On Sat, 25 Apr 1998 19:25:46 +0800, Antoine ELINIK wrote:

>Any comments about the new 28-200mm Nikon Lens ?
>Is it good or not ?
>What is its price ?
>Antoine_elinik@hotmail.com

I posted this a few weeks back on this roughly-$600 Nikkor:


My First Impressions of ONE SAMPLE of
the Nikkor 28-200mm f3.5-5.6 AF-D Zoom:

The Nikkor 28-200mm f3.5-5.6 is similar in size, weight,
and appearance to the Nikkor 24-120mm f3.5-5.6 zoom. A
large ring is used for zoom (there is a slight tendency
to self-zoom when the lens is held vertical - not a big
deal...), a smaller front-placed ring is used for manual
focus (the turn is swift and short-throw, making manual
focus a bit difficult at the longer FLs - and the focus
is well-damped, but not as smooth as is usual for Nikkors).
Filter size is 72mm, the same as it is on the Nikkor
24-120mm f3.5-5.6. Minimum focus distance changes with FL,
being 2.8' at 28mm, 3.9' at 35mm, and 4.9' from 50 to
200mm (decent, but not as close as the 1.5' throughout
with the 24-120mm). FL reduces with closer focus.
Distortion is not high, but about the highest I have seen
in a Nikkor. Barrel distortion was fairly noticeable at
28mm; at 35mm there was virtually no linear distortion; at
40-50mm pincushion distortion was very slight; at 70-105mm
pincushion distortion was slight but noticeable; at
135-200mm pincushion distortion (the least desireable
type...) was not high but was quite noticeable. The lens
was slightly varifocal, with slightly greater-than-infinity
focus possible (!! ;-) from 28 to about 40mm with this
sample (this is not at all unusual with Nikkor zooms - but
one should therefore ignor the advice of the instruction
booklet to focus at a longer FL than one is going to use).
I made no attempt to check for flare or ghosting with this
lens. A large lens shade is included with the lens.

A quick film check of this ONE SAMPLE TRIED of the Nikkor
28-200mm f3.5-5.6 zoom (optical characteristics can vary
considerably from sample to sample with wide-range zooms!),
showed (at infinity focus - sharpness at the edges around
the 5' focus distance was generally a bit worse than at
infinity focus at f5.6, though still quite good over most
of the frame):
** 28mm - f5.6, slight optical misalignment (not
uncommon in wide-angle zooms), good sharpness to just
short of the far edges; f11, good short of the far
corners, which were not terrible.
** 35mm - f5.6, very slight misalignment, good sharpness
short of the corners; f11, good short of far corners
(which are OK).
** 40mm - f5.6, very slight misalignment, good short
of far corners.
** 50mm - f5.6, good to corners; f11, very good to
far corners.
** 70mm - f5.6, very good to corners; f11, very good
to far corners.
** 85mm - f5.6, very good to corners.
** 105mm - f5.6, good to corners; f11, good to corners.
** 135mm - f5.6, OK to corners but noticeably less
sharp than at 105mm.
** 180-200mm - f5.6, so-so overall but worse at edges;
f11, slightly better but not great performance.

Conclusions:
This lens is a competent compact zoom that may serve
the purposes of some for a compact travel lens, though
it would not please the sharpness nut except maybe
around 40-105mm. Performance is not terrible elsewhere,
and is not much worse than with several other
wide-to-tele Nikkor zooms (though it is not up to the
very good Nikkor 24-120mm), but I (sharpness nut that
I am...) would not choose to use this zoom in
preference to fixed FL Nikkors or better Nikkor zooms.
(The misalignment noted was less than is common in WA
zooms, and was not a real problem in this sample.)