Sorry - didn't spot this thread until Martin bumped it!
Yes, the 80-400VR is my lens for birds and mammals. The link that Andrew posted to my
Gallery doesn't seem to be working so let's try this:
pressld2 Gallery - Wildlife Photography
About 18 months ago I switched the VR to off and have never switched it back on again. Reasons for this are explored in this thread:
VR (or IS) - Is it worth it?
Finally, Martin is absolutely right that the autofocus is not the fastest as the lens doesn't have a Silent Wave motor in it. There are persistent rumours that Nikon are going to produce an updated version of this lens with a Silent Wave motor but there's still no official word from them about it nor any release date.
With a max aperture of f5.6 at the 400mm end, the lens does hunt a bit in poor light. But this will be equally true of the 300mm f4 with a 1.4TC on it. (It'll just hunt a bit quicker thanks to the SW motor!
)
Overall I have found build quality and image quality to be somewhere between fine and excellent and it's considerably cheaper than the 200-400 or the 400 prime. The 300prime with TC would be a comparable price but you'd lose the flexibility of the zoom and I'm guessing here but I suspect that adding the TC would mean that image quality would be similar.
Dave P.