Nikon Nikkor AF 24-85mm f/2.8-4.0D IF Lens

This lens has a broad range of use and if fairly fast the macro funtion is a little cumbersome to use but works well. I would say it is not tack sharp at wide open apeture and the amount of distortion is perceptable however for an all around lens it does very well.

I've had this lens for more than a year now and taken a few thousand pictures with it. It blows my old Tamron zoom completely away. 24-85mm is a huge range. It's just so darn convenient to zoom instead of changing lenses. The color is excellent with only a little aberration noticeable with extreme contrasts. It's certainly bigger and heavier than a point-and-shoot camera, but it delivers the same kind of instant flexibility. The "macro" switch is a little cumbersome and mine broke off after a while. I have other lenses for macros so I put a piece of tape over it and haven't missed it. It takes sharp photos, but certainly not as sharp as my Nikkor 60mm f2.8D macro.

My biggest gripe with this lens is the barrel distortion at the wider-angle settings. I can never seem to fully correct the distortion in Photoshop and on architecture shots I could spend forever trying.

I hardly ever use the 85mm end of this lens and over half the pictures I take (on my D50) are at 24mm. I've never tried the Nikon 17-55mm, but it is highly rated and I sometimes think of trading this in for one. But that lens is much more expensive.

Heck, if money was no object, I'd hire a porter to carry around a bag of prime lenses and clean each one every time I switched. But in the real world, this is a great all-purpose lens in its price range. Not to mention that leaving a lens on the camera eliminates the chance of a piece of dust landing on the sensor.

Great lens and great price. Works beautifully on the D700. In switching from DX to FX I lost the use of my main lens which was a 17-55 2.8, excellent lens. For the full frame this 24-85 works perfectly and at the moment is way, way more affordable then the 24-70 2.8. For anyone else making the switch from DX to FX loosing the 1.5 crop factor takes some getting used to. On a full frame 24mm is very wide and while not a contestant 2.8 still works great in low light.