Hi--

>Thanks for your interesting review. Do you know how the lens compares
>to the Nikkor 28-85mm AF. I know that the later is not a D lens but sofar
>I have heard good things about that lens too.

You may find my "SUBJECTIVE Lens Evaluations (Mostly Nikkors)",
version 5a, which includes a listing of all Nikon SLR lenses
ever made (with a *SUBJECTIVE* evaluation of many of them, a
general description of Nikkor lens performance characteristics
by lens-type groups, and comments on particular lenses when the
general descriptions plus the subjective evaluation numbers are
not sufficient to describe performance), interesting - and it
can be found at these sites:

-- Jan-jaap Aue: (nice text format)
http://www.phys.rug.nl/mk/people/aue/nikon/david.html
-- Quang-Tuan Luong: (nice text format)
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~qtluong/photography/35mm/nikon-neuman.html
-- Niklas Nikitin: (nice table format)
http://www.cs.hks.se/~nicke/private/photo/lenstest/david.html
-- Leo Verwoerd (plain text and table formats)
http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/leover/nikkor.htm
-- Bo-Ming Tong: (plain text format)
http://www.cs.arizona.edu/people/bmtong/nikon/c.html
(number 13 in table of contents)

I would place the _single sample_ of the 24-120 ahead of the very good
28-85mm in the range of 24-85mm, and it focuses closer - to just over
1.5' throughout.

>The reason I ask is, that after 13 years of using a X700, I would like to
>change to AF and am currently considering either a F90x or F5. On the Minolta
>my primary lens for above water (mostly travel photography) was the
>Minolta 28-85mm which I really like. I understand that the 24-120mm does not
>have a macro setting, but for the later underwater use of the system I am
>planning to get a 60mm or 105mm Micro anyway.
> Michael Rys

BTW, I have not seen the VF screen in the F5 (though the F series screens
tend to be interchangeable, and the F3-F4 screens are excellent), but I
have trouble focusing the N90 manually, though earlier generation Nikons
are notably excellent for manual focus (I think Nikon learned from Minolta
and Canon how to make AF seem more desireable - by making MF harder... ;-).
Also, BTW, I would think the 105 might be a bit long for underwater use,
though I have no experience with this....
David Ruether