Seems like a really neat system. Is there any looseness, or can the position be locked down? It seems like a design that might shift a bit because of the plates and joints (which wouldn't matter for most things, but might for HDR or focus-shift). What's your take on that?

Very cool! Congrats and thanks for the update.

You say all the buttons are accessible, but it looks like the lens release button and AF button are somewhat covered. Is there room to get your finger in there?

I suggest that since you are shooting manual exposure mode, take a few trial shots before hand to set the exposure where you want it and then leave it there until the light changes. You can use the histogram to help. I wouldn't use Auto-ISO in a situation like this as there's no need to give the camera that opportunity to fail you. You may want to check though that your Auto-ISO high limit is set as high as possible when you are in Manual exposure mode so that is has room to make changes in case you are using Auto-ISO.

For contrast and saturation, you can go into the picture control and adjust both the contrast and saturation down to taste.

The EXIF says you used AF-A focus mode and Auto-area for the focus area mode. That pretty much let the camera choose to focus where ever it wanted. You may want to choose a focus and focus area mode that give you control over where you want it to try to focus.

I've had the 70-200/2.8G VRII for several years and love it. It's a first-rate lens that's never failed me.

I'd heard so many good things about the 80-200/2.8D ED 2-ring that I recently decided to pick one up to see for myself. It back-focused so badly that even with a fine-tune of -20 the focus plane was still behind the target, and on checking I found that to be a very common problem. I sent it to Nikon twice, but each time they said they had no way to adjust the problem. In the end, I've spent enough money on it to have bought a Tamron 70-200/2.8 G2, and it still back-focuses enough to make it unusable except by using a rather inconvenient trick. It's also slow focusing and noisy.

On the good side, my 80-200/2.8D makes a very nice image when I can get the focus right. On a D800/D810 it's pretty soft if you are pixel-peeping, but if you are looking at the image as a whole, it gives an impression of high contrast and sharpness. Though subjective, I think the bokeh is outstanding. I can see why it had a good reputation on lower pixel count cameras.

I've stayed away from the 80-200/2.8 AF-S since, as others have pointed out, the motor has a propensity to fail, and Nikon can no longer fix them.

It can be fun playing with old lenses, but the fact you are asking is I think an indication that you want a good practical lens. From your list, that's definitely the G VRII. The others are more risky and not in the same league.

Architect1776 is right. AA filters are a good thing, and if anything are too weak. The dual-layer birefringent type filters we commonly call Anti-Aliias filters would be more accurately called Color-Preservation filters as they guarantee that any detail is presented to each of a R, G, and B photosite and is thus recorded with the correct color. Without this filter, a white detail that images onto a blue photosite is recorded as a blue detail, not a white detail. Thus sensors without this filter have high color noise. There's also the problem that information can be completely lost. For example, a blue detail that images onto a red photosite is complete lost from the image.

For the filter to work properly as a true Anti-Alias filter, it would actually need to be four layers and cover a 4x4 photosite area so that two photosites with the same color fitler would be covered in any linear direction. That would eliminate moire.

The rationale for leaving these filters off of high pixel density sensors is the idea that the lens's image being imperfect could provide enough blur compared to the tiny photosites to perform the function of an AA filter. That has been shown to be a bad assumption as even lenses known for their softness still produce aliasing artifacts including moire. Worse, most lenses today are astonishingly sharp with aggravates the problem.

BTW, DX sensors are smaller so the photosite size is smaller for the same pixel count compared to a larger FX filter. That's why Nikon tried leaving the filter off the D500, D7100, D7200, and D7500. The D5, however, as already pointed out above does have the filter. It would be a disaster otherwise. It's also Nikon's flagship body, so cutting corners by leaving off critical components such as this color-preservation filter would be very unlikely.

Architect1776 is also correct that these filters are left off because people buy them, and not for technical reasons. No competent engineer would think this is OK. I'm quite sure the Nikon engineering department has been at great odds with the marketing department over these decisions.

I don't think the OP was pushing it as an FX lens, however, have you tried it on an FX body? Check this link to see what a photographer who had sold all his Nikon gear except a 35/1.8G DX did with it on a D850 at a wedding.

Gotcha.. Thanks for the explanation!

Did you over-sharpen and over-saturate for a creative reason? Can you say more about why you post-processed that way?

OMG! You didn't make a completely useless Youtube video of the unboxing? You're definitely doing it wrong.

Seriously? What group (or individual) doesn't reject facts? That's normal and pretty much universal behavior.

Flat-Earthers are the absolute least of my concerns. Delusional though they may be, they don't hurt anyone, unlike other bigger and more powerful groups that work to control people that don't believe their own delusions and fact rejections.

That's probably more than necessary.

If the OP is considering purchasing the lenses for his own use, he only needs to learn what *his* platform mount looks like. If it looks different, he shouldn't buy. Pretty simple.

They do? I couldn't find anything like it there. Can you be more specific?

These (Newton and Custom Brackets) seem like really terrific solutions that would save both time and money over normal L-brackets. I can't help but be suspicious though that they would be vibration magnets. On the other hand, if they were, who'd use them? Do they have a lock-down knob to tighten them up when in position? They seem too good to be true.

I made 2.1% more than last year and paid 23.4% less in Fed taxes, so count me as a reduction.

There is. I think you'd have a hard time finding a body, whether point&shoot, mirrorless, or dSLR that didn't have a focus confirmation beep feature. The Z bodies certainly do. They also have a fairly typical AF point box that turns green on focus (under AF-S focus mode) as visual confirmation, and focus dot like Nikon dSLRs.

The 50/1.8S focuses fast. It seems almost instantaneous. *Much* faster than the F-mount Nikon 50s.