A small bit of surgery was required this morning at the house on the Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 AF-S VR lens…otherwise known as my absolute favourite lens in the world.
Over seven years ago, I lucked out and found this lens on consignment about fifteen minutes after the camera shop had acquired it…and at half the price a new lens would cost!
Since then, this 2006-vintage tough-as-nails lens has been an absolute workhorse and the one you will see most often on my camera for shooting sport as well as low-light events such as recitals and dress rehearsals.
The Lightroom catalog certainly tells the story…of the 343,102 pictures in the catalog, over 184,000 of them were taken with this lens (and you can add another couple of thousand by the time I’m done shooting the eight football fixtures this weekend for Nick and Katie’s teams playing in CASL Cup!). The next closest lens in terms of popularity is the 300mm f/4 at just over 29K pictures.
About a year ago, the rubber focus and focal length rings were replaced (and I’ve got two more sets ready when this set wears out!).
This morning, it was time to replace the tripod mounting plate which had cracked and one piece had sheared off making for a very wobbly lens on top of the monopod.
The new mounting plate from Really Right Stuff is about 2.5x the thickness of the Nikon plate which should make for a much stronger mounting plate. The original Nikon tripod foot was also upgraded to a new Kirk foot which is likewise stronger and larger. The engineering on these two items is dramatically better than the OEM parts they’re replacing and we should be good for at least another 200K photos on the toughest lens in my bag!
