Nikon 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR AF-S DX Nikkor Zoom Lens for Nikon Digital SLR

• Posted on February 22, 2012 (104 customer reviews , 4.5 rating )

I have been very impressed with this lens over the past 3 months. There was a special on Amazon that gave you some $ off if you purchased a Nikon d5100 and this lens as a pair so I jumped on it. The lens has already been with me to 3 countries and has been great. Build: Yes, this lens has a lot of plastic. This saves you a lot of weight and money. If you want it to be made of metal spend 3x as much buying a pro Nikon lens. Don't buy this one and then complain it feels cheap. The mount is metal which I believe is an upgrade over the 55-200mm Nikon. Optics: Really can't complain here. Shooting at around f/6-f/8 has produced great images at any zoom. The colors are great, distortion is small and easily correctable, and are sharp. Focus: The focus is pretty much silent and has been fast for me. I don't know if those who complain about slow focus or inability to focus just got a dud or what. VR: Has been a lifesaver. Trying to shoot this at 300mm handheld without VR isn't fun. I have been very impressed with how well this works and always have it on. Zoom: You can really reach out there with this thing (i guess a 450mm equiv will do that). One thing with my lens, when I first got it the zoom mechanism was a little sticky going from 200 to 300mm. One night I just sat with it on the couch and zoomed it in and out fully and now it's very smooth. If you experience this, just play with it for awhile and it'll loosen up. One last thing I'll say. I hate when people give bad reviews to things based on unrealistic expectations. When they say that this lens is too slow and they can't shoot fast moving objects at night I just shake my head. This is an entry level lens. If you want a f/2.8 lens, feel free to pay 10x what this lens costs. If you are used to pro level lenses, don't buy this lens and then start critiquing it. Realize what it is intended for. On that note, I'll repeat that this is a great, fun lens to use. Highly recommended.

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Product Features

• 5.5x Telephoto Zoom lens
• Nikon VR II Image Stabilization; Tripod Detection Mode
• HRI (High Refractive Index) Lens Element
• 2 Extra-low Dispersion (ED) Elements
• Exclusive Nikon Silent Wave Motor (SWM)

First of all I'll say that I ordered my lens as soon as Amazon had them available. I upgraded to next day shipping and got it 18 hours later - quick service. Thanks Amazon! But now on to the real review... This lens is fantastic - especially for $399. My first concern was whether it not it had a plastic or metal mount since some DX lenses in this price range have plastic. I even contacted Nikon and they couldn't (or wouldn't) tell me. Well, I was really pleased to see that it does have a metal mount. It has a nice solid feel to it. The zoom movement is smooth and I haven't had any problem with lens creep when I'm aiming it downward. Even when I point the camera downward and shake it, it won't creep. I'm just beginning to get into testing it but my preliminary pictures are coming out nice - really nice. The sharpness is amazing and the lens produces a very nice bokeh. I posted the image of the dragonfly with the chicken wire background (see the customer uploads) Check out the detail in the wings. That shot says it all. It was HAND HELD and cranked all the way out to 300mm. The original image is great but a lot of the detail was lost with the upload to Amazon. But - none the less - it's still pretty sharp. The auto focus on this lens is fast, smooth, quiet and very accurate. It locked right in on the subject. It was set on aperture priority at f/8 1/500sec for the shot that I posted here (shot with a D-90). The VR on this lens is great. The detail I get with hand-helds just amazes me. It has Nikon's VRII image stabilization and it even has a tripod detection mode that reduces any vibration from shutter release when it's on a tripod. Colors are rendered accurately and the contrast is pretty sharp even at the max aperture. The lens is compact for a 300mm and it's lighter than my AF-S DX 18-200mm which I use as my regular walk-around. I'm sure the new 55-300 will be used as my walk around pretty frequently also. All in all for an APS-C lens, Nikon did a great job with this one - especially for the price. It's a welcome addition to the DX line and I'm really glad I have one in my gear bag.

Built to a price ...but that's not necessarily bad news. For the price you get a lot of lens. It would be nice if it focused faster, if the max. aperture was a little bigger, if the focus could be more easily be manually adjusted, and if the hood attachment wasn't quite so cheesy. But $350, folks! This is a steal, despite all these drawbacks. For faster auto-focus you can spend over $500 on the larger and heavier 70-300mm. To get more light you can spend over $1000 for a shorter, much larger and heavier f/2.8 tele-zoom. This $350 job is a real bargain if you can live without the features of the expensive alternatives because the image quality is way better than I'd expect in a lens at this price. On top of that, this is the best VR performance I've yet seen, even compared to a couple of much more expensive lenses. VR seems to get significantly better with each iteration.

I own two Nikon DSLRs (D5000/D3100) I have the 55-200mm and the reach was okay. I read some mixed reviews on this lens and was skeptical. I purchased the lens and that weekend took the lens to the Miami Metro Zoo. I was worried at first 300mm might not be enough, but I was wrong. I was able to get super close to the animals and get some SHARP shots all the way out to the max at 300mm. I shot at 5.6 (max wide open aperture) for this lens and I was told by other photographers for this type of lens it would be sharpest f8/f11. Most were surprised how sharp the photos were. I am on Flickr and my screen name is NikonCoupleSoFlo. I strongly suggest you see actual pictures and judge for yourself. I think some of the shots are soft wide open and others aren't though I was shooting through glass/fences in a lot of the shots. I would definitely recommend this lens for the REACH of 300mm ALONE. My next lens will be a 70-200mm 2.8 for low light/sports since the 2.8 are a faster focusing lens as well.

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