So we come to 24-85 3.5-4.5 G ED VR.
The lens barrel is indeed made of plastic, but the look and feel as well to denote quality. The handling is on the D800 perfectly fine when you get used to the fact that the wider zoom ring forward and the narrower focus ring is located at the rear end of the lens. If you like working with fixed focal lengths and / or older zooms, so you have at this objective "switch". The zoom ring can move almost a quarter turn and the lens will zoom to this progressive lens that is wider. In other words, the rotation is not linear respectively in focal length multiplier. shortening translated but for the range of 50-24mm significantly less rotation angle is required as of 85-50. For the pure photography that is in my view perfectly fine - for video use probably more problematic.
The situation is different with the ring for the distance setting. This is relatively close to the camera and can be rotated almost 120 degrees. It has a slipping clutch and therefore are not fixed the limit stops. The "translation" has some game, which is quite annoying when going forward or backward rotation. In addition, the ring is not "tired" but quite rough and choppy runs. This is almost impossible a rapid manual focus. This is especially true for a manual "override" the autofocus, which is possible with this lens at all times, but precisely because of the described mechanical deficiencies can hardly be used wisely.
The autofocus works, however excellent at each focal length. There is virtually no "overshoot", but the lens arises immediately, very quickly and accurately to the measured value.
Let's get to photographic quality. I say deliberately not "optical Quality" because I have not measured it. For me therefore counts only the visual impression of the photos taken on a corrected 28 "monitor - of course in 1: 1 pixel representation (please keep in mind that the lens is used on a D800 with 32 megapixels Aufösung).
The general impression of sharpness is good, not to say, surprisingly well. The sharpness towards the edges waste at maximum aperture at all focal lengths is not a particular problem, to say, he is clearly present, but not subjectively disturbing than a Nikkor 24-70 2.8 at f 4! Incidentally, I also feel the sharpness as quite equal to the 24-70. Are dimmed sharpness conditions at the edges of course better - here that is a little clearer in the 24-70 advantage.
The maximum field at f 8 is pretty good at this lens, but is in my opinion, well below the resolving power of the D800. The 24-70 is also here a slight advantage - but in my opinion no means lengths! Also, this lens is below the resolving power of the D800.
An absolute blast are however, the color reproduction and the dynamics of the lens! Here it is clear that high-index lenses with current compensation of a "consumer" lens may be able to get more than some highly praised and expensive "Oldtimer" does. In this discipline, even some of my older prime lenses fall back - not to mention the otherwise excellent AF 28-85 3.5-4.5.
The 24-70 is here mE par, - a direct contrast can be viewed from imagery determine beyond doubt.
Present but never a problem is a distortion of the lens at the extreme focal lengths, - the circuit is flat and not wavy or otherwise uncorrectable "crooked". I was, frankly, surprised by the still much lower distortion than I had expected for this a consumer lens. I then used the lens of a series of architectural photographs and get absolutely perfect results. The D800 "knows" the objective, of course, and can correct the distortion in the jpeg image. RAW (NEF or) you could previously use in Lightroom the lens profile of 24-120 Nikkor or a downloadable user profile for the 24-85, but that had errors in the wide-angle range. Since version 4.2, the Adobe LR profile for the 24-85 is included; so is the, in my view already low Verzeichnungsneigung the lens at all no problem.
Chromatic aberration and the like are in the 24-85 already clearly present - well dimmed (8-10) they will not disappear completely. With the appropriate LR corrections but again no problem. Visible This is but really only in areas with strong light-dark edges / -Kontrasten.
Last but not least one of the most surprising, in my view properties of the lens: the tendency to "flares" or reflections and / or cloudy in backlight is extremely low! Even with 24mm and direct recording of the sun only a round spot is produced essentially of approximately the same size as the imaged light source (here: sun). The light spot is hardly noticeable, since it is not very bright. Apart from this flare is actually an artifact hardly recognizable: the picture is also hardly outshone and loses virtually no momentum and contrast! Dramatic contrast and sidelight recordings are thus outstandingly possible.
Given the "street price" of less than EUR 500 for the lens you ought to give five stars, but I have decided to deduct a star for the for improvement in my view distance setting. This is in my view not reasonably available, however, in view of the excellent AF in most cases unnecessary.
Addendum after 5 months of intensive use:
The statements made to the lens are still valid. It has been shown that the focal length range 24-85 at the full-frame sensor about 95% of all shooting situations qualitatively satisfactorily covers (Preferably landscape and architecture photography), - which is a lot more than originally intended. Therefore my prime lenses come often no longer used (admittedly from "exchange or drag laziness"). This has resulted in retrospect to three results:
1. During the recordings, I tend to optimize image composition (through the zoom range) - on the one hand good, on the other hand, it often leads to something boring (Postcard) motifs.
2. The D800 enables approximately twice as high resolution as the 24-85, at best, will bear. This naturally arouses the desire for an adequate lens! The Nikkor 24-70 brings only marginally more (see above) and lacks a VR; - The additional motion blur to a minimum of 1 / 200s should make the advantage of a somewhat higher optical resolution in most cases canceled out. It is time that manufacturers make time to the construction of an optically high-quality (!) 24 (70/80/85) with VR, which takes the optical possibilities of D800 as default. For that I would like to pay EUR 1500-2000.
3. Unfortunately, the lens appears to be not very good gesichtert against dust. After almost 5 months of use are on the inner lenses partially slight dust visible - and an almost 0.5 mm large lint on the inside of the front lens! It must be said that I relatively rarely servicekit Change the lenses and extremely careful when changing foregoing. The dust is believed to have been during zooming (ie the chassis) pulled into the lens (bellows)!
