Nikon's zoom manages to provide a reasonable 5.5x zoom range. It also has the added benefit of coming complete with a protective carrying pouch. Nikon's layout follows the common arrangement, with a narrow focusing ring at the front of the lens and a wide zoom ring behind it.

The 55-300mm lens is a decent, though not stellar, addition to any Nikon photographer's kit if you shoot on the DX format and need an extensive telephoto reach.

Good focal length reach for the price; Lightweight; Well balanced for the D3100 and lighter Nikon DX cameras

Slow autofocus; Soft images at 300mm

A 5.5x telephoto zoom lens for DX cameras with Vibration Reduction which starts where bundled kit lenses stop extending your range through to a super-telephoto 300mm.

Decent optical performer; Good build quality for a consumer lens; Light weight

Lens extends and focus ring rotates during AF; Delay before VR system kicks in properly

The versatility of this lens is remarkable. Even with a minimum focus distance of 4.6 feet, the long focal length allows me to use it for sharp macro photography. The vibration reduction system enables handheld shots even at 300mm in less than bright light.

Works really well. Love the build quality and it take good shar pictures. Stabilisation is good as well. The autofocus is snappy for photos but for filming it's a bit slow and a bit loud (sound)

Click on the thumbnails for a high resolution image Gary Wolstenholme takes a look at Nikon's latest telephoto offering for DX format cameras. Until the introduction of this lens, Nikon camera users requiring a lens that covers focal lengths up to 300mm to complement their existing kit lens had a...

Decent optical performer; Good build quality for a consumer lens; Light weight

Lens extends and focus ring rotates during AF; Delay before VR system kicks in properly

While I hope to create a full Nikon 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G AF-S DX VR Lens, my first priority is to include results from this lens in the lens comparison tools available on the site.

Nikon's longest zoom for cameras with APS-C-size sensors (DX format), this 5.5X 55–300mm f/4.5–5.6G VR ($360, street) scales up to the full-frame equivalent of 82.5–450mm. It offers two elements of ED glass, a high-refractive-index glass element (a DX first), Vibration Reduction II, the quiet SWM...

Colors are rendered accurately and the contrast is pretty sharp even at the max aperture. The lens is compact for a 300mm and it's lighter than my AF-S DX 18-200mm which I use as my regular walk-around. I'm sure the new 55-300 will be used as my walk around pretty frequently also.

Almost all portraits from http://3foto.ro are made with 55-300mm on D7000. Tele lens means no distortion and blur background.

Good for portraits

none