Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8D ED-IF Nikkor Lens

This lens is ultra sharp and extremely fast. I am a professional portrait photographer and for use on film cameras, this lens works great for a wide variety of uses, but at 80 mm there are constraints there. Biggest plus on this lens is that it holds its value very well. I bought my 80-200 used on Ebay several years ago and I can still sell it for exactly what I paid for it. With things heading quickly toward digital this lens is the equivalent of a 120 to 300 mm lens however so its usefulness is greatly diminished for the digital portrait photographer.

Great optics from a time-proven formula. Crisp even wide open, low CA and great edge to edge brightness on an APS format SLR. However, the construction, while basically pro quality, has some serious engineering issues, mostly to do with the lens tripod mount, the M/A focus ring and the focusing mechanism in general. The M/A ring has a problem that affects nearly all lenses, whereby the ring cracks and ultimately separates. The result is that you cannot switch modes from manual to automatic. Unfortunately I did not learn of this until it was too late, and now the one I just bought has this problem. Many have written in forums of their experience with this. Also, the focusing mechanism is prone to binding at either extreme. Anything less than totally delicate handling can cause this, or just wear. This is a heavy lens, and my theory is that when mounted on a tripod, there is a tremendous amount of stress in the area where the tripod mount connects to the camera. Perhaps these stresses cause minor deformations in the lens body that cause binding in the focusing mechanism. Nikon has been making this lens for 10 years, and apparently there is no change in the M/A ring - it has not been re-engineered or recalled, and the body appears to be essentially the same as it was when it was first released. Too bad, this lens has the potential to be a 5+ lens, but with these serious deficiencies, it only merits a 2 in my opinion. Reviewers always complain about third party lenses not being up to the quality standards of Nikon. Well, this case, the competition has this one beat, at least as far as engineering and construction is concerned. It would be hard for me to recommend this lens over a brand new Sigma 70-200 2.8 for slightly more money, and none of the issues that this lens has.

While you can use Nikon's excellent teleconverters with this lens, you give up automatic focus. If you want to preserve AF and not lose quality, you can always use Tamron's SPAF Pro or Kenko's Pro 300 DG (these are the same, just different packaging) - you will not be disappointed.

Regardless, with careful handling this lens is very capable of allowing the photographer to capture some truly amazing, professional quality images.

Most of the reviews I read rate this lens very high so no need to take you down memory lane, but instead let me tell you the other lenses I considered, and why this one was the winner over:
70-200VR, Fast and with VR, I could not see spending the extra money to buy a fast lens that can shoot slow too. I wanted a fast lens for just that reason, and I already had the 18-200VR for that type of slow telephoto shot.
80-400VR, A big power lens, but too slow. My thought, was buy a fast lens @ 200mm and have the 1.7 teleconverter, which would take me to 360mm and I would still have a fairly fast lens throughout the whole range. Faster than the 80-400VR, and almost as powerful.
And finally, the 80-200 (AF-D), it was a fast lens that focused slow (sounded counterintuitive). But, mainly I bought the AF-S becasue it works with the 1.7 teleconverter, where the AF-D will not.
Hope this helps…