon photographer.

Did I Say it is Wicked Sharp?

You just for your­self. Here’s a shot taken with my Nikon D700, the 70-​200mm lens and the TC-​17E 1.7 tele­con­verter — cropped at about 100%.

Like A Thief In The Night — © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem

I was at the local zoo when I found this guy inside the mon­key cage eat­ing their vit­tles. For some rea­son, I decided to grab a shot. It seemed fairly sharp on the cam­era LCD, but every­thing looks sharp on a small screen. Once I got it home and started look­ing at it, I was pretty happy with my lens. You can count the hairs on this lit­tle thief, and he doesn’t make up much of the photo. Remem­ber, I was way back out­side of the cage test­ing out the tele­con­verter with my lens. Not only is he sharp, but that’s pretty nice bokeh behind him, too!

Vibra­tion Reduction

I was famil­iar with this fea­ture on another lens — the Nikon 18-​200mm lens for DX (crop-​sensor) bod­ies, so I thought I knew what to expect. Cam­era shake is par­tic­u­larly trou­ble­some for long focal lengths like this lens when you’re hand-​holding for your shot. I think the rule of thumb is that you should have a shut­ter speed at least equal to your focal length to avoid blur­ri­ness from hand-​holding your cam­era dur­ing a shot. So you would expect at least a ¹⁄₂₀₀^th per sec­ond shut­ter speed when using a 200mm focal length.

Except, life doesn’t always give you ideal cir­cum­stances when you want to take a pho­to­graph. Some­times you’re just not able to get that shut­ter speed high enough, even when you bump up the ISO. For instance:

Up To Your Ass — © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem

I took this shot hand-​held at ¹⁄₃₀^th of a sec­ond — well below the rule of thumb. Of course, I know there are some pho­tog­ra­phers out there who are think­ing, “I could do that with­out VR.” Hey, some of you could. You can brace your­self up against some­thing, jam the cam­era into your shoul­der and strike a pose to keep every­thing stable…or you could flip a switch to turn on the VR, com­pose the photo and get plenty of sharp shots.

There are two VR modes on the Nikon 70-​200mm lens. One for nor­mal sit­u­a­tions and another for “Active” sit­u­a­tions — such as when you’re on a mov­ing object, like a boat bounc­ing on the waves or, as in the photo below, on a truck dri­ving along and bounc­ing vio­lently on potholes.

Pachy­derm Lovin’ — © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem

If you’ve ever been on the Kil­i­man­jaro Safari at Walt Dis­ney World’s Ani­mal King­dom, then you know they paid spe­cial atten­tion to mak­ing sure those roads are full of pot­holes that keep jar­ring you around the truck. Authen­tic­ity, per­haps. Despite all of that bounc­ing around, I could count on sharp images using the Nikon 70-​200mm lens with Active VR.

Won­der­ful Compression

OK, so it’s great for shoot­ing squir­rels, gators and rhi­nos. What else does it do? Despite those exam­ples, my pri­mary rea­son for using this lens is because of the com­pres­sion fac­tor it gives to my sub­jects. That’s why it’s my pri­mary por­trait lens. How­ever, that also makes it a great travel lens.

What is com­pres­sion? Basi­cally, it appears to reduce the depth of sub­jects in your pho­tos. In land­scapes, it brings every­thing closer and makes the image more dra­matic. In por­traits, it does the same thing and makes for a more pleas­ing appear­ance. Let me show you some examples.

Worm­sloe at 24mm — © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem

Here’s a shot straight out of the cam­era. This is the Oak Avenue of Worm­sloe Plan­ta­tion in Savan­nah, GA shot at 24mm. Look at the spac­ing between the trees on either side of the road, and also look at the open space in the branches above.

Now let’s take a look at the dif­fer­ence in the scene at 200mm.

Worm­sloe at 200mm

Quite a dra­matic change, isn’t it? Now look at the same spac­ing between the trees and the branches above. All of those empty spaces and sparse­ness are gone. That’s what com­pres­sion does for you. Although the 200mm shot was taken in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion on the road, the spac­ing between the trees is uni­form along the way.

Here’s a look at the final image.

Oak Avenue — © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem

Beau­ti­ful Bokeh

I could tell you how this lens turns the back­ground into creamy bokeh when you shoot at f/2.8, but why don’t I just show you?

Robyn — © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem

We shot this on a horse ranch, so the back­ground was just a clut­tered mess of fences, horses and trucks. No prob­lem! Dial in f/2.8 for a shal­low depth of field and let the bokeh elim­i­nate all of those dis­trac­tions so my sub­ject can pop.

Draw­backs

One of the draw­backs of my orig­i­nal ver­sion of this lens — vignetting — has already been solved in the cur­rent model. Unless you buy used from some­one, I doubt that you’ll run across this prob­lem now when buy­ing the lens, and it doesn’t affect DX bodies.

That leaves you to deal with the other two draw­backs, which are the same as the Nikon 14 – 24 and 24 – 70 lenses — the cost and the weight. To get a lens of this qual­ity, you’re going to spend some money. On the bright side, it can last you for years — prob­a­bly longer than you keep your cur­rent cam­era body. As I men­tioned, it’s about 3.5 pounds. That’s part of the rea­son why it has a tri­pod foot on the lens body, to sup­port the weight on a tri­pod with­out putting pres­sure on the mount­ing point of your cam­era body.

Despite those draw­backs, is it worth get­ting? Absolutely! Didn’t I tell you I love this lens? The opti­cal qual­ity is so great that you just want to lick your pic­tures. It’s great for por­traits, action and low-​light. Take a look at the sam­ple pho­tos below to see what you can do with the Nikon 70-​200mm lens.

Sam­ple Photos

Jor­dan — © Copy­right 2011 by William Beem

Rachael — © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem

Lau­ren — © Copy­right 2011 by William Beem

Amanda — © Copy­right 2011 by William Beem

Megan — © Copy­right 2010 by William Beem

Hol­ly­wood Nights — © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem

Lau­ren — © Copy­right 2011 by William Beem

Kelsey — © Copy­right 2011 by William Beem

Girl on the Beach — © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem

Walk Unafraid — © Copy­right 2011 by William Beem

Jef­fer­son — © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem

Iwo Jima Sun­rise — © Copy­right 2012 by William Beem