Nikon AF Micro Nikkor 70-180mm f/4.5-5.6 D ED

This lens was exactly what I needed... I was in the market for a macro lens for product photography and had decided to buy the 180 f2.8 Sigma, until I found this one! It's my understanding that Nikon didn't make this lens for more than a couple of years. It's the older style AF which I don't use in the studio anyway. In fact, I had never even heard of this lens until searching on Ebay for a macro. I've been a Nikon user for almost 50 years and I'm not sure how this one escaped my attention. The lens is sharp - I'd expect nothing less from Nikon. The zoom enables me to take both wider shots and then close ups without having to move the camera. It will yield a 1:1 ratio when zoomed to 180mm and the 70mm setting is wide enough to view my stage and backdrop. For me, it's the best of both worlds. The person I bought it from shipped it from Japan and it arrived much sooner than I expected. The lens was as advertised and in perfect working order. I am very pleased with my purchase!Read full review

Perfevct for small product shots. This lens is a sleeper. I shoot small products like jewelry and the set is crowded with lighting and reflectors. It's nice to be able to zoom to frame the shot rather than move the camera (attached to a heavy stand.) The tripod collar is a rugged mount point. It's sharp and even, closeup and stopped down. Perfect. Note: Nikon AF-D zoom lenses can get hazy. They are not airtight. So look for one with no haze.

all dressed up and nowhere to go I was probably one of the first to buy this lens, having ordered it as soon as it was announced sight unseen. At the time I was shooting film exclusivly and needed a zoom in the 80-200 range to complete my travel shooting outfit. For some time I had been considering Nikon's legendary 80-200 f2.8 but had hesitated for two reasons: one was the physical size and weight of the lens and the second was the fact that I would have had to invest in a whole new filter size. My travel kit was standardized on 62mm and the 80-200 took 77mm. When Nikon announced the 70-180mm used a 62mm filter size I felt it was a sign. The fact that it could also replace my 105mm Micro in my bag was a bonus. The modest working apertures of f4.5-5.6 I thought I could work around. Unpacking the lens was no disappointment. The 70-180 has the robust metal construction Nikon reserves for it's professional lenses. There's a certain solidity to the lens that users of professional Nikon equipment will find familiar and have come to expect. So far so good, especially as the lens was, as expected, smaller than the 80-200 I had been looking at. In use, the lens performed as specified. Autofocus was slow on my F100 and, if the user forgets to limit the range, the lens takes a long time to rack all the way through it's focus range when "hunting". The attached tripod socket was unobtrusive when hand held but strudy enough to actually use and support the weight of camera and lens. Optically, slides shot at "normal" distances were contrasty and sharp. The lens performs very well with minimal distortion. As a Macro lens (Nikon calls these "Micro") performance was good enough for all but the most critical applications. The lens focuses to 1:3@70mm and almost 1:1@180mm. For the digital user who has to deal with the multiplication factor of his smaller sensor, it effectivly becomes a 105-270mm zoom that focuses to 14inches which raises interesting possibilities. I finally traded the lens. As good as it was optically I could not get past the slow maximum apertures - especially for non-macro shooting. Remember, at the time I was shooting film and had a fondness for ISO 50 and 100 fine grained slide films. The maximum aperture of f4.5 could not be overcome just by dialing up the sensitivity of my digital sensor. Had I still had the lens at the time I got my first digital SLR perhaps I would have kept it.Read full review