The image above was taken with the Nikkor 70-300mm VR at 70mm f4.5. Here the light falls off in the corners to an average of 92.4% of the centre measurement, which is comfortably far superior to the other lenses presented here. The benefit of buying a lens corrected for a full-frame body is clear here, as the light fall-off at 70mm on a cropped DX-format body like the D80 is essentially invisible - a great result here for the 70-300mm VR. Note: the scores for the DX 18-135mm and DX 18-200mm are also included here for completeness, but can't be fairly compared to the two telephoto zooms due to their much wider short focal lengths. The more relevant comparison is below when all four are zoomed-in.

The image above was taken with the Nikkor 70-300mm VR at 300mm f5.6. Here the light falls off in the corners to an average of 84.2% of the centre measurement, which again is measurably superior to the other lenses on test here. It's fair to say you're not going to notice a great deal of light fall-off when using the 70-300mm VR on a DX format DSLR like the D80, although again that's because it's corrected for a larger format frame. That's enough for our studio tests, so let's check out some real-life results in our 70-300mm VR Gallery.