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Mark Malkin kindly lent me his Nikkor 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 AF-D lens. This lens
is fairly compact (at 28mm... - it grows considerably in length when zoomed to 105mm) and
takes 62mm filters. The focus is VERY short-throw (about 1" movement from infinity to
2'), reasonably well damped, and has a "geary" feel. The zoom action is
moderately smooth, reasonably tight, and the lens does not "self-zoom" when
pointed up or down. The filter ring does not rotate with focus, but rotates some when the
lens is zoomed. The macro function locks out focal-lengths shorter than 50mm. There is
very little magnification difference at minimum macro focus distance when zooming between
70 and 105mm. Front clearance at closest focus (1:2 at 105mm) is almost nonexistent,
making using this lens in macro mode quite unlike using a 105mm macro lens. Macro
sharpness away from the center of the frame at 105mm and 1:2 was quite poor at
f8 (others report better close-range performance but I didn't see it - and the 1:2
macro mode feature of this lens should not be taken seriously since it is awkward to
use
and poor in performance in my experience). This lens has VERY low linear distortion, being close to zero
from 35-105mm, and very slight at 28mm (very slight barrel at 28mm, VERY slight pincushion
at 105mm). For a wide-range zoom, especially one including the wide angle end, linear
distortion is unusually low. The viewing image when used with an F3 was rather
dark and
not particularly crisp-looking, which, combined with the rapid focus, makes accurate
manual focusing difficult. This sample showed only very slight optical misalignment except
near 105mm, where it was moderate (the right side of the frame was somewhat less sharp
than the left, noticeable at 10X enlargement even at f11). Center to corner sharpness
uniformity was unusually good for a non-tele-only zoom. At 5' wide-open, sharpness overall
was good, with very slightly softer corners at 105mm, and somewhat softer corners at
28-35mm. At infinity wide-open, the image sharpness was good, but slightly diffuse. At
marked f5.6, the image improved, lost the diffusion, and was good to the corners except at
28mm, where it was OK in the corners. This is very good performance for this kind of zoom
lens. At f11, the image quality improved overall, and was quite good. I compared the
28-105mm with a good-sample 28-70mm f3.5-4.5, and found the two lenses close in
performance, but with the 28-70 a bit sharper over all of the frame at f5.6 except at
28mm, where the 28-105 was a bit better at the edges and corners. The differences narrowed at
f11, where both were quite good throughout their zoom ranges. (Applied to the above
comments should be the observation of the alignment problem found in this sample of the
28-105mm...) Over all, this is a good moderate wide-to-tele zoom, with amazingly low
linear distortion and very uniform sharpness everywhere within the frame at normal focus
distances and all FLs, from about f5.6 - not bad for a 28-105mm zoom!
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