Comments about Nikon 300mm f/4.0 ED IF AF-S Auto Focus Lens-5 YEAR USA NIKON WARRANTY:

I purchased this lens, after a lot of research, for birding and wildlife. Its reasonably priced, super sharp, and has a fast, quiet focus. A tad on the heavy side when your lugging gear around on foot all day, but the results will justify the weight. Hooked up with a Nikon 1.4 teleconverter on top of a Manfrotto monopod was a perfect combo for my latest trip to Merritt Island Nat'l Wildlife Preserve.

Comments about Nikon 300mm f/4.0 ED IF AF-S Auto Focus Lens-5 YEAR USA NIKON WARRANTY:

If you are a birder, then you have only two choices for Nikon - either this 300mm f/4 or an expensive/heavy professional lens such as 500/600mm f/4. All other mid-level lenses by Nikon are not good enough for birding. The 80-400mm VR is too darn slow to focus and you will be frustrated with it because smaller birds are constantly on the move and won't just sit there for you to take your time. I have been using this lens for almost two years now and bought it again when it got stolen.

Couple it with a 1.4x TC and you will have 420mm on a full frame camera or 630mm on D90/D300 1.5x sensor cameras. The 300mm f/4 + 1.4x TC is great shooting wide open and will give excellent results that you will be pleased with. Most lenses require f/8 and higher to give consistently good pictures, while this lens is sharpest wide open at f/4 or f/5.6 with a 1.4x TC.

There are two small downsides that I can think of:
1) There is no back element on this lens, so you have to be extremely careful in changing the lens as dust will go inside and you won't be able to remove it yourself.
2) I wish it had VR on it. Hopefully Nikon will release a VR version for us birders soon.

Comments about Nikon 300mm f/4.0 ED IF AF-S Auto Focus Lens-5 YEAR USA NIKON WARRANTY:

Compact and extremely useful telephoto even when shooting at maximum aperture.

Comments about Nikon 300mm f/4.0 ED IF AF-S Auto Focus Lens-5 YEAR USA NIKON WARRANTY:

This is an outstanding lens and I use it primarily to photograph butterflies and other insects when getting too close to them would spook them. Used on the D200, D300 or similar camera with the 1.4 extender, it becomes the equivalent of a 600 mm macro lens ! It will focus to less than 5 feet and even to 20 cm with the Canon 500D close-up lens.