lactose

First of all it works. I can shoot 200mm at 1/50second which is perfect, because thats long enough to get some light in the lens and freeze most subject motion. A non VR lens would have to be shot at least 1/150s to compensate for lens motion(depending on current coffee consumption levels). The lens work really slick overall, the manual focus override ring is perfectly intuitive, the lens doesn't creep/slip at all. It is a bit heavier than my other lens, but still much lighter than an 80-200 F2.8. It's a lot like using a digital camcorder image stabilization, except this is actually moving the lens so you can see it working through the viewfinder, this instant feedback lets you learn to work with it. It also looks hard core with lots of switches, gauges, gold lettering and what-not.