Built like a tank

Buy this lens for the fantastic build quality. The optics are nice and sharp and it's perfectly balanced on my D200. I've treated this lens badly, it's been up mountains with me and to some seriously cold places (Svalbard). I've even slipped and had it smash down on hard rocks taking out a small chip of metal from the casing, the body suffered no dents (besides the chip) and the focusing and zoom rings are still as smooth as the day I brought it, optics unaffected. This lens is built amazingly well and will probably last longer than me.

Nikon Rubber Eyecup

Perfect for the job. Lost mine off the camera and these are just dandy. No other comments as they are just what I ordered. No complaints.

Nikkor 18-35mm AF lens

The second one of these I have owned - the fact that I bought another should say what I think - excellent lens - works a dream on a D200. Sharp at edges and centre. Great lens...

Worth Saving for....

I've drooled over this lens for a while now, read all the reviews reports etc, but was always out of reach. Finally was able to afford it and upgraded from my 18-70 f3:5 DX. To say that I was blown away by the results is an understatement, the handling and feel on the D300 is so right. Yes its slightly heavier and bulkier but it feels right and robust in the hand. Would definitely recommend this to anyone thinking of upgrading. This lens will be permanently on my camera for most of my shooting.
Great Lens - Get it if you can

Does the job but a little flimsy

I think this is necessary if you purchased a camera kit with the 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens. I would say though that this fitting is slightly flimsy and it is not as deep a hood as I would have preferred.

Legendary lens: expensive, enormous, but so crisp...

The 80-200 f2.8 ED is quite simply the best lens I've ever owned. The price might seem high, but it's worth every penny and then some.

I started taking photographs seriously in 1984, and I bought my first zoom lens in 1986. From then on, until I acquired this lens in 2004, I've always known that I had to choose between optimal quality with a prime lens, or flexibility with a zoom. Not any longer. With this lens, things suddenly jump closer. There's no extra haze, no discernible halo, no loss of contrast. If it wasn't for the fact that I often need to shoot wide, I probably would never take this off the camera.

How is this possible?

Basically, because Nikon chose to reject the received wisdom that a zoom lens is always a compromise. They reasoned that there was a market for ultimate quality, and the people who needed it were willing to pay almost any price and put up with any other difficulties in order to get their hands on it.

The result was this lens. To be fair, the price is nowhere near what it once was. The ED (for extra-low dispersion) optics in this lens are now being rolled out into Nikon's more budget offerings, and the street price of this lens has dropped to make way for the new flagship 70-200 VR lens.

The other difficulties are still with us, though - this lens is heavy, and it's enormous. And with a 77mm screw thread, any filters you need to buy will be costly too. What's more, unless you already have a very large camera bag, you'll need to replace it just to be able to get this lens in. This isn't helped by the fact that the relevant hood adds about another 5 cm onto the front - and don't think of shooting without the hood, or you'll suffer from unacceptable flaring from hot lights.

On the other hand, all the things that matter have been sorted out. Unlike budget zooms, this lens keeps its aperture constant throughout its travel. At f2.8 it's fast enough for fairly low light conditions, and, fully open, gives magnificent differential focus. There's a nicely designed Auto-Manual switch on the lens, which is much handier than the one on the camera. There's a useful macro end to the zoom, which is true macro rather than the pseudo-macro found on many cheap zoom lenses. It takes bright, sharp pictures which seem to drip with lucid light.

The lens focusses quickly enough, especially if you curtail its zoom, for which there is a slide-switch. Use with a tripod is perhaps this lens's achilles heel. The current version has its own tripod collar, but colleagues and contacts suggest that it really isn't very good. I don't use it with a tripod myself so I can't comment. However, an improvement is available from Kirk, albeit at a price.

So who is the lens aimed at? It's a professional lens, and the target market is and always has been photo-journalists, press and sports photographers. It makes a fantastic lens for outdoor portraits, though of course you wouldn't even consider using it in the studio. Wildlife photographers will find it a little short, even when used on a digital camera which gives a 1.5x magnification factor, effectively making it 103-300 mm.

To cap it all, using this lens with a D100, D1, D2, F100 or F5 allows you to register with Nikon as a 'professional' and gives you access to their fast-track servicing.

Sorry, didn't I mention that? If you invest in a lens like this, you will need to have it serviced from time to time to keep it in premium condition. If you make your living from pictures, you will find it money well spent.

Nikon AF 24-85mm

This lens didn't disappoint, living up to its reputation. The seller supplied the item as described and took a lot of care to carefully pack the lens and post it within a very short time. To be recommended.

Nikon does its own thing!

You would think that if you bought a lens marked +1, that is what you would get. In most cases you would, but there is always someone who has to be different. Nikon labels its eyepiece correction lenses according to the total effect, including the -1 in the camera, so what is actually in the packet is a +2 dioptre lens, because two (actual lens) minus one (in camera) equals one (total effect) right? If you want an actual +1 lens, you have to buy one marked 0 (zero)! Obviously Nikon never heard of the Trades Descriptions Act. Not a lot of people know about this weird method of marking, including those in the camera shops I spoke to, Jessops among them. Another thing, Nikon cameras display exposure compensation and exposure error, with positive to the left. Noone else in the world draws any kind of diagram with positive to the left. Why do some people have to go out of their way to be different, even when a world-wide standard has been established for hundreds of years? Of course I had to send the lens back. I did not get an e-mail about it and had to phone, all a big waste of time. It turned out that the reason I did not get an e-mail, was that I had blocked Amazon, because they send me so much spam. The product gets a one star rating (zero is not allowed) because it was useless to me. If it does happen to be what you need, there will be nothing wrong with it. In the end, I bought a pair of +1 glasses from Poundland and cut down a lens to fit.