Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/4G ED VR

Entry Date: 27/3/2024 (Summary in retrospect)

This was the first FX zoom lens that I had purchased after getting the D700, to complement the AF 50/1.8D and Sigma 35/1.4 Art I was using then.

Prior to getting this lens, I actually owned the AF-S 105/2.8 VR macro lens briefly, pretty much for experimental purposes with macro photography and mid-telephoto prime shots. While I did enjoy the 105/2.8 VR, at that time I did find it challenging to use a telephoto prime for framing, and felt that a zoom lens in the telephoto range would serve my purposes better (mainly travel and shots of my 4-legged friends), so I traded it in for the 70-200/4 when it was released.

My initial impressions from handling the lens were very positive - the zoom ring was smooth and allowed for quick adjustments to the focal length, the lens felt well-built to tight specification tolerances, and it felt lighter in hand than it actually looked (it is a long-ish lens to be honest).

Autofocus was quick to lock and AF-C performance was generally good, though coming from the 105/2.8 VR, it definitely did feel slower as it did not have the instantaneous snap-and-lock focus of the 105/2.8 VR.

Image quality was impressive too - on the D700 even wide open images were sharp and vibrant, and stopping down to f/5.6 or f/8 gave images the extra bite in sharpness and clarity across the frame. It focuses pretty close for a telephoto lens as well - 1m throughout its focal length range, with maximum magnification ratio of 1:3.6x (according to official specifications) achieved at 200mm. One interesting note of this lens is its focus breathing - it breathes quite different from most other lenses (especially telephoto lenses) in that the angle of view feels tighter with closer focusing distances (i.e. when focusing closer things are more magnified). Other telephoto lenses during this time were usually criticized for their focus breathing at close distances (like the AF-S 70-200/2.8 VRII), which made the lenses behave like a shorter focal length as the magnification decreases with focus distances, so this is definitely a nice advantage of the 70-200/4 VR.

VR performance was spectacular, especially since I usually had to go to lower shutter speeds to offset the f/4 maximum aperture. Remember this was the D700 era we are talking about, so normally we would try to cap max ISO at around 3200.

It definitely suited my use case well, and I travelled quite a bit with this lens paired with the Sigma 35/1.4 Art.

As I got myself a D800 several years later, the lens still held up well to the high resolution sensor even wide open at f/4. There were some quirks with the D800 though, namely the D800 seemed to be very sensitive to mirror shock at certain shutter speeds, which is further amplified by the longer focal lengths and VR system. I circumvented the issue by shooting 2-3 frames per shot at Continuous High framerate, and this usually worked out pretty well for me.

Even when I turned to 100% photography as a career, I did use it for a fair amount of time as my main telephoto lens as I had no issues with its build and image quality.

However ultimately I did hit certain physical limitations with the lens - namely its f/4 max aperture did not allow good focus in dimly lit situations (hunts quite a bit with the D800), and similarly the f/4 max aperture forced me to use way lower shutter speeds than I would have liked for certain assignments. This led to me upgrading to the 70-200/2.8E FL as I felt that it would address most of the issues I was facing then, and also provided better image quality than both its 70-200/2.8 VRII predecessor the 70-200/4.

Though I have to admit, I did really miss its light weight after upgrading.