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Nikon 24-85mm f2.8-4D AF Lens Reviews
By Larry Kopitnik and Walter Freiberger (link to his review)

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Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 13:18:55 -0600
From: Larry Kopitnik <kopitnil@marketingcomm.com>
Subject: [NIKON] 24-85 f/2.8-4D IF Nikkor Review

If a lens could be designated the Swiss army knife of lenses -- that is, one that includes a tool for nearly any situation in one convenient package -- the 24-85 f/2.8-4D IF Nikkor would be it. It covers a wide and extremely useful focal length range. It has the fastest aperture range of any wide-ratio zoom. It's reasonably small and light. It includes 1:2 macro, accessible by flipping a switch.  The front does not rotate when either zooming or focusing (making use of a polarizing filter easier). The lens is internal focus, so it does not extend when focused. This tries to be the one lens that does it all.

And it's a lens I really want to like. My normal "carry-everywhere" kit includes 24 f/2, 35 f/1.4 and 85 f/1.4D Nikkors. I'm not looking to replace those lenses -- they're an outstanding available light kit - -- but to have one lens that covers the focal lengths I shoot most during those times I don't need the extra lens speed, would be a terrific convenience. I bought the 24-85 looking for it to replace my
35-70 f/2.8D, a lens of limited range but excellent optical quality.

For the record, the 24-85 is comparable in size, weight, and construction to the 24-120 zoom. It comes with a lens hood.

First point to note on the 24-85 is that it exhibits significant barrel distortion at the 24 mm end, changing to pincushion at the 85 mm end. Around 50 mm distortion is minimized, but at no point is the
lens distortion-free. I owned the 24-120 lens for about a year (too slow for the type of photography I prefer, so I kept the 35-70 instead). It's been awhile since I had that lens, and I've not done a
side-by-side comparison, but distortion in the 24-85 is comparable to what I recall with the 24-120. I did evaluate it side-by-side with the 35-70 f/2.8, a well-corrected but not perfect lens. From 35 mm to
70 mm, distortion with the 24-85 is much more prominent than with the 35-70 f/2.8. This is not a surprise. A wide ratio, wide-to-tele zoom is going to have distortion. If you're going to shoot architecture, the 24-85 is not the lens to use.

The 24-85 also flares easily in flare-prone situations. Flare is my principal complaint with the 35-70 f/2.8; with its 15 elements and wide aperture, there's a lot of glass in it for light to bounce off
of. The 24-85 also has 15 elements and a wide aperture (and a much larger front element and a wider angle), so the fact that it flares is not unexpected. If anything, with the bigger and more protective
lens hood it comes with, the 24-85 seems a bit better protected from flare than the 35-70 f/2.8.

(An aside: I've tried to make the large lens hood for the 28-105 fit the 35-70 f/2.8, to give the 35-70 better flare protection. It appears that the 28-105 hood will not vignette on the 35-70, but its
bayonet is different, so the hood will not stay in place.)

There is noticeable light fall-off at the corners of the 24-85 at 24 mm. This improves when the lens is stopped down and when zooming to a longer focal length. Again, not unexpected, but something to be aware of in use.

The 24-120 Nikkor is actually a slower lens than its markings. Popular Photography's tests show the 24-120 to really be f/3.8 - f/6.3, or a third stop slower at the long end than it is labeled. Since one of the advantages of the 24-85 is its faster aperture range, it was important to me to see how accurate that aperture is. I spot metered with my F100 a grey card with the 24-85 set to 24 mm wide open (marked f/2.8) and 85 mm wide open (marked f/4). Then I metered that same spot with my 24 mm f/2 closed down to f/2.8 and my 85 mm f/1.4D closed to f/4. Surprisingly, the the 24-85 mm at 24 mm
was faster than the 24 mm prime closed to f/2.8. At the 85 mm end, readings between the two lenses were the same. Of course, the F100 only displays readings within 1/3 stop. But, assuming the prime
lenses I was comparing against were accurate when stopped down, it seems the 24-85 is a bit faster than f/2.8 at the wide end and at least within 1/3 stop of f/4 at its tele end. Very impressive.

I also wanted to check the actual focal range, which often differs from the lens markings. For example, depending on which source you believe (Pop Photo or Photodo), the 28-105 Nikkor is really 28-99 mm or 29-100 mm. Regardless, it doesn't reach 105 mm. The only test I had available was to compare the field of view to prime lenses of like focal length. Hardly an exact science, but it would give me some idea of focal length accuracy.

The 24-85 shows nearly the exact same field of view at 24 mm as my 24 mm f/2 Nikkor. Assuming my 24 mm Nikkor is accurate, the 24-85 really is 24 mm -- or close enough to make little difference -- at its wide end. However, at 85 mm, the 24-85 showed a noticeably wider field than my 85 mm f/1.4D Nikkor. My best guess is that the 24-85 is really only about 80 mm at its long end.

Additionally, internal focus zooms actually become a shorter focal length as they are focused closer. I often use my 85 mm lens close to its 3 foot minimum focus distance, so I wanted to see how much focal length the 24-85 loses at about 3 feet. Compared to the 85 f/1.4D, there is a significant difference in the field of view. I would guess the 24-85 at its long end is actually about a 75 mm lens when focused to 3 feet (maybe a little less, but definitely greater than 70 mm).

I shoot with a couple of FM2s in addition to my F100, so how a lens handles manually is important to me. Most Nikon zooms hold focus throughout their focal range, and are most accurately focused at the
long end, then zoomed back to the desired framing. The 24-120 Nikkor, however, is varifocal; its focus point changes as it is zoomed. This is noted in its instruction sheet. That lens could only be focused
after zooming (not a problem on an autofocus camera, but a major inconvenience when used manually).

The instructions to the 24-85 note that it only changes focus when zooming in the macro range. Since the macro range can be locked out, that is a big advantage over the 24-120. But the focus throw is
extraordinarily short for the long end. It is comparable to the focus throw of a 24 mm prime lens. But when zoomed to 85 mm, an eyelash-width move of the focus ring is a significant change in focus.

I keep the original screen, with split image and microprism focus aids, in one of my FM2s, and the grid screen, with no focus aids, in the other. When using the FM2s, I'll generally frame the image and
focus on the ground glass portion of the screen. But the 24-85 has such a hair-trigger focus throw that I would not trust that I've achieved accurate focus without using a focus aid. I would use the 24-85 only on my FM2 with the standard screen. With that focus aid, the 24-85 can be manually focused  accurately, albeit slowly and with care. This is not a lens which anyone is going to use for manual
follow-focus.

So far, so good. Not a perfect lens, one with compromises (as expected), but perfectly useable if it delivers sharp images. So does it deliver sharp images?

No, it does not. At least, not wide open, when examining slides under a 10x Schneider loupe. Closed down a couple stops images are sharp and crisp. But what's the point of having a fast lens if it must be closed down to deliver acceptable images? Wide open images will likely look fine if all you ever view is a 4" x 6" print. However, when examined with that loupe, image softness wide open was, for me, unacceptable.

My test was this: An open vertical display case of record albums (old 33 rpm records), with their spines showing. This provided a mostly flat area with plenty of variation and type to help in evaluating
sharpness. With an F100 on a tripod, I made two shots at each marked focal length (24 mm, 28 mm, 35 mm, 50 mm, 70 mm and 85 mm), one wide open and one closed down two stops. I used flash so camera shake would be irrelevant. I shot on Velvia, a fine-grained film. I used the camera's autofocus, focusing on the album spines.

Let's note two point here. One, this is not a scientific test. I make no pretensions of it being so. Anyone who cares to call the test flawed I will not argue with. But it gives me enough information to evaluate sharpness for my own uses and purposes. Second, one could reasonably make the argument that the autofocus might be a bit off, given the short focus throw, and manually focusing would be more
accurate. But I would counter that a lens which cannot autofocus accurately with my F100 is as useless as a lens which is optically soft. So either way, the test tells me enough to determine whether this is a lens I'll keep.

As previously noted, distortion was evident at all focal lengths. On every shot, the shelves of the display case bowed outward or inward noticeably.

But more importantly to me, on every shot wide open, at all focal lengths, type on the album spines was soft. It was softest at the wide end and grew increasingly soft towards the corners of the image,
becoming illegible in the corners at 24 mm. The image improved as the lens was zoomed out, but at no focal length would I call the image when shot wide open to be sharp and crisp.

Closed down two stops was another story. Now all images are very sharp, very crisp. Except at the extreme corners at 24 mm, all type - -- even the smallest on the albums -- is perfectly legible when
examined under that 10x Schneider loupe. And even the corners at 24 mm are significantly improved.

I've shot two other rolls of slide film with this lens, not on a tripod, but in everyday situations. All confirm what I found in my test shots. No shot made with the lens wide open has any point which, when examined with a 10x loupe, I would judge to be sharp. However, every photo made with the lens closed down two stops is sharp and holds an excellent level of detail. Two images of a brick wall are
among the most telling:  Wide open, the outline of the bricks is soft. Two stops down, every pore in the bricks is captured.

I just played with the macro feature and did not shoot valid enough test shots to reasonably evaluate its optical quality.

My conclusion? Closed down two stops, the 24-85 f/2.8-4D IF Nikkor is a good all-purpose lens. But used wide open, it delivers an unacceptably soft image.

As I write this, I've just come back from my dealer. I've returned the 24-85 and gotten my money back on it. The 35-70 f/2.8D remains my mid-range zoom of choice. Because optical quality is more important to me than a wide zoom range.

Larry

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Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 15:52:01 +0100
From: "Walter Freiberger" <philres@gmx.net>
Subject: [NIKON] 24-85 f2.8-4 impressions

Hi list, and all those interested in the 24-85 lens

I just got back some films I shot with the new Nikon 24-85 lens, and I think I let you know some of my impressions. I didn't do any scientific testing, I just compared it in real life situations to the other lenses I have in this range. Film used was Velvia rated at 50 ASA. The other lenses used were the 20/2.8 AF-D, 28/2.8 AF-D, 50/1.8 AIS, 85/1.8 AF and a 24-50 AF-D zoom. The results were projected with a Leica colorplan lens.

The first point to mention is the colour rendition of this lens as it is completely different from that of the prime lenses: The pictures look like they were underexposed and/or taken through a warming filter and show a quite pronounced touch of yellow. This goes for all FL's and all apertures, it becomes a bit better when stopping down to f/8 or f/11 but not much. Knowing that Velvia is quite sensitive to underexposure and tolerant to overexposure, I overexposed the next shots by 2/3 stops and got better results. The pictures begin to look a bit overexposed though. An overexposure of 1/2 stop would be just right I guess. Even if overexposure helps, the color rendition of this lens remains a problem, my cheap old 24-50 zoom is definitely *much* brighter, not to mention the prime lenses. The lens contrast wise behaves better with E100VS. Results look not too bad. The difference in brightness to the 24-50 becomes smaller but is still very visible.

The lens reaches its maximum sharpness at f-stops between f/8 and f/11 at all FL's except at 85mm were it reaches quite a good sharpness at f5.6 also when compared to the 85mm prime at f5.6. But generally the sharpness is nowhere near to prime lens sharpness. It is about as sharp as the 24-50, eventually a bit sharper at wide apertures, and a bit less sharp at f11.

Flare behaviour of this lens is good, as long as you use the lens hood. With the sun in the picture it shows only little ghosting, but a bit more than the 20mm lens. With the sun just outside the picture it shows a bit more ghosting, but less than the 20mm prime (with hood) and the 28mm (without hood). Colour rendition in counterlight shots is horrible by the way, with a pronounced yellow touch (also see above).

I didn't test the lens  for distorsions. Handling is good with a nice zoom ring feeling. Size and balance are very conveniant on the F90X. The hammered finish is nice. The lens hood can be reverse mounted and looks quite cool. AF is very fast both on the F90X and F80. MF  is critical at the long end only, but still not impossible.

To sum it up:
This is a nice lens with a perfect zoom range and a cool looking lens hood... A positive point is also the sharpness at the long end at relatively wide apertures which may distinguish it from the cheaper 28-105 lens. But: Its basic sharpness is still not breath taking and the colour balance for Velvia film becomes only supportable when you overexpose it by 1/2 or 2/3 stops. I guess these problems don't exist for print film though for which it is certainly a great lens. For Velvia, for which it seemed to be ideal given its fast aperture, it is a bit problematic.

I'll try it again with E100VS and also with K64 film which may fit this lens better .

Regards

Walter

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