- Messages
- 3,110
- Name
- Dave
- Edit My Images
- Yes
Having picked up my copy of this lens yesterday I thought that I would post a brief review, I will update it later with pictures of the lens and sample pics when I get a chance to use it properly.
The lens comes in a black ballistic nylon lens pouch that has a padded bottom and top. The top padding has a cut out for the lens mount to sit in so that it is held securely in the case. The lens is supplied with a petal lens hood, which to be honest doesn't look long enough for the lens.
The lens is not a small but balances very well on my D80 with the MB-D80 fitted. The lens is approx 90mm in diameter and approx 150mm long when at the 24mm end of its range and 125mm at the 70mm end of its range. The Nikon version weighs approx 700 grams and feels like it is built like a tank. It takes an 82mm filter which are not the cheapest to buy. The finish of the lens is a black "granite" finish which is the standard on the EX range of lenses. The lens is a fixed f2.8 through out its zoom range and has a minimum aperture of f32. and the minimum focusing distance is 40cm which gives a magnification of 1:3.8 so it is not what I would call a macro lens.
The zoom ring is at the rear if the body and is quite narrow approx 16mm but is very smooth to use. The af can be switched to manual on the lens by pulling the focusing ring back towards the camera body, This is all well and good but you will need to switch the body to manual focus as well.
Although the lens is not fitted with the HSM AF motor I have not found the speed to really suffer from this, The only thing is the lens is slightly louder when focusing, but not annoyingly so. I also found that it focuses well in low light. The only other things that I have found so far are
1. Due to the size of the lens it does block out half of the auto focus assist light on the D80.
2. you can not use the on board flash at the wide end of the focal length as the end of the lens casts a shadow.
As I said earlier I will update this with some pictures when I have a chance to photograph the lens and try it out properly.
The lens comes in a black ballistic nylon lens pouch that has a padded bottom and top. The top padding has a cut out for the lens mount to sit in so that it is held securely in the case. The lens is supplied with a petal lens hood, which to be honest doesn't look long enough for the lens.
The lens is not a small but balances very well on my D80 with the MB-D80 fitted. The lens is approx 90mm in diameter and approx 150mm long when at the 24mm end of its range and 125mm at the 70mm end of its range. The Nikon version weighs approx 700 grams and feels like it is built like a tank. It takes an 82mm filter which are not the cheapest to buy. The finish of the lens is a black "granite" finish which is the standard on the EX range of lenses. The lens is a fixed f2.8 through out its zoom range and has a minimum aperture of f32. and the minimum focusing distance is 40cm which gives a magnification of 1:3.8 so it is not what I would call a macro lens.
The zoom ring is at the rear if the body and is quite narrow approx 16mm but is very smooth to use. The af can be switched to manual on the lens by pulling the focusing ring back towards the camera body, This is all well and good but you will need to switch the body to manual focus as well.
Although the lens is not fitted with the HSM AF motor I have not found the speed to really suffer from this, The only thing is the lens is slightly louder when focusing, but not annoyingly so. I also found that it focuses well in low light. The only other things that I have found so far are
1. Due to the size of the lens it does block out half of the auto focus assist light on the D80.
2. you can not use the on board flash at the wide end of the focal length as the end of the lens casts a shadow.
As I said earlier I will update this with some pictures when I have a chance to photograph the lens and try it out properly.