Nikon - AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR Super Telephoto Zoom Lens - Black

Recently picked this up to shoot sports, birds and anything that moves. I just bought a D500 bundle with battery pack and 16-80 2.8 last month from Best Buy (read my review). I have never had a lens this good or this heavy. I have been shooting with it quite a bit and am getting used to the weight. I can now hand hold it comfortably. I did purchase a tripod with ball head that makes it easier to shoot for a while. Thinking about adding a gimbal head. The lens is just fantastic. I recommend using auto-focus fine tune. I made some minor adjustments and it’s very sharp. I am shooting in manual and set the shutter speed and aperture. The camera chooses the ISO. This works very well with the D500. This lens has great range on a DX camera, 300-750 and it’s sharp throughout the entire focal range. The lens stabilization is just outstanding. Just engage the focus (I backfocus and shoot in continuous) and the image freezes. That’s so important with a Long telephoto. Even my hand held shots are sharp. I can also shot at less than 1/500 hand held for stationary targets. There is also a lock out for focus to more than 20 feet. This speeds focus acquisition. The lens also can lock so it doesn’t open in transit. Speaking of storage, the lens sock (cover) is useless. I bought a really nice padded case to protect it. I am not a huge fan of the lens collar as it can’t adjust fore and aft to balance better on a tripod and ball mount. I will buy something to add to it to allow some adjustment. I am nitpicking a bit because it still works well with the ball head and I can rotate the camera and shoot vertically pretty easily. The D500 battery pack has a second shutter, focusing joystick and a second focusing button. The D500 allows you to program different focusing systems for each of these. The lens focuses very quickly and is tack sharp. Any blurred images are my fault, not the lens. I couldn’t be happier with it. Frankly, this lens should cost $2500, so it’s a great deal at $1400. I haven’t shot in low light but expect it will work well for any night sporting event that is well lit. Any other action would be shot in bright light so the lens’ 5.6 continuous aperture is fast enough for me. I posted a couple of photos taken at approximately 700 mm in DX with some minor post production adjustments from the JPEG file. I know that shooting raw will be even better. Nice bokeh at 5.6. If you have need for a big telephoto and don’t have 10k for a prime lens, this is a keeper. The zoom does take a couple of full turns to go from one end to the other but that’s not a problem. I like the lightweight large lens hood but might buy a shorter one. Haven’t decided yet. It does click in place but I would be careful if you walk through the woods as it might pop off if you hit a tree branch. Again, nitpicking a bit. Very pleased with this purchase. Just make sure that you have a camera that has a great focusing system and high frame rate and buffer so you can really see what it can do.

I had been drooling over this lens but just couldn't pull the trigger on buying it. While on a driving trip out to Texas my wife suggested I should pickup the lens and use it on the trip. Looked on Best Buy, found that a store about 1 hour ahead of us on the journey had the lens so I made the purchase. Very glad I did. Several have commented that the lens is heavy. True enough, but any lens of this size is going to be heavy. While I find it heavy, I have been able to handhold every shot I've made with it due to the incredible VR system. Using it with my D7100. In low light focus can be a little hard to achieve. Also, if you focus in very close and then switch to a distant object, the lens has difficulty finding focus. Both of these situations are easy to overcome and have not hindered my enjoyment of the lens. Photos are very sharp and pleasant. I recommend using back focusing (Google it if you don't know what it is), manual shutter and aperture with auto-ISO. This allows you to keep the shutter speed up, depth of field as you want it, and auto-ISO makes up the difference. I wondered if f5.6 maximum aperture would be a problem but I can say I have not given it a consideration while shooting. See the shots I've attached for results. Quite pleased.

This has got to be the best Nikon lens deal ever. It’s sharp, fast, solid and cheap for what you get. Getting a fixed f-stop 500mm lens for what this sells for... with Nikon’s name on it...? I can’t recommend it enough. I have a D7200 and a D500 and it’s beautiful on both bodies. It is pretty big but weighs an appropriate amount for the reach and zoom you’re getting. Both. cameras focus this lens quickly. I’m sure it’s not as fast as the 500 & 600mm primes but I don’t derive income from my photography and could never justify the cost of the primes. The competition lenses have a little more reach on either end but to be honest, I’m so much more comfortable with a Nikon lens on my Nikon bodies. Everything works flawlessly. You will read comments about how heavy it is. It’s not for what you get. Anyone who is seriously interested in wildlife photography expects a lens of this length to have some heft to it. You will read comments about how the zoom ring takes a couple of ‘turns’ to zoom from 200-500. True, but it hasn’t been a bit of an issue. The zoom ring is smooth and solid. Everything about this lens feels perfect. If you’re into birds or wildlife, just buy one.

There are many choices, even within the Nikon world, for a long telephoto or zoom. I have several of them, but was still looking for something that "worked better" for my primary use - birding. My daily go-to was the 80-400mm (first gen) but, as many have mentioned, it's glacially slow to autofocus. Great optics but a pain to use on birds. Enter the 200-500mm f5.6 telezoom from Nikon, for a rather reasonable price of ~$1400. Quick to focus or re-focus, VR works well, images are sharp. Quick switch to manual focus if needed, certainly more portable than my old school f4 500mm. But ... This is still a beast to carry. I'm not dainty, fairly stout actually, and lugging this around in the field all day is taxing at the very least. It is easy to hand-hold, and the hand falls to the zoom ring easily enough. And, its length, even though IF (internal focus), is considerable, even when set at 200mm. When cranked out to 500mm, you've got about 1.5-2ft poking out in front of you, or dangling down when you bend over to look at something or sit or turn or ... you get the picture. So, you can't have it all: powerful telezoom, fast lens, ease-of-use, cheap price, light weight, a chicken in every pot, world peace. BTW, it comes with a rather superfluous lens hood, and a black cloth drawstring bag by way of "carry case". One thing I didn't appreciate was, upon arriving home and opening the box, it was obvious someone had previously opened it, fiddled with it (the protective cover on the back end was loose in the box. Nikon does not seal their boxes, but Best Buy should make sure that customers aren't buying an expensive lens that someone (customer? employee?) has messed around with while "in stock". But this lens is a very good compromise, and an excellent tool / value.

I love to do wildlife and landscape photography and I love having a lens that allows me to really zoom in and capture some very unique photos. I thought long and hard before purchasing this lens and for the money invested, this lens fits the bill perfectly. One word of caution though, it is a heavy lens, therefore a tripod or a shooting stick is a must for many occasions. However its not impossible to get a good photo thanks to the vibration reduction built into the lens. The 2 photos I have included were both hand held. The bird taking flight I was leaning against a tree so was pretty rock solid, but the bird in flight I was standing, looking almost straight up, a very unstable stance. You can spend much, much more money and get more light gathering capabilities but for a professional amateur, like myself, this one works great.

When this lens was first announced, I thought; this is the perfect wildlife lens I have been looking for... but since it was a nikon, I figured it would probably retail for around $4000 or more. When I heard the price was going to be a paltry $1400, I thought; this thing can't be very good then.... To my surprise, I was wrong, and wrong! This lens started coming in with rave reviews on excellent optical performance and stunning VR capability. I finally acquired mine about 3 months ago and it has delivered on every promise! Yes, it is a bit on the heavy and bulky side but if you want to shoot 200~500mm at a constant F5.6, suck it up and get used to it - because you will be richly rewarded with many fine "keeper" images. My only complaint is that the initial acquisition of AF on my D810 is a bit slow with this lens, but once acquisition is made, tracking is not an issue.

I purchased this lens after carefully reviewing all the reviews and more importantly, the photographs taken with this lens by the average hobbyist on sites like flickr. The pictures taken with the Nikkor 200-500mm looked a bit better than the third party lenses it competes with. You can get sharp pictures with any of the 150-600mm offerings but the Nikkor 200-500mm has more natural looking out of focus areas to my eye. I've been using this lens with and without a Nikon TC-14e III teleconverter. I'm amazed at how well the lens works with the teleconverter! Of course, you have to shoot at F8 or smaller aperture but if the light is there it auto-focuses fine on a D750, examples included.

This lens is an amazing value. I own both a 500mm f/4 and 300mm f/2.8 lenses. This 200-500mm lens will not focus as fast as those lenses. This lens requires more light than those lenses. However, this lens can give you 500mm of reach for $1400. The 500mm f/4 lens will cost you $8-10K. What this lens gives you, is a fast enough auto focus - not blazing. It gives you a very nice 200-500mm workable zoom range and more flexibility than a prime lens. The photos at 500mm are sharp. I had a Sigma 150-500mm lens in the past and from 400-500mm that lens lost image quality fairly rapidly, especially at 500. At 375mm that lens was decent. This 200-500 from Nikon is solid throughout the zoom range. Overall, I am very impressed with this lens considering the money. Nikon did well with this one!