Well how do I start this personal review of my joint favorite lens on earth? Well I think the best credit I could give it is that it matches in quality, speed and sheer ruggedness of my 400mm lens which for me is the holy grail of all lenses. That let me tell you is praise indeed. The first time I put the lens on my camera and shot outside to grab anything that you can think of to test it with (we all do that don’t we lol) I realized why so many others whose reviews I read praised it without question.
And from that date years ago till right now I am still in awe of this lens. Its one of those classics that is from the era of still making things sturdy and well made before worrying too much about balance sheets and saving cost here an there, and a thing of such single minded functional beauty that makes you want to hold it and treat with the sort of respect that has you curling your lips up and smiling inwardly to what you own and how lucky you are to indeed have it in your collection. I have lost count how many times this lens has taken amazing shots milliseconds after seeing something as I travel down my local country lanes searching for my mornings catch of images which I post daily to my Facebook page. For me if I had to only ever have one lens on a camera and never be able to own another it would without doubt be this lens. The sheer scope of having a lens that acts like a prime but has the scope of 70mm – 200mm is really a major achievement in design. From taking candid street photography to wildlife shots to brilliant pet portraits this baby can do it all!
Im no technical guru so the figures and stats and specifications blur into insignificance for me, its getting out there and using something that really starts to make you realize you have something special. I have the older version of this lens and it has since been updated, with more features and shorter minimum focus distance etc, but my love affair with this first edition is so strong I cant pull myself away and warrant the upgrade. And that’s a good thing.
My kind of photography is what I like to call “Country Lane Photography”, a homage to street photography but from the UK countryside point of view, with the wealth of wildlife, farming life, and visual landscape beauty of the Peak District National Park being my outdoor studio. Also I find so much of my imagery comes from being outside in my garden. Living in the countryside, so much wildlife seems to be living so close by its always a pleasure to simply sit for 30 minutes and watch animals appear that if you hadn’t sat down you would have never known they were so close. I like to think the magic time is around 10 minutes, of sitting down and being still, before wildlife around you although cautious starts to carry on with its daily routines of survival and food sourcing, and its this sort of time the 70-200mm just sits on my lap waiting for the next mouse to appear, or Blackbird to come and land clucking its young to come out from the shadows and learn the art of worm pulling!
So as you can gather I’m a bit of a fan for this lens. Im sure there are many other greats out there but for me one of them stands head and shoulders above its rivals and siblings and should go down in the annals of photographic history as one of those very very special pieces of engineering where everything came out just right, and you can normally only count on one hand the things in life that hit you with such overwhelming respect that you have to quietly nod and inwardly know you are a very lucky person to own one.
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You can also see Jim’s previous guest post on shooting with the Nikon AF-S 400mm f/2.8G ED VR lens. If you have an interesting idea for a guest post, you can contact me here.
