Ken Rockwell gets a lot of grief in these forums (rightly or wrongly) so I was rather amused to see that he's not taking our criticisms lying down. Talking about the 70-200mm 2.8 on his website he has this to say:

"There was a review posted on a very popular digital camera website in May 2008 that caused some confusion. That digital camera website, founded by a photo hobbyist and bought-out by a big corporation, decided to try to review lenses. That website is still trying to learn about lenses, and they got their review of the 70-200m VR all wrong since they lacked the perspective of a pro photographer, familiarity with optics, and most importantly, any history of shooting full-frame film.

Pros laughed at that review. Pros wrote me from all over the world telling me how their 70-200mm is the best lens they've ever owned, how they earn their living with it day-in and day-out in the dark and in the rain, and how other pros call them to ask them what lens they used for such-and-such shot since it was so sharp. One pro wrote that he's glad he never read that review, since if he did he might never take his 70-200 out of his bag to shoot!

Since that other website is written by and for amateurs, it missed the boat when it came to reviewing a pro lens. Like many reviews of just about anything, reviews are only meaningful when the person writing them has the perspective to understand the product.

Something that confuses the innocent, as well as that other popular website, is that the 70-200 VR has a rear nodal point much further forward than other zooms, about 5" (12cm) in front of the lens mount. Most Nikon SLR lenses have their rear nodal points about an inch and a half (4cm) forward of the lens mount, and Nikon SLR viewfinders have had their condensers optimized for that ever since the 1950s.

When you use a lens with its rear nodal point so far forward, the corners of the finder often take on a darker, fuzzier double-image look because the corners of the condenser lenses and Fresnel screens are looking in the wrong place! The corners of the finder aren't optimum, but the image on film or on-sensor is unaffected by the finder image. The original 50-300mm f/4.5 suffered from the same ugly-finder effect for the same reason.

What this gobbledygook means is that you can't tell how sharp this lens is by looking through the finder. The corners will always look dark and blurry because Nikon's finders aren't optimized for this lens."

Mike