Nikon 80-400mm VR Samples

First published on: Thursday, 7 May 2009

Note: This lens has been superseded by the Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G VR on March 2013.

This page is a collection of photo samples taken with the Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED Autofocus VR Zoom Nikkor Lens, plus related image galleries, user pictures and other examples that I’ve come across in forums, online communities, blogs and related websites.

Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED VR

This should help in determining if the image quality of the 80-400 VR meets your expectations.

Bear in mind that the majority of these photos are resized, and may have gone through post-processing, retouching or other edits. I just thought that it would be interesting to see, at a glance, what Nikon 80-400mm VR owners and users are shooting with their lens.

Full-sized images, where available, will assist with judging the image quality.

Attribution is given by linking to the source and where available, the author’s homepage or photo gallery.

Nice urban wildlife photos by Gaylon Holmes

In this forum post, Holmes shared an image of a squirrel and two birds, taken at various focal lengths and aperture settings.

He says:

While I love the image quality and bokeh of the 300 and 400mm primes, I just don’t have the desire to carry tripods around anymore. The 70-300 VR and 80-400 VR are just so much fun and easy to use that I’ve become spoiled and lazy in my old age!

Both lenses can certainly be nitpicked in terms of performance but it’s hard to argue with their versatility and ease of use for the hobbyist who enjoys wandering about the natural world.

Photo showcase by Juan Estevez

In this post, Juan embedded some excellent web-sized photos taken with the 80-400VR lens mounted on a Nikon D200.

He emphasizes that long, super-telephoto prime lenses are ideal if the system is mounted on a tripod, however, for handheld work, the 80-400 with its built-in vibration reduction mechanism is hard to argue with

Links to bird photos shot using the 80-400 VR

Here’s a collection of links to forum posts and other web sites which feature Nikkor 80-400 bird images:


  1. Jean-Pierre Marcil’s large image files.

  2. Daniel Bouchard likes the lens for birding, and has some examples of birds in flight and other photos.

  3. Excellent Nikon D300 examples shot at the John Heinz Wildlife Refuge:


  4. Spectacular birding and animal photos linked by Stany, all shot with either the D300 or Nikon D700. My favorites are:


Resources

Official Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D VR websites:

Nikon Lenses — Main page.

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