If one adds a strong light falloff til f5.6 (but it's easy to fix in PP), this zoom is ideal for portrait photos and every large apertures photos. Except for the Tamron 70-200mm, all other lenses have image stabilization / vibration reduction technology. The new Nikon 70-200mm f/4G VR offers the best stabilization technology with up to 5 stops of advantage (on paper, read about my VR experience further down in the review), while both Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 and Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 are at 4 stops. The Tamron also comes short in focus motor performance – it was the loudest, slowest and the least accurate of the bunch. Sadly, it seems like we are coming to the end of Nikon’s roadmap, unless they decide to release a new version. Nikon has previously said that this roadmap will cover “to 2023,” so presumably, the remaining 35mm lens will be announced later this year.

Nikon Z Lens Roadmap (Updated October 2023) - Photography Life Nikon Z Lens Roadmap (Updated October 2023) - Photography Life

Auto focus is powered by a silent wave motor, and autofocus speeds are very fast. Manual adjustments can be applied at any time via the focusing ring. The wide focusing ring is smooth, and well damped, which makes applying manual adjustments a pleasure. It also features Nikon's latest Vibration Reduction (VR) system, which offers a generous 5-stops of compensation. Three modes are available. Normal for everyday shooting, Active for shooting from a moving vehicle and Tripod Detection mode. There are two VR switches on the lens barrel, one for turning Vibration Reduction on and off, the other for switching between the Normal and Active modes. My experience with the TC-17E III was fairly short, because I am not particularly fond of this teleconverter in general. I mounted the TC-17E II on the 70-200mm f/4G VR (equivalent to 119-340mm f/6.7) and tested it out both indoors and outdoors. When shooting outdoors in bright light, the TC-17E II did quite well. AF speed and accuracy were both good and sharpness was fairly close to what I was getting with the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II with the same teleconverter. I expected the lens to suffer like my Nikon 200-400mm f/4G VR does when using it with the TC-17E II, but it certainly did better. In less than ideal lighting conditions though (especially indoors), AF speed and accuracy did suffer visibly more, with some loss of contrast. While the lens is light enough that a tripod collar is not strictly necessary, the optional RT-1 tripod collar does make the lens more stable on the tripod. However, we felt when rotating the lens in the tripod ring is should have been smoother. It’s slightly noisy in use, like plastic rubbing against plastic and not very exceptionally smooth. Weight: 850 g (30.0 oz.) vs. 1,540 g (3.4 lb.) of the f2.8. The difference of almost 700g is clearly felt and a major benefit over the f2.8. [+]

Intro

Autofocus performance is snappy, nearly on par with the f/2.8 lens, which is about as good as it gets. Your comparing the bokeh-thing to composition is not totally exact as composition is the fact to "cut in the reality" which is unavoidable as one cannot take a picture of the whole world, while bokeing is a volontary way to over-extract a subject from its context. As an act of exaggeration it has to be compared to its diametral reverse: the will to take a picture of as much things as possible, which lead us to the fish eye lens. The Nikon 70-200mm f/4G looks weaker in the center, but take a look at the corners – it clearly resolves more details in comparison.

Nikon 70-200mm f/4G vs f/2.8G - Photography Life Nikon 70-200mm f/4G vs f/2.8G - Photography Life

Chromatic aberration is the lens' inability to focus on the sensor or film all colours of visible light at the same point. Severe chromatic aberration gives a noticeable fringing or a halo effect around sharp edges within the picture. It can be cured in software. If you have been shooting with Nikon lenses for a while, you might have noticed that Nano coated lenses produce better colors than non-coated lenses. Although Nikon states that Nano Crystal Coat helps reduce ghosting and flare, in my experience it also improves overall colors and contrast as well. Nikon has been exclusively using this coating technology on higher-end lenses and if you compare some of the recent lenses with their older counterparts that do not have it, you will probably notice the difference in color rendition as well. Imatest only managed to detect 0.149% barrel distortion at 70mm, which is a very mild amount of distortion and shouldn't cause any issues day-to-day. However, at 200mm Imatest detected 2.28% pincushion distortion, which is reaching the levels where it may become noticeable in normal images. If straight lines are paramount, you'll be glad to hear that the distortion pattern is uniform across the frame at both ends of the zoom range, which should make corrections in image editing software afterwards relatively straightforward to apply.In common with several recent high-end Nikon lenses, theAF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/4G ED VR features a Nano Crystal coated element, which should reduce flare and internal reflections. Although not as versatile in poor light as its 2.8 cousin, the new lens features an improved Vibration Reduction system which Nikon claims should be able to deliver up to 5 EV of stabilization, potentially allowing you to get sharp pictures at shutter speeds as low as 1/6 sec at 200mm. Although this can't do anything about subject movement, it should greatly expand theusabilityof the lens in marginal lighting conditions. The zoom ring is marked at 70mm, 85mm, 105mm, 135mm, and 200mm focal lengths, and goes from 70 to 200mm in less a quarter turn. The focus position window has no depth of field or IR markings, and has 3.5, 4, 5, 7, and 10 foot markings, plus 1, 1.2, 1.5, 2, 3, and 5m markings, as well as infinity. The focus ring goes from minimum to maximum in just over a quarter turn. It’s useful to consider some of the key differences between the current 70-200mm f/2.8 (top) and f/4 (bottom) lenses: