An eventful day with the 200 f2 aka "chubby"

In the period of 2 years, I purchased a 70-200 VR, sold it and got the 70-200 VRII, traded that plus my 24-70 2.8 for the 200mm f2.0 VR. Shooting at 2.8 still left me wanting more subject isolation as well as better overall sharpness, which was why I opted to jump for the 200 f2.0.

I knew it was going to be big, heavy and downright intimidating to its' subjects. My main concern however, has got to be weight. A little bit about myself, I'm 205lbs, fairly fit in every way and hand holding the d700 with mbd10 and the 200mm f2.0 from 8am to 2pm was a total drain on me. This was on top of carrying my D3x w/35mm zeiss! I need to write a thank you note to New York Sports Club in my building.

I utilized the R-strap attached to the tripod foot for better weight balance, and also taking stress away from the camera lens mount. Yes, that could warp very easily with a lens that big. Heck, it warped with both my 70-200 lenses. Had to send it back to nikon twice to get it fixed. A hard lesson learned, thankfully it's fine now, thanks to the toughness of the R-strap. I may need to order the double strapped harness to hold two bodies.

Here are some pics from that event.
Event link

If you noticed plenty of orange on the presenters, I blame the orange (yes, literally, orange) flood lights for that. I tried to neutralize them with an sb-800 with a gary fong diffuser hidden by those plants. It worked in some shots, not so well when they were further away. I could've balanced my camera out to match those lights, but then my background would be out of whack. So, white balance was all over the place.