AF Zoom-Nikkor ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens review

General

Many refer to this lens as "legendary". Its family has a considerably long history with three predecessors and two successors. Two successors... so why bother with this lens? Because while its descendants do offer additional features such as built-in motor (i.e. faster auto-focus), and in case of the latest (AF-S VR 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED) model vibration reduction and an extra 10mm of focal length at the short end, these benefits come with doubling the price of the original lens; also, they are about the same in terms of optical quality and you will not practically see any difference in real photographs. Due to this, this lens is a great value for the money (you can get it new for under USD800) as well as a great alternative for those who can not (or do not want to) afford newer models. This, this, and this photograph was taken with it.

The lens has sixteen elements (three are ED glass) in eleven groups, focuses up to 150cm, is 87X187mm in dimensions, and takes 77mm filters. At 1300g it is pretty heavy and certainly not the lens you would take on a casual promenade. Nevertheless, it balances perfectly on a Nikon F100. Auto-focus is very fast - fast enough for any real-life applications. As to its built quality, it is genuinely superb - a couple of times I have had it absolutely unprotected under heavy wet snow with no consequences of any kind. Aperture ring and filter threads are made of plastic but this has never caused any problems.

"Legendary", however, does not mean "perfect" - the lens is not faultless when it comes to light fall-off and distortion - please read details below. If necessary, you can find simple explanations of the terms below here. MTF graphs for this lens can be found here.

Sharpness

Quite frankly, I did not test this lens for sharpness as my overall impression is that this lens is very sharp - I have never noticed any problems with it at any focal length and aperture settings. I do not know how it compares with fixed focal length lenses from the same focal length range, but its degree of sharpness certainly should be satisfactory even to the most demanding photographers.

Light fall-off

I only tested this lens at 80, 105, 135 and 200mm, however, you can easily approximate the degree of light fall-off at other focal lengths, too. As far as this aberration goes, the lens behaves quite interestingly - light fall-off gets worse as you go from 80mm to 200mm, and does so quite rapidly.

At 80mm, light fall-off is visible at f/2.8 but probably insignificant for real applications (as compared with the other focal lengths, it is relatively gradual). Light fall-off is gone by f/4. If you need light fall-off free images, use the lens from f/3.3 at this focal length. For the most critical images stop it further down half a stop.

At 105mm, light fall-off gets worse - it is visible at f/2.8, f/4 and f/5.6. At the latter aperture it is visible only in the furthest corners, though, so we can consider it gone at this aperture. If you need light fall-off free images, use the lens from f/5.6 at this focal length. For the most critical images stop it further down half a stop.

At 135mm, light fall-off gets further worse. It is quite ugly at f/2.8 and f/4, clearly visible but maybe acceptable for some applications at f/5.6; it is still existent in the furthest corners at f/8. If you need light fall-off free images, use the lens from f/8 at this focal length. For the most critical images stop it further down half a stop.

At 200mm, light fall-off is plainly bad. At f/2.8 it rather looks like an overall underexposure; it is pretty bad and would be visible in most images at f/4 and f/5.6, too. At f/8 it is still visible but maybe OK for some applications. If you need light fall-off free images, use the lens from f/9.5 at this focal length. For the most critical images stop it further down half a stop.

I personally always strive to produce light fall-off free images; the enormous degree of light fall-off this lens shows at 200mm creates a major difficulty for me when using the lens at this focal length. It usually forces me to stop the lens down to f/11 - coupled with Provia 100F and normal lighting conditions it means a shutter speed considerably slower than 1/200. This, obviously, gives me only two options, namely either hand-hold the camera, produce sharp images and get over the quite noticeable light fall-off, or use a tripod and get sharp images with no light fall-off. A bit of a pain in the neck, would not you say?

Distortion The lens exhibits slight and acceptable for most purposes barrel distortion at 80mm and is free from distortion at about 93mm (i.e. in the middle of the 80mm - 105mm range). After that it starts showing pincushion distortion, which gradually gets worse as you move towards 200mm. It is acceptable for non-architectural applications in the 105mm - 120mm range; however, between 135mm and 200mm distortion is very visible and obvious and I would not recommend photographing anything with long straight lines in this range as anyone would certainly notice the aberration. The image on the right demonstrates distortion at 200mm. Please also note that light fall-off is also very visible in the corners (at f/5.6).

Flare and Ghosting

In the above pictures the sun is just outside the image's right top corner, in the image's right top corner and its center (left to right). For a zoom lens with this number of elements flare is very well controlled and in real shooting conditions I have never had any problems with it. Many reports as well as my expereince actually suggest that in this lens flare is much better controlled than in the newer 70-200mm model!

Bokeh

I have not tested the lens for bokeh at all focal length settings and at all apertures; my overall impression, though, is that this lens shows neutral to good bokeh - see the image below.

Conclusions

In the 80mm-120mm range the lens performs very well in terms of all the factors outlined above. In the 135mm-200mm range, however, distortion and especially light fall-off might pose serious problems. Keep in mind how the lens behaves in this range so that you can reasonably avoid undesirable effects when necessary.