|
Nikkor AF-S 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED - Review / Test Report |
|
Lens Reviews -
Nikon / Nikkor (APS-C)
|
|
Page 1 of 2
Review by Klaus Schroiff, published July 2006
Lens kindly provided by Axel Rademacher!
Introduction
The Nikkor AF-S 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED is a lens with a rather short history.
Despite being released in 2002 it is already discontinued according to nikonimaging.com.
Seems as if Nikon didn't want to afford two 24-85mm variants (three if you also count
the 24-120mm VR) so they decided in favor of the older and more expensive but also
slightly faster AF 24-85mm f/2.8-4D IF. However, the AF-S 24-85mm IF-ED is still easily
available in many shops.
It is a full format lens and as such usable on all Nikon SLRs that are compatible
to G class lenses without aperture ring.
Within the scope we'll have a look how the lens performs on the Nikon D200 (APS-C DSLR)
where its field-of-view is equivalent to 36-128mm on full-frame cameras. It's quite obvious
that the 1.5x crop factor is a little unfortunate here because the lens looses its interesting
(moderate) ultra-wide character but it can be still considered as a standard zoom.
Despite the quite extensive usage of plastics the build quality is pretty decent for a consumer
grade zoom. Both the focus and zoom ring operate fairly smooth across the range. As you can
see in the product shot above the lens uses a duo-cam design to extends towards the long end
of the zoom range. Thanks to IF (Internal focusing) the front element does not rotate so using
a polarizer is no problem. A silent-wave (ultrasonic) AF motor provide very fast and near-silent
AF operations.
| Specifications |
|---|
| Equiv. focal length | 36-127.5 mm (full format equivalent) |
| Equiv. aperture | f/5.3-f/6.8 (full format equivalent, in terms of depth-of-field) |
| Optical construction | 15 elements in 12 groups inc. 1 ED and 1 aspherical element |
| Number of aperture blades | 7 (rounded) |
| min. focus distance | 0.38 m (max. magnification ratio 1:4.7) |
| Dimensions | 73 x 73 mm |
| Weight | 415 g |
| Filter size | 67 mm (non-rotating) |
| Hood | Nikon HB-26 (supplied), petal-shaped |
| Other features | Lens provides distance (D). |
|
