How come this lens is so cheap?

PopeBuckfastXVI

http://www.tekmo.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=261

A Nikon 70-300mm lens for £80 stg

Isn't this very cheap? Or is it just a crap lens?

Paulw

Could I get away with saying ... because it's Nikon???

It does look a bit too cheap to be true.

leohoju

I actually own that lens, but rarely use it these days.

Image quality is okay (sorry no samples right now), but beware of shooting in low light! That's when you see its limitations, with the high maximum (or is it low minimum, I always get these confused ) aperture and also you get to hear the lens trying to focus, which is very noisy indeed.

It really does depend on what you want to use it for of course.

quilmore

it's a G lens
that means no aperture ring, but that doesn't bother anyone with a camera from the last 2 decades
f/5.6 is no good, I had and have equivalent ones and when low light it's very hard to get the autofocus to work quickly
picture quality is good on that one
as good as any other lens of that range of €€€

DaireQuinlan

Yeah, I have an older version of that lens. 75-300 AF, all metal, reportedly superior to the plastic AFD versions. I've never had any problems with sharpness or falloff with it I'd have to say. The big but is that I very rarely use it. 5.6 at the long end is slowww. AF suffers aswell, the camera hunts for focus when you're zoomed out all the way. I was shooting a cricket match on an overcast afternoon with it a while back and I was struggling to get 1/250 exposure times for it (I was handholding) on 800asa.

xshayx

I have that lens on a shelf beside me here (no longer working), think it came with the F80. For £80 not bad, as others have said not the best in low light, but otherwise gave me no problems. No longer working issue was prob due to ill treatment!