Playing with Nikon D90 & Nikkor 70-210mm 4-5.6 AF-D

Taking some pictures with a cheap zoom lense with the expectation to used it for sport photography

Recently, as I was looking on Ebay for a cheap lens to shoot some sports and portraits, 70-200 or such, with decent results, I found a Nikkor 70-210mm 4-5.6 AF-D. Reviews about this lens, and eventually its use with modern amateur reflexes are rare (1999 huh …), so I guess these few words could help some of us.

For 50€, it was more or less a $100 better deal than the usual Ebay price. I'm not a photo-geek, so I'm just looking for a reasonable price/quality ratio, not the sharpest, stabilized, fixed aperture, expensive and all plastic lens.

This AF-D lens was made before 1999 and still works like a charm, thanks to its solid-but-heavy all-metal body. Good. Despite its humble specifications (4-5.6, …), it's said to have a very likeable fast focus and decent distortion, color rendition and sharpness across the field. As all Nikkor AF(-D), this lens is compatible with the Nikon D90 body : autofocus, aperture (ring has to be locked to the smallest aperture - highest value - 32 here), metering, …

My conclusion : it works just fine on D90, it's indeed really fast at focusing and provides very pleasant results even under the poor conditions I shot the picture above. Get one if you find one for $100!

Some pictures I took right out-of-the-box : http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeromenerf/sets/72157622966544084/detail/

Always a good idea to see others work on Flickr : http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=nikkor+70-210+AF-D&m=text

Ken "chucknorris" Rockwell enthusiastic review : http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/7021056.htm