Nikkor Plastic 70-300 F/4-5.6 AF-D ED

This Nikkor 70-300 has been one of the most poorly reviewed Nikkor lens ever.

October 18, 2023

For a reason: it was bad... cheap, super soft, lots of chromatic aberration, some distortion, not a super fast screw driven AF, made of plastic.

Anyways, that lens dating from the D1 series era was bad on low megapixels sensors. I remember trying one at Henry’s, and hating it.

For some reason, I got one last week for 20 bucks. Why not?

Well, it turns out this copy is really above the rest of the batch. I have no idea what is going on with this lens, but it’s super sharp, chromatic aberration is manageable, distortion is also well manageable. Really, its sharpness is quite good. 70mm F/4: sharp. 300mm F/5.6 not bad at all. 300mm F\7.1: sharp. F\/7.1 gets rid of the worst of the chromatic aberrations.

That is not what the reviews said. And not what I remember.

I think that very lens I got is the opposite of a lemon: I still wouldn’t recommend buying one. Most are really bad.

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