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Lisa - How do you like that new lens? I've been thinking about selling my 24-85 AF-S and my 35-70 2.8 and getting one. I should just sell the 35-70 anyway, but I pull it out of the closet about twice a year.
I'm quite happy with it. I compared it with my previous 18-70mm DX lens by taking some test shots of the same thing with both at several focal lengths and apertures, and the image sharpness was pretty similar for the two lenses (I recall there were some differences in jpg color and brightness, but I don't recall which was "better', if you could even define "better" for such things, and I use raw anyway). I don't know how they compare with your two lenses, since I'm not familiar with them. If you don't already have a good idea of how good the 18-70 is, there is another thread here where I posted a full-resolution crop from that lens recently (one of the "friend wants a good starter camera" threads).
The VR was good to have, too - I found that at shutter speeds that give mirror slap vibrations (since the D70 doesn't have MLU), the VR *significantly* reduced blur caused by the vibrations, even when using a tripod.
Lisa