Nikon AF 70-300 f/4.0-5.6 G Black Zoom Nikkor Lens
- Thread starter scarrabri
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Hi just been on Amazon uk and it has a good read up from people who have bought one but say I will need a good filter, not sure what sort I will need, thanks again Brian.
What is the price difference between this lens and the 55-300mm? I don't trust amazon reviews for lenses as you have no way of knowing what their experience is. With forums like this you know members can tell a good lens from a bad one. I've read enough that I wouldn't entertain the 70-300 G. If the IQ is poor you will either be stuck with an inferior lens or end up spending even more to replace it. I'm glad you have the option to return it just in case.
Hi,i really appreciate folks input on this wonderful forum and do realise there is much much better to be bought as for the price of the 70-300 lenes there are quite a few with different spec and some £200 to £300 dearer than what I will pay not because I don't want to but because this is life and I have to be grateful that my Glass Is half full and never half empty but I do agree with what you say very best wises Brian.
Have you looked at some of the other cheap 70-300mm lenses such as this one? Tamron AF 70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di LD Macro 1:2 Nikon+Motor: Amazon.co.uk: Camera & Photo Sigma also have a couple of different 70-300's on market.
I haven't looked at how they compare with the Nikon you are looking at in terms of sharpness but they do offer a 1:2 macro mode which might be a nice feature to have. I'm not recommending these, just recommending looking at them to see what you think.
Hi yes I have looked and its much of the same with comments of Lousy Autofocus and again a lot dearer than what I am paying and after all this is a Nikon and Nikon don't make a bad Lens or so they say, lol well lets hope not, but thanks again my friend, Brian.
Thank you but I don't really know whets good and bad in a photo lol any way I've poked the D70 through my attic sky light and zoomed in on a chimney pot that is quite a distance away and here we go, and its picked up the bottom bit of the window frame.
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It is difficult to judge from those pictures and without exif information (shutter speed, iso etc.) It would be better to take a picture of something closer with fine detail. Most lenses will perform better with the aperture stopped down a little, so instead of using f/5.6, try f/8-f/11. That certainly improves sharpness with my 70-300mm. It is also likely to get softer at 300mm so take some pictures at say 270mm, 250mm and 200mm to see how they compare. All lenses are different so you will have to find where this one performs best.
Of course using a lower ISO will also help so long as you can keep a fast shutter speed. Apologies if this is information you already know but I know it would have helped me get better results right away when I got my 70-300mm Tamron
Hi, no need for apologies as I am a complete novice lol and not the quickest to learn so all the brilliant numbers and figures you mention I print off and have great fun trying them out and even if I will never get the best photos it gives me the opportunity to get out and about and have a wonderful time, its just a pity I am back work next week, any way time to grab my Flask of coffee and lunch box and head along the canal on my bike in search of pastures new and a big thanks to you and one more thing are all the settings I use not shown when on my pic the properties are brought up or do I have enter them manually. best wishes Brian.
That sounds good to me and what it is all about, getting out there and enjoying finding new things. I agree its a shame when work gets in the way. I'm working on a golf course today which I know is has loads of Hares running around it, so I'll take my camera with me just in case.
The camera settings should appear automatically but it depends on how the pic has been processed and uploaded to the site. I don't know any details on how best to upload them, the exif data has always shown up on my pictures.
Hi I still have not found away of making the camera settings to show up but managed to shoot a few photos that were ok and I hope you managed to catch a few Hare pics and again many thanks, Brian ps just a couple I shot today. Using the : Nikon AF 70-300 f/4.0-5.6 G Black Zoom Nikkor Lens and the Nikon D70
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Hi, thanks Mike and i certainly don't mind you playing with my Duck lol and you have made him look a treat at least he has lost that look of enema mind you Elliot87 gave me a few starting figures to help get me going so all in all I am well pleased and grateful for the help, I have taken a look at some of your bird photos and they are excellent and you have made them look life like and I am very impressed, best wishes Brian.
Well you had more success than me. I didn't see any hares, just a few butterflies but the pictures weren't very good.
I notice your pictures are attached as a thumbnail, I don't know why but that might be why the settings don't show. My pictures are saved on my computer as JPEG's, from there I click on the insert image icon 3rd from the right and insert image from computer. I do one image at a time and space them out. That works for me.
As for the settings I mentioned they're just a suggestion and you might find others work better. I generally shoot in aperture priority and adjust my ISO manually. If the light allows I will shoot at ISO 100 but increase that if I need a faster shutter speed or if it gets cloudy. How high you will be able to increase the ISO depends on your camera and how much noise you can tolerate in your photos.
There is a rule of thumb for shutter speed and focal length. Others will describe it better but essentially your minimum shutter speed should be 1/focal length. So for your lens at 300mm a minimum would be 1/300 second. Or for your lens at 70mm 1/70 second. This helps avoid blurred images from camera shake.
So I shoot in A from f/8 - f/11, adjust my ISO to keep the shutter speed where I need it and I don't zoom right into 300mm as that makes my images softer.
CrystalPistol
New member
Yes, I have one that I picked up cheap from a friend who bought it initially for his then new Nikon. I think he has a D3000 or 3100? He bought it new and used it a few times but while it let him get some good shots cheap ... hand held it wasn't steady enough to let him do his cropping and look sharp. It was fine on a tripod, just not so good hand held. He bought the VR later and was much happier.
I have used it with a rest or tripod on m D70 and I find that it's fine enough for my uses. My old Canon A1 and log lenses were never "VR" either. LOL
It is mostly plastic.
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I see you got it and have used it already ..... Looks Good!
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Exactly what the sales guy told me. Well I do not listen an I think people should not.
I tested this bad lens to see how bad it was: all on a tripod, manual focus (sometimes wrong), remote trigger in aperture priority, shot several lenses f5,6 ,f8, f11.
The goal was to get some result like this at half the distance (this was my reference):
700mm f6,3 at double distance:
I set up at a certain moment the 70-300G to the status where it opens at 5,3, it seems this is 270mm:
my Kenko 1,4 seemed to degrade the other lenses too much.So compared to a 70-200mm f2,8 VRII, 200mm, f5,6 same distance:
Just a short conclusion a lot of below 100€ lenses performed better (me as random factor included) then the 70-200 f2,8 VRII on my tests.
Clearly if I wanted to bear the weight the 70-200 f2,8 VRII would be my only lens, more consistent, more bells and whistles, more high quality glass to correct difficult situations, etc... not to neglect in the best situation f8, it generally was unbeatable.
But the other lenses should be used when they are more convenient, they are super lenses to get great pictures (even if you miss some more pictures with them).
I find it extremely hard to believe that a £100 lens shot wide open is sharper than a £1500 lens stopped down, a lens used everywhere by pros because of its capability to take top notch pictures. I think that the likelihood is that there is some user error in your test. It doesn't even look to me like the 70-200 shot is in focus.
Everything I've read suggests that the VR version and my Tamron VC equivalent are sharper than this lens. Even so I sometimes feel like it is very difficult to get the IQ I want from my lens and would like to upgrade too a 300mm prime.
This older 70-300mm may well be capable of getting some decent images but nothing I've seen from it blows me away.
I did indicate this in the statement "me as random factor included" and "the 70-200 f2,8 VRII would be my only lens". The point is that decent images are possible with the 70-300G afterwards it is the photographer to do something with that to blow the viewer away. To call this "decent" lens "a doorstop or a bookend" just shows the limitation of that person, not the lens. I think it is better that people know limitations, e.g. this lens without VR will not allow you to shoot at the same slow speed (probably 2 stops difference depending on lens) you can do with a lens with VR, it is a limitation, it does not make it a bad lens. Just like you should know that missing ED glass in this lens will probably increase chromatic aberration and you might have to do more corrections for this in Lightroom afterwards, or it might even sometimes be too bad to correct (not yet clear to me). You might say the rendering of this lens is too neutral, but that is also said of the 24-70 f2.8.
The main point of my test is that this 70-300G for me delivers usable results, this so I know how I can use it. (B.t.w. the test was with the 70-300 closed 1/3 of a stop at 270mm)