AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

Great lens for general use, excellent color rendering. This is my main lens for my D3s, I use for portraiture and general events. very fast and sharp in focus in any situation. Would be great if VR add on to the lens but, may not be neccessary. Hand held shot this lens with my D3s all day and got very good result in each picture, no hand shake or motion blur. I am very very happy that I made the right decision to buy this lens, I could not ask for any thing else more for this lens, it is great lens. You would not be disappointed.

Excellent lens, not much more to had.
Wish Nikon would come with more focal fix lens using Nano glass.

VR2 would have been nice to have on this lens for low light use.

This lens has absolutely stellar optics. Its crispness and contrast make images feel three-dimensional. I am simply stunned with the quality of the images I get from it.

We´ve all seen the reviews from magazines and websites. I have owned this lens for 6 months and am consistantly amazed and satisfied with the performance on my D700 and D300. You will be too.

This lens does it all. Outstanding in low light, sharp across the whole zoom range. This lens is intended for full-frame cameras, but I pair it with my D300, and find that I use this lens most of the time. It is obviously even more impressive on a DX body.

There really are only two drawbacks with this lens:

1 - Size/weight

2 - Cost

It´s my main lens on the D700. It´s almost perfect. The only problem with it is a (probably rare) ´´light leak´´ effect. I ´´fixed´´ it by applying a tape on the distance window.
I don´t see other drawbacks at the moment. IMO it´s the best all-around lens you can find today. I enjoy every moment using it. Its IQ never disappointed me.

I tested this lens on my D300 after purchase, expecting to shoot landscapes during the testing. I came upon a swan, and worked myself down to the bank close enough to get some shots. I was amazed at the sharpness of the lens. Beads of water stood out crisply on the swan´s feathers.

This lens does show some CA with objects against the sky, but I´ve not found a lens that doesn´t, no matter the price. It doesn´t show as much CA as some.

I would recommend this lens to anyone. Someday when I get a FF camera, the D800, 18 megapixel one (haha), the 24-70 will be a headliner in my arsenal.

I´ve had 2 AFS 24-70 f/2.8 lenses in my career as a pro photographer.

The first one was dropped by my assistant at an on site shoot; even though physically the lens got away with the fall seemingly unbruised, the metal barrel got slightly crumpled, which jammed the AF system. I decided to replace it after something like 3 years of excellent results, since the Nikon Service here at Chile is really lame. I decided that I would rather get a new one than risk working with repaired lens that does not give me 100% confidence.

This lens is my butter; the bread is my Nikon D700. I could probably survive to 90% of my shooting assignments with this lens alone. Architecture, Landscapes, portraits, sports, products... you name it, this lens will do it.

Until the advent of the FX format, the 24-70 had only one Major fault, in my opinion; a fault which Nikon curiously neglected to mention in their press releases and marketing information. This fault is the fact that this lens, in difference to other pro Nikkors as the 70-200 f/2.8 AFS VR, is not an INNER ZOOM lens. It is an INNER Focus lens, ok; but zooming in or out will change the size and balance of the lens which is something I did not expect in a US $2k glass.

Now that I am using it again in the real world FX format -and not in the absurd DX format- I have found that this lens has a very distinct and clear vignetting issue. Off course that shooting NEF and some fiddling will render this almost unnoticeable.

I have not tested if the vignetting persists in a 35mm film camera (my honorable F100), so I do not really know if this is rather a lens issue or an issue specific to the D700 sensor. Anyway, the marketing says ´´Optimized for FX sensors´´, which is something I really don´t see in the real, professional world since I do have the problem.

The lens is still, aside from its defects and flaws, a great piece of glass.