NIKON AF NIKKOR 70-200 mm F2.8 AFD VRII : Nikon is not joking at all with professional equipments.

I have decided to get rid of my former AF NIKKOR 80-200 mm F2.8 AFD that I did use for more than 13 years, and now use AF-S NIKKOR 70-200 mm f/2.8 ED VR II instead. Though the 80-200 provided sharp pictures, I had waited for long for a perfect new lens from Nikon, combining the established AFS system with an effective VR equipment, and even better lens quality than before. It was not easily the case with previous VR variant that was issued seven years ago, as pictures were not as sharp as the former AFS variant that was released before the VR appeared.

Today I tested this AF-S NIKKOR 70-200 mm f/2.8 ED VRII lens. There was not much activity on my home airfield near Versailles since the weather over France is turning to snow storm..., but I took advantage of a few moving airplanes to pan them at very slow speed with VR on Normal to reduce camera shake on panning shots. The lens focus mode switch was set to A/M, and the D200 camera was on selective autofocus mode, on S switch. and the results are sharp. As expected the results are sharp, and the pictures are fairly clear, although overall light was bad under a grey ladden sky. If I can say it is " clear " to me that Nano Crystal Coating technology makes a difference with former NIKKOR AF 80-200 mm lenses. I could see it at first glance when the pictures appeared on my computer. And I had no balance of light, contrast or colours to modify on these shots at all, before publishing them in this feature.

Shot at 1/60s with VR II on Normal

Shot at 1/30s with VR II on Normal