Spontaneous Lunacy

[DrEntropy]

Been trollin' through E-Bay for a while now, found some really nice glass for skinny money doin' it. A couple weeks ago stumbled across an ad for a Nikkor AF 80~300 ∱4.5~5.6D ED VR. Couldn't bring myself to go for it, thinking I'd find a G-Series in need of repair for the same or less money. A couple days later got an E-Bay email, seller offering it at a discount. To shorten the tale, it arrived this afternoon. AF works on both bodies of mine, VR appears to function as it should.


Certainly a pig of a lens, both for battery consumption and carrying, but on the D7200 with the battery grip it should be acceptably manageable. Hood is apparently aftermarket but fits snug, the collar is off on indexing dots to horizontal but not insurmountable. So we effectively have a 120~600mm optic to play with.

It started raining as soon as I'd unpacked it, so indoors, available light, hand-held at 80mm & wide-open. VR helped! Motion blur, yes. but 80mm at 1/20th hand-held? I'm pretty happy with it. Another trip to the Fair mid-week now!

 

[DrEntropy]

Oops! 80~400mm!!

...and it's right on the lens...

 

[DrEntropy]

And just did the same shot with VR and an attempt to steady better hand-held. The RAW file just saved as a .jpg and scaled down to post. No other "tricks" in software.



And info:

 

[Basil]

The VR definitely made a noticeable difference. 1/20 is pretty near impossible to shoot without either a tripod or VR.

 

[DrEntropy]

Second image was actually at 1/15th!

Put the rig (D7200 with the lens) on a monopod. Only "subject" available for testing.
At 80mm (120mm effective) first, mailboxes..


Crop:


And focused on the other mailbox:


Perfectly happy with the lens.

 

[DrEntropy]

The rig components:

 

[DrEntropy]

This AM. I know it's not meant to be a "macro" lens, but shot this at full length extension from "3.76 meters" according to the info. Elbows propped on Diesela's hood, wide open, VR active.