athreya@iap.fr wrote in message <6dssfm$7b3$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...

>I primarily photograph close-ups of wildlife (butterflies, flowers, snakes
>etc). I have so far worked with the Nikkor 55mm micro (great lens). I want to
>shift to a longer lens to avoid spooking the animals so that the time spent on
>getting a photograph goes down.
>
>I had decided on buying the 200/4 ED-IF AF. Now I notice that there is the new
>70-180/4.5-5.6 ED-D AF lens.
[........]

In addition to the other posts on this, you may find my article on these
lenses of interest... (under "I babble", on my web page). BTW, though the
zoom would appear very slow at its long end, for macro it is actually
quite fast since the effective aperture changes little with focus
(the zoom is almost as fast as the 105mm f2.8 macro at its closest
focus - but, alas, as a result the effective FL is also not much greater).
As others have pointed out, the 200 is rather awkward to handle, but
provides the greatest space between you and the subject; the 70-180 is
great on a tripod for easy reframing, but doesn't give as high an unaided
magnification; it may be worth looking for a good sample (these vary) of
the MF 200mm Micro-Nikkor, since it is much more compact, cheaper, and
it is excellent stopped down even in a so-so sample.
--
David Ruether
http://www.fcinet.com/ruether
ruether@fcinet.com