New Lens!

To fill a hole in my focal length range I decided to add the Nikon 70-300 f4.5-5.6 AFS VR to my bag. No, this isn't a several thousand dollar three ton exotic monster, its a light, sharp, semi-pro quality lens and a steal for the price. The reason I went the light and cheap (albeit slow) over heavy and expensive is that I just don't use these focal lengths very much professionally. Architecture and Interiors require wide angle lenses (14-35 mm) and I've got that range well covered with the expensive, heavy and amazing 14-24 f2.8 AFS and the older but still quite great 20-35 f2.8 AF. This new lens actually rivals some of the more expensive pro lenses around 200mm for sharpness and its got a feature that I've never had before: Vibration Reduction. VR allows you to handhold the camera at shutter speeds up to four stops slower than you normally could, or would have to resort to a tripod, and still get sharp images. Combine this with the low light performance of the D700 and you have one powerful tool in less than perfect conditions. But, my professional work usually has me on a tripod with a wide angle lens, so this lens fit the need and the budget perfectly. If you've managed to read this far I'm going to reward you with some pictures of our dogs (my favorite test subjects for any reason) using the new lens.

Pretty fantastic for $550 considering a savings $1500-7500 for pro f2.8 lenses.

Images Copyright 2009 Andrew Browning Photography