Didn't expect a lot, but got even less

I read a ton of reviews before I picked up this lens and one thing is clear. Nobody agrees about how good or bad this lens is. Some seem to love it, while others really don't like it at all.

I finally came to the conclusion that those who didn't like it were simply asking too much of it. Is a $300 Consumer Zoom going to perform as well as a lightening fast $2M pro lens? Of course not. But, not wanting to spend $2M, I was satisfied that the lens would give good bang for the buck.

Was it indeed bang for the buck? More like a muffled "poof" I'm afraid. The lens went back. Here's why.

First and foremost, the autofocus is very weak. It is very slow, and it tends to hunt all over the place. Basically, if you are not shooting outside on a nice sunny day, you can not rely on this lens' autofocus system. Even in a bright indoor environment it is very unreliable. Sometimes it gets it, often it just zips back and forth looking for the lock.

What's wrong with manual focus you ask? Well nothing I guess. You can flip the lever and take control over for yourself, but that knocks the lens down a lot in my book.

Second, I'm really not satisfied with the quality of the glass. I know, I know, it's an ED lens isn't it? Well, the answer to that is; sort of. When I started getting all kinds of chromatic aberrations in my shots (really bad quite frankly), I did a little more digging. It turns out that exactly 1 of the 13 elements in this lens is actually ED glass. 1. I don't know if that's really all that honest quite frankly. In any case, my images (when twigs and a bright sky are involved) are a serious let down.

Third (and I know this doesn't apply to everyone), as someone with a digital SLR (D70) with a 1.5 conversion factor, I think I underestimated the impact on the wide end. When a digital SLR "converts" your 300 to 450, you don't mind, but when it "converts" your 70 to 100, that's not so good. Frankly, I didn't find a 100-450 lens worked so well for me. I needed a little bit more width in order to make this lens truly practical for my purposes.

So, the bottom line is that I was disappointed. I knew the lens wasn't fast (you've got to pay for that), but the poor AF and the relatively poor image quality left me wanting more. I think Nikon needs to invest a little more into a higher end version of this type of lens. I am sure there is a market. If you really need a light, cheap tele-zoom, I would just go for the "G" version of this lens. It's not that its very good (it isn't) but it does cost 1/3 as much and I really don't think this one performs any better (so you may as well save some money).