Lens rental package includes: Front cap, rear cap, lens hood, and tripod collar/mount. (NOTE: As of the end of January, this lens may temporarily be shipping without the soft-case, as Nikon has issued a notice about the bottoms coming off on rare occasions and is replacing or modifying the cases.)
Description
This bad boy is easily one of the most popular Nikon super-teles that we carry due to its excellent performance and ability to be handheld for most of the shooting day with only one or two painkillers needed afterwards for your back and arms. Is it easy to handhold? No -- not really, but it's doable. That said, we definitely recommend renting a monopod as well, if only to support the lens when you're not shooting.
As far as the lens goes, it offers a very useful reach at 400mm and has lickity split auto-focus that is responsive and silent. This lens also includes Vibration Reduction, which offers the equivalent of shooting at a shutter speed 3 stops faster than without, and you can even select "normal" mode for handheld shots and "active" if you're in a moving vehicle; handy for shooting Mavericks from a boat or helicopter. Four buttons in front of the lens' focus ring let you easily select from the [AF-L], [MEMORY RECALL], and [AF-ON] functions. There is also a Focus Preset function allows a distance to be set to which the focus mechanism will instantly and automatically return to. Nikon recently announced a VR II version of this lens -- expect to see it available for rent shortly.
