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It's still listed on Nikon USA's site, as well as the international Nikon Imaging site- unlike say the 35-70 AF-D, and B&H has it listed as "In Stock-" are you sure it's out of production?

Nope, but is it usual for Nikon to offer to competing lenses? Wouldn't the 70-200 sales be cut down by the 80-200?
 
Nope, but is it usual for Nikon to offer to competing lenses? Wouldn't the 70-200 sales be cut down by the 80-200?

There's a significant price difference between the two, but it is actually very likely there's just a bunch of them still warehoused from an earlier production run. Nikon's consumer DX zoom space is overrun with competing lenses, so I'm not sure I'd want to hedge a bet on anything.
 
I considered a sigma or tamron in the 70-200 but reviews say it is slow focusing and with gokart races I think I would need fast focusing. I checked out the nikon 80-200, cheaper than the 70-200, what are the drawbacks? They say as long as I have a good lens I can get a lower end camera, what would be the lowest of the lower ends to buy? Thanks....
 
I considered a sigma or tamron in the 70-200 but reviews say it is slow focusing and with gokart races I think I would need fast focusing. I checked out the nikon 80-200, cheaper than the 70-200, what are the drawbacks? They say as long as I have a good lens I can get a lower end camera, what would be the lowest of the lower ends to buy? Thanks....

I have the Sigma 70-200 f2.8, and it's been great for me. Focusing speed is fine, I've had no complaints.
 
If your shots are like the one above, focusing speed isn't that important, your working distance is pretty long, so you will have some depth of field and you will be primarily shooting one corner. Just set the focus at the beginning of the night and shoot away.
 
If your shots are like the one above, focusing speed isn't that important, your working distance is pretty long, so you will have some depth of field and you will be primarily shooting one corner. Just set the focus at the beginning of the night and shoot away.

That's what I did in the manual focus days when shooting auto racing. I would set up at a picturesque corner, stop the lens down to get enough depth of field to reduce the need for perfect focus, prefocus, then shoot away.
 
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