Earlier in the year, I tried to take some photos using an old telephoto lens which wouldn't focus on my Nikon D40 camera. The experience taught me that a modern autofocus camera really needs an autofocus lens. Older manual focus cameras had viewfinders designed to make it easy to focus accurately. Most modern cameras (at least in the 'amateur' price range) aren't as easy to focus.

I ordered the Nikon 55-200 VR lens on Sunday and it arrived this morning, which was impressively quick. I have only had time to do a quick test of the vibration reduction and I must say, I'm impressed.

I took 6 photos, all at the 200mm end of the lens, at 1/10s exposure. The first 3 had VR switched off, the next 3 had VR switched on. The increase in photo sharpness was remarkable.

You can't really see any difference in the thumbnails but the photo on the left was taken without VR. The 2nd photo used VR. Click on the thumbnails to see a larger version.

Click on the thumbnail to view the image