Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Background: I use Nikon D800 and D600 Cameras, and mostly shoot wildlife around the Rocky Mountains region. I was never happy with my old AF 80-400D image quality, so I purchased an AFS 200-400 f4 vrii. The 200-400 is an amazing sharp lens with the price tag and Size/Weight to go with it. I love the lens, but I underestimated the weight issue and It was getting to be a hassle to carry the lens on the trails and even more hassle traveling with the beast. When Nikon came up with the new AFS 80-400 vr, I was exited but then I was knocked off my feet when I saw the price, However I decided to get one and told myself: "If it is not tack sharp, it will go back". Well, Happy to say that this thing is as sharp as my 200-400 f4, and it is so much sharper than my old AF 80-400D that I think I may have had a bad copy of the old one and just did not have any thing comparable to check it against. So If you are upgrading from the old lens you maybe in for a big surprise with this new one. Specially if you shoot with recent cameras. A side from being sharper the new lens has a zoom lock button that is very helpful on the trail. The old one always would creep and the lens would extend while you would walk. With this one you can lock it at 80mm and it will stay put and short. Otherwise the they are similar. Now a few observations; 1- The built quality is Nikon prosumer and not the Sherman tank pro quality. It is good but not impressive at this price. 2- The auto focus speed is not as snappy as my 200-400 which itself is no speed demon either. 3- The auto focus accuracy is great in good light but it gets confused very easily in low contrast and very high contrast areas. One bad habit it has is to go to infinity and stay there and refuse to come back unless you give it some really shiny object to focus on. Every lens has a bad habit and I think I my have found this ones. 4- Some reviews mentioned tripod collar not being good, I find it to be acceptable, maybe not for the price but it is functional and works fine. I always change my tripod collars with after market ones since they are more comfortable to hand cary and also have built in Arca-Swiss plates which is great a convenience and lowers the weight. But I have not find it necessary for this lens. If I were to get one it would be the Kirk model. 5- This lens is a dust pump, it pushes air and dust in to your Camera's sensor chamber. But it is not a big deal if you keep your lens and the back lens cap clean. 6- Finally, If you get one of these lenses and it is not tack sharp at 400mm, (granted, you know what your doing with your technique) you have a bad sample, return it and get a replacement. It appears that some bad copies are floating around. Most importantly beware of "open box deals" or "used like new" ones from third party vendors. It may be a bad one that was returned. Amazon has a 30 day return policy for their used lenses so I would not be worry about Amazon but for others, make sure they have a good return or exchange policy. Knowing what I know now the price doesn't seams to be as bad, even though I think Nikon USA is playing the "soak the early adopter game" and the real price would be around $2000 next year or even this christmas, Which is too bad since it only penalizes their best and loyal customers. However, I would say that the sharpness of this lens makes me forgive Nikon's sins and the lenses minor flaws. It is a keeper. I hope this helps Update 7/31/2013 I tested the Tele-convertors with this lens today, here is the skinny (I am using a D800, The Autofocus may behave differently with your camera): 1- TC14E ii, It works like a charm, no issues with Image quality or Focusing. Just remember it becomes a 560mm f8, and that would not give you much head room for shutter speed, so even though it works I am not sure how practical it would be in real world. 2- TC17E ii, To my surprise theD800's Autofocus worked with this unit. According to Nikon it should not, I am not sure that it will continue to auto focus in lesser light conditions. The image is a little soft and loses some contrast. It is usable with some tender loving/care in Lightroom. Again I am not sure how useful a 650mm f9.5 is in real world, but it works if you are up to the challenge of mastering the techniques needed to use such a long and slow lens. 3- TC20E iii, Obviously you lose Autofocus, but the image is still usable for Facebook posts, a little softer a little less contrast, and since you are at 800mm, f11 the only practical way to use it is to jack up the ISO, so a little more noise you get the idea. All three worked functionally but I would say that I only would be using the TC14E ii. Also, As a side note while I was working with tele-convertors I notice that this lens has more Lens breathing than my old AF 80-400 D. Which is too bad, considering the $1000 premium. If you are going to use this lens just for Flowers, butterflies and other small subjects that you photograph from less than 20 feet, you may want to make sure that you can live with this or consider a prime lens like 300mm f4, you will be happier and $1300 richer. All zoom lenses have some level of breathing but this lens is really bad considering it's price. It is still a keeper for my applications, Did I say it is sharp, Sharp lens is like a rich date, it makes you over look a lot of ugly. Update 12-6-2013 A new discovery, at least new to me. I found out that using this lens, handheld and, at higher shutter speeds, over 1/1000 sec. or so, and with VR on, the VR actually degrades the image rather than improving it. I did some testing after I noticed that some of my images are softer than others even thought they were shot at higher shutter speeds. At first I thought I had missed the focus points but the images had a different look than missed focus or hand shake blurs. They had a very distinct look to them, looked like they have been taken through a dirty screens. That is why I decided to test for it. It seems that the VR actually softens the images at 1/1000 sec. or faster. (The 1/1000 sec is an educated guess on my part I don't know at what point exactly the VR does more harm than good, but I tested it around 1/1000 sec.) This may not be limited to this lens and something general with all VR lenses. I repeated my test with the 200-400 f4 and got the same result. I thought I pass it on.