NIKON AF-S 80-400MM F4.5-5.6G ED VR

This revitalised lens is a smoother, faster operator than its predecessor

the original 80-400mm vr was Nikon’s first ever lens to feature ‘vibration reduction’. the stabiliser only had a two-stop effectiveness, although it did feature switchable full-time and exposure-only modes, both of which had automatic panning detection.

A problem with the original lens was that it had no internal autofocus motor, and AF drive from in-camera motors was slow. It was a limiting factor in the lens’s performance for action sports and wildlife photography, for which the zoom range was ideal.

this revamped ‘AF-s’ edition beat the

Mk II version of Canon’s lens to the market by a year, and came with a raft of updates. Crucially, it features a fast and whisper-quiet ring-type ultrasonic autofocus system. Like in the sigma lens, it has switchable modes that give priority to auto or manual focusing when using manual override of AF. the internal autofocus system also makes the lens compatible with Nikon DsLrs like the D3xxx and D5xxx series, which lack an in-camera AF motor.

the vr system is uprated to give fourstop performance, again with dual operating modes. this time however, there’s a Normal mode which includes panning detection, and an Active mode for shooting from a vibrating platform, without panning detection. Nikon’s ‘sport vr’ mode is absent, which applies stabilisation only during exposures. the revised optical layout includes four eD (extralow Dispersion) elements and one super eD element, along with Nano Crystal Coat.

excellent sharpness is maintained at longer zoom settings, beating the original edition of the lens and easing ahead of the Canon. Minimal colour fringing at 80mm drops away even further at mid to long zoom settings, where there’s only a slight increase in very mild pincushion distortion.

RightBack in black Nikon doesn’t paint its big telephoto lenses white, like Canon does, but heat build-up under the sun shouldn’t be a problem. Dual-mode autofocus and Normal/Active vr options are feature highlights

Right top80mm at f4.5 wide-aperture sharpness is slightly less impressive than from the Canon lens at the short end

Right bottom 400mm at f5.6 At medium to long zoom settings sharpness is excellent even at the widest available apertures