The Floccinaucinihilipilification Homepage

I bought this lens used and it worked great. It was old and has a few issues, but it generally been fine. It has now been essentially replaced by my new AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED lens.

First, as I was using this on the D70, which has a sensor smaller than a 35mm negative, the effective focal length is increased by 1.5 times. So this lens is effectively a 300mm lens on the D70. The range on this zoom is very useful in many situations. The tiger pictured below was behind a chain link fence. The zoom was great enough to effectively remove the fence from the image. The minimum focus distance is pretty long, over 1 meter, which means that you can't really use this lens for much macro like work. I found this lens took sharp, clear images.

I did have some problems with this lens. It can be a little slow to focus and it often had trouble deciding what to focus on. These two issues together were quite a pain. I don't know if these are particular to my lens (it is used), or if they are typical of this lens.

As I bought this lens used, it was cheap. If you wanted to pick up a cheap zoom, then this lens has worked well for me. Now, I don't do sports photography or any other types that really require a super fast focusing (well, except for wild life) so this focusing issue might be a bigger deal for you. If you have the money, don't bother with this lens, just get the 18-200mm DX VR. It does everything this lens does and more.