So I bought a new lens, actually a second-hand lens which turned up as advertised with a few minor scratches on the lens body but the glass just fine. I like fast glass and this is a lovely lens, it is not surprising that it is still being made despite the Nikon 70-200mm VR II being released; the 80-200 was first produced in 1997 and is still in production today. I have now taken lots of images with the lens and absolutely love it, good in lowlight obviously but beautifully sharp and with a lovely bokeh particularly at the long end.
While the lens is made largely of metal and is quite large and heavy it is less so than the Nikon 70-200mm VR II, it is also significantly cheaper and the 70-200 – even new. The only other minor issue is that you need to move a switch to get to manual focus but to be honest I don’t find that to be any sort of problem so far.
This is a wonderful lens, well made with great optics.
120mm 1/160 @ f4
200mm 1/3200 @ f2.8
200mm 1/200 @ f2.8
