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I don't know what I would do without my Nikon 24-85mm AFS.

I might have "done better" with getting the D70's kit lens, the 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 AFS DX; I hear that it is just as sharp and fast as this lens. On my D70 DSLR, the 18-70mm DX would give me a field of view of about 27mm-105mm. If you are going to buy JUST ONE lens for "everyday" activities such as family gatherings or vacations, I'll reccomend the 18-70 DX.

However, for those who are interested in a more broad focal range, namely if you shoot landscapes and/or architectural photography, let me put forth this idea: The Nikon (or Tokina) 12-24mm f/4 AFS DX pairs BEAUTIFULLY with the 24-85mm AFS. Effectively you get a field of view of 18mm all the way through 128mm, in just two lenses weighing 31.5 oz total!!! For 1.5x DSLR landscape / architecture photography, I cannot imagine a better combination than these two lenses. The 12-24 DX I assure you (or just click HERE) is RAZOR sharp, and the 24-85 AFS is the sharpest lens encompasing it's range. View my "brick wall test" for more details...

The Tokina version of the 12-24 f/4 DX I might note is considerably less expensive than the Nikon version, ($800+ for the Nikon versus $450+ for the Tokina at present) and many tests have shown that they are almost equally sharp, with the Nikon being a bit sharper in the corners at f/4, and surprisingly "a good copy" of the Tokina might even be sharper than the Nikon, when stopped down to f/8! I have not yet seen results directly proving this, but I'm just reporting what I hear...

Do you still shoot film every now and then? This is a HUGE reason to get the 24-85 AFS instead of the 18-70 DX. The 24-85 AFS is of course not DX. Although it is a "G" model (no apeture ring; it can't be used on manual-focus Nikon bodies like my FM2) ...it makes a FANTASTIC partner to my N65. My N65 is similarly light weight and cheap, but yields high-quality results that I have no problem printing 16x24" or even 20x30".

Even top professionals shooting with cameras like the F5 and the F100 will use the 24-85 AFS in some conditions. It's just such a wonderful, perfect focal range to have for any type of film photography but especially for an outdoor photographer.

It is a bit more difficult when shooting with this lens on 35mm film, because at 24mm barrel distortion is abundant. For a shot like this one here, no worries whatsoever, but for shots where the horizon, or any other line that is supposed to be straight, gets near the edge of the frame, it will "bend". If I am shooting with my DSLR then first of all it crops the 24mm to 36mm thus saving me from some of the distortion, but also it is VERY easily corrected in photoshop, when it does occurr. I don't worry about it...

Other aspects of image quality are also wonderful, the ED elements assure that contrast and color are very pleasing. With a DSLR and RAW capture of course it becomes really difficult to tell whether or not a lens renders good color / contrast, because of all the clolor / contrast "in-camera" settings, but in my experience the 24-85mm has given me wonderful results in these areas.

I think the 24mm wide end of this lens, giving 36mm FOV on a DSLR, could not be more PERFECT for creating panorams through stitching multiple images. Some people who try doing this with wider angle lenses will run into difficulty with perspective, but I find that landscape OR portrait arrays of images can make (interchangeably) awesome horizontal or vertical panoramas.

It's hard to explain without drawing a diagram, but here's what I have been able to do with this lens: horizontal panoramas of horizontal frames, horizontal panoramas of vertical frames, vertical panoramas of horizontal frames, and vertical panoramas of vertical frames. Did this make sense?

Here come the sample images! I haven't checked yet but hopefully all these images have their EXIF information intact...

D70, Nikon 24-85mm AFS @ 85mm & f/4.5, 1/40 sec, handheld (I think)

If that's not good color, contrast, and decent sharpness, I don't know what is!

D70, 24-85 AFS @ 24mm & f/13, 1/60 sec. handheld.

A bit of lens flare coming from the sun that is ALMOST in the frame, remember there's that extra bit of glass there so technically the sun IS "in the frame", it's just that you're cropping that part of the image off with the 1.5x sensor. Also CA (chromatic aberration) is noticeable with this lens, but like I've said before I consider this a wonderful tradeoff for a sharp lens, because CA is so easily corrected in Photoshop.

N65, 24-85 AFS @ 24mm; unrecorded exposure, handheld.
Velvia Slide Scanned on a Minolta Scan Multi (II? Pro?)

Lucky for you, I dug up an old 35mm scan, and here it is in full-resolution! This is a great example of how the 24-85 AFS performs on a film body. Quite wonderfully!


By the way, since I didn't post any shots of this lens' performance in low-light:

I am really pleased with the 24-85 AFS's performance when shooting in dimly-lit situations. Firstly, the AFS (silent wave motor) performs wonderfully in even the lowest of light, light that you couldn't hand-hold in anyway so this is moot for me, I never have ANY problems with the AF in low light. Having good, reliable AF is much more important to me than having an f/2.8 apeture, because I so freely increase my ISO to 1600. For more professional, big-print applications I'd prefer to shoot with an 85mm f/1.8 prime lens and ISO 400, but that does not negate the usefullness of this zoom lens in low light.

I should mention however that I once feared that this lens had backfocusing issues, or I feared my D70 did. The first problem is that on the D70, the viewfinder magnification is so poor that manual focusing errors can show up VERY strongly on a final image, even though you could have sworn that you focused correctly. Just attempt to manual focus an f/1.8 lens on a D70 and you will see what I mean.

Luckily the 24-85 AFS is capable of doing one thing that most pro lenses aren't: Focusing and then zooming. What this means is that I can simply zoom in to 85mm, focus, and then zoom out to 24mm, if I want super-precise focus.

If all else fails, you CAN simply use the "focus indicator light" that all Nikon DSLR's have, a little green light that illuminates at the bottom left of your viewfinder when focus is achieved within the selected AF point. This method defies the small viewfinder AND any backfocus issues that may be caused by viewfinder mis-alignment, which is the primary cause of back/front focus errors. This method will not however correct focus errors caused by a mis-aligned sensor.

I wish Nikon would do away with the focus indicator light and simply illumiate the AF point itself when focus is achieved, like Canon DSLR's, but this is a very minor annoyance since I try not to use manual focus lenses in fast-paced situations anyway. I use manual focus lenses for landscape work when image sharpness is critical. (While we're on the topic of MF lenses, I'd like to point out that the 24-85 AFS at 24mm practically EQUALS the 24mm AIS manual focus lens I tested it against! See THIS image at the end of the review for that comparison)

Finally, before we get to the nitty-gritty part of lens sharpness tests, here's a shot that I think exemplifies the nice yellow/green that the D70 CAN produce if things work well. Often (See my other reviews, of the D70 and of the 80-400mm VR) this lens (or the D70) is accused of poorly capturing greens, but I beg to differ based upon this and the 2nd shot in this review. Many times, dis-satisfaction is due to user error!

24mm f/3.5

Okay, now for the "brick wall test". Usually I have an aversion to doing boring tests like this, but my 24-85 AFS is about a year and a half old, and I have not taken good care of it. There is a lot of "slop" in the zooming elements, and even the focus ring, which is captive BEHIND the zoom ring, has begun to slop due to internal plastics breaking, I assume.

So, I decided it was necessary to see just how sharp my lens still is, at 24mm, 50mm, and 85mm. The test results are VERY surprising, showing that the lens is still incredibly sharp. These three full, un-cropped photos are taken at their noted apetures, and in case you can't tell- they're all VERY sharp, in fact it's difficult to tell the difference between f/3.5 and f/11!!!

On a side note, I wish to divulge my processing techniques, so as to avoid accusation of attempting to mislead: All the images were shot in RAW and processed with a bit of sharpening, no more than average. Then, for these three full-size images I further applied Unsharp Mask in Photoshop, at intensity 300 and radius 0.2. This is my highly reccomended technique- high-intensity combined low-radius USM always yields very nice results...

24mm f/8

Oh, and the barrel distortion is apparent in these shots. Not too harsh and easily corrected in Photoshop, this will be a drawback for some but acceptable to others. Personally for the price and the weight / size of this lens, I'm overjoyed to have sharpness like this if I only have to correct for a little distortion or CA... But your preferences may vary!