Just picked up the tokina 50-135mm f2.8

[9ballprodigy]

Was scouring the streets of hong kong for a second hand version of this lens and managed to find one and paid about 380 usd for it. I'm kinda surprised that tokina discontinued this lens because it seems to be one of 2 lenses on the market that mimics the fast 70-200mm focal range for the aps-c sensor. The other one being the sigma 50-150mm. I played around with the lens for a few days and I am impressed with the optics and build quality of the lens, but I have been spoiled by vr. I guess with a two-stop gain with vr, you don't really need that fast of a lens anymore unless you were shooting portraits and wanted to blow out the bg. I find myself needing to ramp up the iso when shooting indoors. Something like 800-3200 which is something I dread doing, but it's the only way I can shoot zoomed out without blurred pics (at 1/250 sec). This lens will mainly be a portrait lens. Does anyone have any tips on shooting with a non vr lens?

Also, anyone have experience Witt his tokina?