Is it worth paying the extra between THIS and THIS for the optical stabilisation? I’m thinking of swapping my 17-70 for one, and it won’t be too much to upgrade to the non-OS lens, and my current lens doesn’t have it.
Will I notice any differences?

IME (with my shaky hands) Optical Stabilisation is worth it’s weight in Gold!

i believe that if you are shooting action then IS won’t help you much.

Yes. Unless you have a very steady hand, 200mm gives poor results except in very bright conditions due to camera shake

oh and I’d rather pay for faster lens, than a slow lens with IS.

the reason you struggle with that at the 200 end is next to **** all light is getting in. f6.3 is mega slow.

the nikon system gives you the equivalent of between 2 and 3 stops and allows hand held shooting at 200mm and 1/30th. I love it. The nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VR is one sexy piece of kit, f2.8 is all well and good but being able to open up a lens isn’t necessarily that useful as it limits your DOF. if you add VR to a fasts lens you get the advantages of a bright viewfinder image combined with the ability to stop down a bit

If you’re taking pictures of bikes you’ll just have a steady blur instead of a shaky blur. OS is no use what so ever for capturing things moving quickly – you need faster glass.

the reason you struggle with that at the 200 end is next to **** all light is getting in. f6.3 is mega slow

yes, but a wider aperture is a LOT more expensive (and heavier to carry)

the nikon system has an ‘active’ setting which helps with panning, even in normal mode though the system is sensible enough to be able to distinguish between panning and jerky ‘wobble’

OK, thanks for the advice chaps. That’s pretty much what I had read, I really wanted to know if it was marketing BS or ont!
I can’t afford any more for a faster lens, and if I want fast, I’ve got a Canon F1.8 50mm prime anyway. I just want something with a bit more magnification to it.
🙂

What’s VR?

it’s nikon’s image stabilization system (VRII now i think)

I can shoot down to 1 second at 300mm on my D300 and the image is just about useable – but if anything is moving within it VR or IS or OS (take your pick) just freezes the background nicely – unless you’re panning of course.

taken the other night, shows the advantage of VR – 175mm, f/5.6, 1/25th in poor lighting ( i should know, i lit it!). I was able to keep the ISO down a touch to keep quality and although it’s not crystal, it aint bad for a £500 lens

[EDIT] forgot to mention i WAS using a monopod but this is still not that stable at that focal length

A general rule of thumb, to avoid camera shake, is to use a shutter speed equal to the focal length of the lens or zoom setting. IE; 200mm = 1/200th of a second or faster, will generally avoid shake. Well, I applied that when I use 35mm, anyway, and it seems to work well.

Some of they new lenses have an amazing zoom range, but you do suffer with the maximum aperture. Look through an f6.3, then an f2.8, and you’ll see straight away, that the faster lens is much nicer to use, speshly in dim light. Prolly more an issue with using manual focus. And as SFB says, fast lenses are big and heavy, and cost a small fortune. That Nikon 70-200 2.8 VR is £1500 or something??

you can get it for just over a grand from hong kong (well you could)

The IS on my 17-85 IS USM works well when panning. I keep forgetting to turn it off when trying a panning shot and it doesn’t seem to affect it.

I tried fast lenses (a nifty 50 at f2 and a 2.8 28mm prime at f2.8) and found the shallow depth of field to be tricky to use when focussing on a fast moving bike. would get one part of the bike in focus and the rest OOF. At 200mm the dof wouldbe even smaller right?

yes, i have a 300mm f4.5 manual focus and at f4.5 it is virtually impossible to use

what I find really annoying is that 2 blobs of home made jelly give me shake-free low noise images even in almost total darkness…

i also find that annoying. it can’t be that hard to replicate

With larger maximum apertures, focussing is more critical, fo’ sho’, but harder to use?? Maybe you wanna work on your focussing technique. I find the brighter the lens, the easier it is to manually focus.

Of course, proper cams have depth-of-field preview, so you can stop down to see what’ll be in or out of focus.

F2 is not that ‘fast’ for a 50mm; You can get fast f1.4 50mm lenses, and Canon do a f1.2 version, but that is one spensive bit of kit!

it’s not that it is harder to focus up, it’s that the DOF is so small that any fore and aft movement of the camera is a pain in the ass, of course VR doesn’t help this but it would allow a smaller aperture to be used as you don’t have to shoot wide open

Eh? But you can choose whatever aperture you want. Having a brighter viewfinder image is a bonus, surely?

And with telephotos, having a very shallow depth of field can be good for throwing the background completely out of focus, so that you can isolate the subject from it’s surroundings.

sorry RB, i think we are misunderstanding eachother

a brighter viewfinder is of course an advantage. what i was saying is that at longer focal lengths the DOF is more of a problem, you can choose any aperture IF you aren’t having to open up to compensate for camera shake which you have to do if not using a tripod or for low light. and opening up deliberately for effect is no use if you are shooting moving objects.

i was trying to say that VR would be an advantage in this situation.

The 300mm lens is harder to use wide open when shooting, not when composing

Right, I get ya.

But a larger maximum aperture would also allow you to utilise a faster shutter speed, which would also help reduce shake.

But I see where yer coming from with the VR thing. A good technical innovation, yes.

Personally, I find big, heavy lenses to be more stable in the hand anyway. Mind, I woon’t want to hand hold some of they big 400-600mm lenses, though!

no, you’d need arms like popeye. i’m the same. i stuck with nikon because they were heavier!