Too show the effect of Vibration Reduction.
Lens is the Nikkor 70-200 VR @ 180mm (270mm crop on DX body) @ f/2.8, these are 100% crops (camera sharpening off). Focus distance about 160cm.
On the left 1/6s with VR on.
In the middle is 1/6s with VR off.
On the right is 1/8s with VR on.

All handheld. When you lock focus and give the lens and yourself some time to get stable, you can get something like the crop on the right. Normally you'd like to use something like 1/250s here, but with VR on you can get acceptable results 5 stops slower (1/250-1/125-1/60-1/30-1/15-1/8).