Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I just received this lens and made a test shot I've made with other lenses. I took a shot of a satellite dish over a half a block away. Handheld. Magnifying it with Photoshop not only can I see the 'Dish Network' clearly, but magnifying a little more I can read the 'TM' underneath the logo. Clear as a bell. This lens is a vast improvement over the 170-500 model. I used that lens on a wildlife trip and had to jack up the ISO to 800-1600 to get decent shutter speeds and a clear picture. Unfortunately that introduced noise, really bad in some shots. The D300 is much better than the D200 in that regard, but the lens was pretty much unusable without a tripod. This lens will alleviate any of those problems. I usually buy Nikon lenses. This and the Sigma earlier models including the 170-500 (which I had to buy for a trip and now I'm selling) are the only lenses I could find that gave a substantial difference over the Nikon 70-300 VR. The Nikon 80-400 VR is $[...] and focuses slowly, and you can pretty much just crop to achieve the 100mm difference (I tried it to be sure.) I'm looking forward to using this with a 1.4 teleconverter, you lose autofocus and 1 stop, can only go down to 100mm but get a 35mm equivalent of 1050mm! For only $[...]! The quality of the lens is very good. There is zero zoom creep. Autofocusing is fast, though just a tad off (a few pixels off on the 'TM' - could be the camera, and that can be adjusted.) Manual focusing is tricky with the tripod collar on, it blocks the focusing ring so either move your hand to the top, slide your hand in between the lens and collar, or take the collar off. I got perfect focus using the viewfinder indicator as a reference point. The finish is of high quality, but a little strange. The whole lens including the hood is coated in some kind of flat black matte textured finish, makes me think of a stealth bomber. I did a lot of research to find this lens, and was waiting for it since it's introduction 2 or more months ago. There is just no Nikon equivalent without buying a f/4 400mm with a TC-17 for about $5000 or so. If Nikon had a lens at 500-600mm for not too bad of a price hit I would have bought it. After playing with this lens just a little bit I'm glad I bought it. I'm fiercely loyal to Nikon, and it's arguably a better product, but I can afford to buy this lens 5 times over if it breaks, and it also saves the whole price of 2 photography workshops/tours. There will probably be a lot of testing and comparing of this lens. None of that matters to me as it passed the satellite dish test with flying colors, I didn't even know the TM was there before today. Edit 3/16/09 - I recently bought the Sigma 1.4 teleconverter to go with this lens. The 1st time I really used the combo was during the adding of the spire to the Trump Tower in Chicago. I was on the 7th floor of a building 1-1/2 miles away measured by Google Maps. I could see the men waiting in the spire for the next section to arrive. I had to back way off on the lens to get the tower and the helicopter lowering the sections into the frame. I lost autofocus, but it was no big deal to focus manually visually or with the in-focus indicator. Unfortunately I had to shoot through a dirty window, and it was pretty hazy, so the shots aren't that great but I don't blame the lens, the shots are better than anybody else got. Edit 3/18/10 - Added Trump Tower picture to product images.