What a big and heavy lens! The Nikon 80-200mm F2.8D ED AFS lens is very well constructed. With the supplied lens hood mounted, the lens is really substantial. The non-rotating front allows the mounting of 77mm filters which are standard on the Nikon Pro lens. However, the filter threads are made of plastic, making me worried a little about wearing them out some day. The lens does not change its size during zooming or focusing. I did not use any of the previous versions of the lens, thus I can't really say much about the comparison between the AFS lens and them. Hand holding the lens for a long time could be a real tiring exercise. I guess that what you pay for image quality.
It comes with the nikon hard case CL-73 which is not really useful for carrying the lens around due to its size. However, the Nikon Japan English web site seemed to suggest an alternative, the CL-M2, is available. Could it be similar to soft case CL-M1 which comes with the 80-400VR lens?
The removable tripod collar is well built and provide good lens support on a tripod. I also found the tripod collar useful for providing extra grib onto the lens when I don't use a tripod or monopod with it. There are 3 buttons on the lens barrel which supposedly will freeze focus when pressed. However I don't think I have ever think of trying to use them before.
AFS works well on both my F100 and N70. Auto focusing is swift and silent as advertised. Manual focusing feel is very well damped. It takes about turning the focusing ring ??? degress to go from the minimum focusing distance of 1.5m (4.9 feet) to infinity. The lens carries a M-M/A focus mode selection switch, as well as a focus limiting switch, on the lens barrel. The advantage of the AFS lens is the ability to override focus manually while being still on AF. Unfortunately Canon has it for years on their EOS series of lenses. This feature proved to be useful for me sometimes, but I can certainly live with it. Also the possibility to take the Nikon TC14E and TC20E teleconverters to maintain autofocusing and matrix metering sounds useful. Unfortunately I don't owned any one of them. Should I save a few hundred dollars back then?
| Lens Type | 80-200mm F2.8D ED AFS |
| Lens Construction | 18 Elements in 14 Groups (5 ED Elements) |
| Minimum Focusing Distance | 1.5m (4.9 feet) |
| Attachment Size | 77mm |
| Weight | 1.58kg (55.7 oz) with Tripod Collar |
The lens is definitely pro Nikon quality. Slides taken so far are all exhibit typical what I expect from a Nikon pro glass: extremely sharp with very good contrast. The sharpness of the lens corner to corner is really amazing.
The only complain I have with this lens is vignetting especially when wide open at F2.8. The good thing is that it almost goes away when I stopped the lens down to around F5.6 or so. Usually this is not a problem unless I am shooting the blue sky (which I don't do often) or taking flash photos against a blank white wall. Vignetting when wide open can be really annoying even when negative film is used, i.e. you can actually see the corners being quiet a bit darker than the center!
If you can live with the added weight, this is certainly the lens to carry around. Yes, it is heavy and bulky, but it also rewards you with quality photos and slides. AFS function is a real bonus especially for shooting children, wedding, etc. The downside of it is the heavy battery drain on the camera.
In hindsight, I think I should have gone for a 2-touch version instead since I don't think I will miss the full compatibility with TC14E and TC20E. I tried using my TC201 with it once to make it a 400mm F5.6 lens. However the results were a bit disappointing: there was a significant reduction in the sharpness and contrast. It is usually a difficult toss up between this lens and the Nikon 80-400mm VR lens when I have to choose one telephoto zoom to carry along.
In short, this is an excellent and expensive lens. It certainly holds its place well in my camera bag and delivers great results.