Hasta La Gadget!

Nikon’s new telephoto zoom lens is huge, and has a price-tag to match. The AF-S Nikkor 200-400mm ƒ4G ED VR II will cost you $7,000, and if you need all its features, it could be worth every penny.

First, the traditional decoding of the name. AF-S refers to the internal, Silent-Wave auto-focus motor. The long zoom range of 200-400mm is what you get with a full frame camera. Put this monster on a DX body and it becomes a 300-600mm zoom, and keeps that constant, and pretty wide, ƒ4 maximum aperture. The “G” means that there is no aperture ring on lens. ED means “Extra-low Dispersion” glass, which cuts down internal reflection, and finally VRII is the “vibration reduction” which will give up to four extra stops of handheld shooting.

There’s more than that, though. Nikon has put in a 9-blade aperture diaphragm for better out-of-focus highlights, and managed to make the camera focus down to just over six feet throughout the zoom range, which with such a long lens is like focussing just in front of your nose.

There is also a new AF mode, called A/M. This ignores any manual tweaking of the focus-ring when set (you still get full manual and M/A, which lets you override AF with a touch).

Clearly aimed at the pro sports and wildlife shooter, $7,000 is a vast sum for a lens. I imagine there are a still a lot of excited people pulling out their credit cards today, though.

AF-S NIKKOR 200-400mm f/4G ED VR II [Nikon. Thanks, Geoff!]