The Nikon 24-50mm F3.3-4.5D AF lens was the first AF lens I bought to use with my old FM camera. I was looking for a wide-angle zoom lens for some building shots as I was about to visit Washington, DC. I knew that my old 35-70mm MF zoom wasn't going to cut it. At that time, the 20-35mm F2.8D AF lens was way out of my price range. So that's out. The newly released 24-120mm F3.5-5.6D lens looked interesting but I could not locate one from the mail order houses. Besides the reviews of the 24-120mm lens was a mixed bag. Some like it a lot. Some don't. They all complained about the supposedly softness at the long end. In addition, my shooting style at that time involes tons of hand-held shots and the maximum aperature of F5.6 seems pretty limiting. I also considered the 24mm F2.8D lens which costs about that same as the 24-50mm zoom but decided against it since I thought I would eventually go for the 20mm F2.8D lens as my widest angle lens and the 24mm would then become not so different in terms of focal length. Hence I got the 24-50mm.
It is a relatively small lens with a limited zoom range. However it is not as limiting as you thought. The wide side at 24mm is pretty handy, especially for group photo shots at tight places, for example, wedding photos inside small churches. Currently I am pretty much using this lens as my normal lens, despite fact that I got the 35-70mm F2.8 lens as well as the 50mm F1.8 Series E lens. I found the 24-50mm zoom lens balances well on my F100, N70 and FM cameras. Paired with my 80-400mm VR zoom lens, I can go from 24mm to 400mm with just 2 lens.
The manual focusing of the 24-50 AF lens like the other Nikon consumer AF lens, i.e. not very good. There isn't much friction to the focusing ring unlike the manual focus Nikons. Turning the focusing ring about 90 degrees will change the lens from its minimum focusing distance of 0.5m (1.6 feet) to Infinity. Autofocusing performance with my F100 and N70 are very good: both cameras can achieve accurate focus with this lens almost instantaneously.
The provided HB-3 lens hood makes the lens way more substantial than it really is. My friends used to joke around saying that I am lugging around my camera plus this zoom lens like a Japanese tourist. The lens hood does provide quite good flare protection. Also it does work well to control unwanted flares especially at the 24mm end.
| Lens Type | 24-50mm F3.3-4.5D |
| Lens Construction | 9 Elements in 9 Groups (1 ED Elements) |
| Maximum Reproduction Ratio | 1:8.5 |
| Minimum Focusing Distance | 0.5m (1.6 feet) |
| Attachment Size | 62mm |
| Weight | 0.355kg |
The short answer is YES! This lens is a very good lens, despite its price. There seems to be a little distortion at the wide end. However it goes away pretty much by 28mm or so. The performance is especially good when I mount it on a tripod and stop it down to F8 or so.
One thing to note is that the lens is a wide angle lens, though not as wide as one may like. The use of filters at the 24mm end may lead to vignetting if you choose the wrong kind of filters. I have good luck with the slim ones from Nikon and Hoya.
The 24-50mm lens is a very good travelling lens. If you pair it with the either the 70-300mm ED lens or the 80-400VR lens, travelling becomes much less of a burden with no compromises on quality, especially with the 80-400VR and 24-50D pair. The focusing speed of the lens is good, the zoom range is useful for buildings and groups shots. The results are always pleasing. Sharp and good contrast photos are always the result from using the 24-50mm.
The lens is not an AFS lens, thus in the manual the only recommended teleconverters are TC14A and TC201. I have not tried any teleconverter with it as it doesn't seem to make much sense to use a TC on a wide-angle zoom.
The 24-50mm lens also has a macro setting. However it is of limited use because of its wide angle nature. Even at the closest focusing distance I found it difficult to get close enough to make good macro shots as it always include too much distracting backgroud. The use of the Nikon 6T is possible since it has a filter thread of 62mm but it doesn't really help much to reduce the minimum focusing distance and to increase the magnification. Hence if you intend to use this as a macro lens you may want to consider alternatives.
In a nutshell, I am using the 24-50mm lens as my normal lens when I am shooting film. There are some quite interesting alternatives right now, to mention a few, the 35-70mm zoom, 28-105mm zoom, the 24-120mm zoom and 24-85mm zoom. I have both the 35-70mm F2.8 and 28-105mm F3.3-4.5D and still I am using the 24-50mm quite a lot more than those two. I guess this speaks volumes about its preceived quality.