The 70-300mm lens is a telephoto zoom lens made by Nikon. The lens has an F-mount to work with all the SLRs line of cameras (except the early 70-300G with the D40), although the more recent AF-P lenses will not focus on film SLRs or older DSLRs (roughly before 2013).^[1]

The lens comes in seven different versions:

• AF f/4-5.6D
• AF f/4-5.6D ED
• AF f/4-5.6G
• AF-S f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED VR
• AF-P f/4.5-6.3G ED DX
• AF-P f/4.5-6.3G ED VR DX
• AF-P f/4.5-5.6E ED VR

It is the successor of the 70-210 lens, which targets the prosumer market, one grade lower than 80-200mm with large aperture.

Introduced in August 2006, the current incarnation of the lens (AF-S VR f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED) improves on the original with VR stabilization technology as well as with internally focusing components (IF). More expensive than its partner 55-200mm lens, its construction is similar, with the exterior shell being fabricated from plastic components. This is extremely lightweight telephoto lens.^[2] It also shares a similarly stiff zoom ring with the 55-200mm, although a side benefit of this is that zoom creep is eliminated. Unlike the 55-200, the 70-300mm lens is full-frame. Also, the longer barrel length allowed the focus ring to be relocated in front of the zoom ring, making manual focus operations simpler.