Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

There are several reasons why you should not get this lens. First is that I have gotten a reputation for taking great pictures. How will my reputation last if people find out it is really just the lens? Second is that it replaces so many other lenses that it is sure to cause unemployment around lens factories in Thailand, Malaysia, and China. You don't want that on your conscience do you? If you use this thing to zoom in or out to frame pictures, when will you get exercise by walking long distances and climbing over things so that you can "zoom with your feet" like a prime lens user? Getting this lens will also mean that you will have wasted your investment in tripods because the VR-II makes them almost always unnecessary, and you don't want that do you? The VR-II provides four stops of stabilization, one better than VR, which means that you can shoot at exposures 16 times longer than without it. Not having to worry about shaky hands will reduce your incentive to cut back on the Starbuckaroos, will it not? It also increases the effective speed of the camera so much that you can use polarizers more frequently to shoot through windows and water which is sure to ruin the privacy of mannequins and fish. Even if you are wrongheaded enough to buy this thing in spite of all these good reasons not to, at least have the decency to wait until I have unloaded my old Nikon 24mm-120mm VR lens on Ebay before you do, so I still can get something for it. There is some vignetting at 200mm and barrel creep when the lens is extended, which of course is intolerable. It is also horribly expensive, almost half as much as the Nikon 70mm-300mm VR lens it replaces, among many others. If you are fool enough to get this thing, don't say I didn't warn you. P.S. The only thing this mutt won't do is shoot at very shallow depth of field because its maximum aperture is f/3.5. The solution forced on you by this huge shortcoming is to carry a Nikon 50mm f/1.8. Being forced to carry that supplemental lens will cost you in excess of $90 and weigh you down with several ounces of otherwise unnecessary burden for one of the sharpest lenses available. Don't do it.