Nikkor AF-S 300mm f2.8 IF ED VR II Lens
Nikon NIKKOR AF-S 300 f/2.8 IF ED VR II Lens
The Nikon NIKKOR AF-S 300 f/2.8G IF ED VR lens is an absolute masterpiece. This is one of only two F-mount lenses that I have kept to use with my Nikon Z6 camera.
Unpacking the lens, my first impressions related to the size and weight of the lens. I had previously used the Sigma 150-600 f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Sport as my wildlife lens and considered that to be a monster to hold steady at 2.9kg, so with the 300 f/2.8 weight at 2.9kg I was expecting the same. The Nikkor has a length of 268mm and maximum diameter of 124mm, compared to the Sigma’s 290mm length (430mm when zoomed to 600mm focal length) and diameter of 121mm. Unlike the Sigma, however, the lens has a fast f/2.8 aperture (compared to f/5-6.3 of the Sigma) making faster shutter speeds available if hand-holdling.
In comparison, my new 500mm PF lens has a weight of only 1.4kg and length of 237mm, almost the same weight and size as a 70-200mm f/2.8 zoom lens.
Build and Ergonomics
The lens is built to extremely high standards as the with other Nikon professional “gold ring” super telephoto lenses. The lens is made from magnesium alloys to minimise weight with the focus ring and a faux front ring being coated in a tactile rubber. The lens hood is also built to an extremely high standard and is made from carbon fibre, with a knurled metal locking screw to hold it in place once installed.
The lens is fully weather sealed with lens mount gaskets and o-rings throughout its construction. All reviews I have seen on the internet confirm that the lens is very capable in this respect. The front element has a fluorine coating that repels moisture, dirt, dust and greasy/oily contamination to help keep the lens clean.
There are the four unmarked buttons towards the front of the lens. These are function buttons that can be assigned different duties using the control switches on the lens (see below).
The left side of the lens is equipped with a number of controls that will be familiar to most Nikkor users.
The A/M - M/A - M switch determines the autofocus mode of the lens:
A/M - You have instant manual focus override by turning the focus ring at any time but emphasis is given to autofocus. In AF-C (continuous AF) the camera will keep overriding you unless you move the focus ring far enough to focus on a new subject. In this position the camera will tend to ignore minor changes of the manual focus ring. This is best if you have a tendency to move the focus ring unintentionally and do not wish to override the autofocus.
M/A - You again have instant manual focus override by turning the focus ring at any time but this time more emphasis is given to the effect of turning the focus ring. Your manual focus setting will stay as set, even if the camera is in AF-C continuous AF. Avoid this setting if you have a habit of knocking the manual focus ring since even the slightest motion will stop the AF system.
M - Manual focus only - autofocus disabled
The autofocus switch overrides any setting in the camera menu or body switches.
Full — ∞ - 8m
This is a focus limiter.
Full - the lens is able to focus over its full range from 3m to infinity. This can cause the lens to hunt if switching between far and near subjects and can slow down the autofocus lock on time on the Z series cameras
∞ - 8m - This prevents the lens from autofocusing closer than 8 meters (25 feet). Use this setting only if you're having a problem with the lens attempting to focus on irrelevant close items, or if for some reason the lens is "hunting" from near to far looking for distant subjects. This speeds up the autofocus response of the lens significantly on the Z series cameras
VR NORMAL — ACTIVE
NORMAL - Normal mode is recommended for most general scenes. In this mode, slow and wide camera movement is regarded as the photographer recomposing a shot and blur-correction operation is limited accordingly. Normal mode also includes automatic panning detection.
ACTIVE - For use when shooting from a moving vehicle or other unstable position, the lens can sometimes misinterpret camera movement or a photographer’s intentions. In this case, choose Active mode for further compensation, a more stable viewfinder image and even steadier shots.
Unlike some of the other VR lenses Vibration Reduction is turned on and off using a rotating collar switch just to the camera side of the switch block and lens label. A button lock needs to be pressed and the ring can then be turned between On and Off settings. The lens automatically detects that a tripod is being used and can be left switched on even when mounted on a tripod.
AF-L — MEMORY RECALL — AF-ON
This sets the function of the four AF lock buttons at the front of the lens. Your camera may also offer other options to program this button, especially when it's set to its default of AF-L.
AF-L: Autofocus Lock.
Pressing and holding the button locks autofocus as long as you continue to hold the button. This can be handy of you need to lock focus and recompose.
MEMORY RECALL
This makes the lens refocus back to whatever focus distance you previously set by pressing the MEMORY SET button on the right hand side of the lens near to the lens mount. Use the MEMORY SET button to save the current focussed distance. Pressing one of the four function buttons will refocus the lens back to this position. This is very handy to make the lens refocus immediately to a preset position for wildlife, sports, etc. or in case the lens loses focus and starts to hunt. The lens remembers this position even after switching off the camera.
AF-ON
Pressing the buttons activates autofocus. This is the same as any other AF-ON button; it becomes useful when you use the AF-ON button on the camera (Back Button Focus) with AF-C mode. Used this way you hold AF-ON to focus, and it locks when you release it.
♪
This turns the beep on or off.
If it's on, it beeps once to let you know you've set a new focus distance, and it beeps twice when the lens gets to the MEMORY RECALL focus distance after you've hit a front button to recall it.
Handholding the lens is difficult for any length of time, mostly due to restrictions following my surgery but the position of the focus ring makes it difficult to balance the lens with the lightweight Z cameras without moving the focus ring. Keeping the lens in A/M reduces the sensitivity of the lens to changes in the manual focus. The lens is perfect for use on a tripod though, without the weight issues this is a stunning lens and easily my favourite.
The lens is not equipped with a front filter thread to accept standard screw in filters or adapter rings but instead uses 52mm drop in filters in a small filter carrier located towards the mount end of the lens barrel.. The carrier unscrews and ten slides upwards from the lens allowing the small filters to be screwed into the carrier and then placed in the rear of the lens. The attention to detail Nikon applied making this lens means that the optical path was designed to include the filter itself and a clear filter is supplied that should be fitted in the lens whenever other filters are not used. A Nikon C-PL filter is available with its own carrier, equipped with a knurled wheel that rotates the filter once it is in position inside the lens. This design detail philosophy is why I love this lens.
The tripod foot is very sturdy on this lens, unlike some of the other quick detach designs Nikon has used, although it is necessary to change the foot or add an additional plate if you want to use it with an Arca Swiss quick release mechanism.
Vibration Reduction:
The lens is equipped with optical vibration reduction, On the Z series cameras this works with the In Body Image Stabilisation (IBIS) to offer up to 4 stops of compensation. The use of the F-mount lenses on the FTZ adapter means that the normal 5 axis IBIS stabilisation is reduced to 3 axis (pitch / roll / yaw) but by all accounts, in-lens optical stabilisation offers many advantages over IBIS for long focal length lenses.
From my limited testing to date I can say that the VR performance is exceptional.
Focus:
The lens autofocuses almost instantaneously, much faster than any other Nikon lens I have used, even on the Z6 and Z7 cameras with the FTZ adapter. Focus acquisition is rapid and reliable, thanks to the fast maximum aperture and the SWM is truly silent. The only noise is the humming of the VR system which is always engaged using the Z cameras, unlike the DSLRs that only engage VR during focussing.
The lens can be switched into manual focus using the switch on the side of the lens barrel which overrides any settings in the camera. Manual focus of the lens uses a physical control ring rather than the fly by wire controls of the Z series lenses. I have the cameras set up with focus peaking in manual focus mode and a quick twist of the focus ring brings everything into sharp focus as shown by the red highlights in the electronic viewfinder.
The lens also has a manual override for autofocus, so for example, you can turn the focus ring while in autofocus mode with the shutter half pressed (or the AF-ON button pressed) to fine tune the focus, including using the rangefinder and focus peaking options in the viewfinder. The A/M M/A switch determines how sensitive the lens is to small changes of the focus ring.
Image Quality:
The lens has the reputation of being the sharpest telephoto primes currently available. The lens is razor sharp in the centre and at the corners and edges at all apertures, even wide open at f/2.8. Nikon has been refining its 300mm f/2.8 lenses for over 40 years and it has evolved into an amazing lens. Contrast and colour rendition are best in class.
Spiking the cannon - monument at Whitehaven Marina
Nikon D850 f/5 1/200s, ISO64 showing the sharpness of the lens and complete lack of vignetting.
Hedgehog - sharp focus on the face that drops off to nice blurry background
Nikon D850 f/8 1/250s, ISO220
Wide open the lens provides extremely sharp subjects even showing tiny cobwebs amongst the barbed wire strands with a creamy smooth out of focus bokeh
Nikon D850 f/2.8 1/1000s, ISO1000
The lens shows no signs of vignetting or distortion due to the built in lens correction profile applied in the Z series cameras and carried across into programs such as Adobe Lightroom Classic. Even if you use other software that doesn’t support these built in profiles then there is no discernible distortion or vignetting.
The lens appears to be well protected against flare when shooting into the sun, with very little to no flare spots noticeable on my images.
The Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II produces stunning bokeh – it produces exceptionally good-looking background blur, especially wide open at maximum aperture of f/2.8. I primarily used the Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II for bird and wildlife photography and I was stunned by the results. The backgrounds look creamy and beautiful and the lens does a superb job at isolating subjects at large apertures.
The lens works well with all of Nikon’s current teleconverters. When used with my TC-14E III the lens becomes a 420mm f/4 and there is no discernible loss of image quality. With the TC-17E II, the lens becomes a 510mm f/5 and with the TC-20E III it becomes a 600mm f5.6. With these latter two teleconverters image quality is slightly degraded compared to the bare lens, but the degree of image softening is minimal and would take large prints or pixel peeping to notice the difference. I have no hesitation in using any of the teleconverters with this lens.
Nikkor AF-S 300 f/2.8G with TC-20E III teleconverter, handheld at 600mm Nikon D850 @ 1/1000th second at f/8, ISO 1000
AF-S 300 f/2.8G with TC-20E II teleconverter, Nikon D500 (900mm equivalent focal length), 1/400th second f/5.6 at ISO 6400. Camera balance on window of car.
AF-S 300 f/2.8G with TC-20E II teleconverter, Nikon D850, handheld at 1/1000th second, f/5.6 at ISO 640 showing stunning bokeh in out of focus areas
The Technical Bits:
Mount Type: Nikon F Mount
Focal Length: 300 mm
Aperture Range: f/2.8 to f/22
Aperture Blades: 9 (rounded)
Filter Size: 52mm rear drop in
Lens Elements: 11
Lens Groups: 8
Special Elements: 3 ED
Fluorine Coating: No
Nano Crystal Coating: Yes
Super Integrated Coating: Yes
Electronic Diaphragm: Yes
Focus Motor: Ultrasonic Silent Wave Motor (SWM)
Internal Focusing: Yes
Minimum Focus Distance: 2.3 meters (7.5 feet)
Maximum Reproduction Ratio: 1:6, or 0.16x Magnification
Weather/Dust Sealing: Yes
Mount Material: Metal
Lens Barrel Material: Metal
Dimensions: 124mm diameter x 268 mm (4.9 x 10.5 inches)
Weight: 2900 g (102.3 oz)
Angle of View: 8° diagonal
Conclusion:
Nikon has created the perfect lens with the AF-S 300 f/2.8G IF ED VR II lens. Its optical performance, especially sharpness, is exceptional, autofocus is instantaneous and vibration reduction is highly effective even with the full range of teleconverters.
I am very impressed with the Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II. I knew before buying the lens that this would be an exceptional lens but was surprised with its performance with the Nikon 1.4x, 1.7x and 2.0x teleconverters. Even with the 2x TC fitted the lens focused fast and accurately on my subjects, even with challenging light conditions. Whether you shoot sports, wildlife, portraits or other types of photography where you need to use a telephoto lens, you should seriously consider the Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II – it is well worth the money.
