Customer Reviews

Nikon 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6G ED IF Autofocus VR Nikkor Zoom Lens

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This lens gets an unfair bad rap from a lot of amateur snobs and pro-wanna-be's.

After reading all the mixed reviews, I figured at the price it would be a reasonable stopgap while waiting for an 18-200VR. So far I've been more than satisfied with this lens. I get good contrast, and sharp images through the middle 80% of its range. Contrary to some of the negative reviews I've read, focus is reasonably fast, and more than adequate for action sports in good light. Granted it's not a low light lens. I have other lenses for this purpose, but cost me over $900. each and don't have the versatility of this lens.

I finally did receive my 18-200VR, and have to admit it is an improvement due to the added range, but light gathering is comparable, and within the 24-120's range, the two function with about the same results. Overall, average quality of shots taken with both lenses is about the same.

Having said that, even with the 18-200 VR, I still have to use my 85mm 1.4 and 80-200 f/2.8 for shots where extra aperture or sharpness are needed.

In summary, if you plan on having a couple spcialty prime lenses and one multi-purpose zoom, then either the 24-120 or the 18-200 will do as a great walk around lens. Unless you're only going to buy one lens for the life of your camera, why spend the extra money on the latter?

I've been a semi-professional photographer since 2004 and have a huge investment in Nikon equipment including a Nikon 200-400 zoom that I paid $5,500 for. I also have the 70-200 2.8, which is another superb lens. However, the 24-120 goes with me everywhere. It is one of the most versatile lenses I own. I use it in the studio under dim lighting conditions and for most of the outdoor shooting I do. The other lens I rely on for outdoor shots is the 70-200, which I cannot ay enough good things about (although it's heavy). Bottom line: the 24-120 is worth every penny you pay for it. Don't think twice about buying one. My $0.02 worth.

I purchased this lens after trying it by making a series of handheld test images and going home and analysing the results. On my D70, this lens is sharp. Not as sharp as my 105 MicroNikkor VR, but that lens is a tack sharp prime macro. It also has incredible color contrast. It is every bit as sharp as the 18-70 kit lens, and it has the great advantage of the VR technology that lets you shoot handheld in almost every situation. I recently took this lens and my 12-24 dx Nikkor to Cabo and got some fine shots, even at night. I took only 2 lenses because of the airport/customs hassle. That is what these new great lenses are about. Major focal length coverages, VR technology that makes the fast/slow lens issue irrelevent. Glass that is engineered for sharpness and contrast at all focal lengths. Pop one or 2 lenses in a bag and you can shoot just about anything. Nikon is revolutionizing digital photography.

I was first in line to buy this lens when it first came out. It is a very convenient lens for everyday shooting. However, I was extremely disappointed with how soft the lens is. The center of the frame can be sharp, but there is a rapid falloff to softness in the corners. I wish Nikon would update this useful zoom with better optics. Their 18-200 VR is a great lens for DX sensors, but this one for full-frame cameras isn't worth bothering with.

Despite what certain self-appointed web pundits have said about this lens, it's actually a highly useful piece of glass. On a Nikon D700, its sharpness ranges from acceptable to impressive. Predictably, it works best in the middle of its zoom range. I recently compared it pretty carefully in the 50-55mm range with a 55mm Micro Nikkor f/2.8 AIs and a 50mm Nikkor f/1.4 AI. The 24-120 matched those lenses at both the center and the edges from f/4.8 (wide open on the 24-120) on out. In fact, it beat the 55mm Nikkor much of the time, especially at the edges. I've had similarly impressive results comparing the 24-120 to a 35mm Nikkor f/2 AI. At its extremes -- 24mm and 120mm -- center performance is very good but edge performance doesn't match prime lenses or even some zooms, though it's still acceptable. Chromatic aberration is surprisingly well controlled and the vibration-reduction (VR) feature seems to help. Focusing is quick and silent. Admittedly, the 24-120 is a lens with peculiarities -- like the fact that it reverses the usual positions of focus ring and the zoom ring. But it's an autofocus lens, right? Who cares about the focusing ring? Considering the overall capability, convenience and relatively low price of the 24-120, I consider it a strong lens. In fact, I got my 24-120 for $280 as part of the D700 kit from Amazon before Christmas 2008, so I'm very pleased with myself.

This is a quite good lens for what it is: and what it is is a rather slow decent quality zoom lens that does a fairly good job on Nikon digital SLR cameras, which is what it is for. The main downside of this lens is the fact that it is slow and dark--over most of its range it is closer to F5.6 than F3.5. This is not a fast lens.

This lens is better for digital cameras than film bodies because since Nikon digital SLRs use the half-frame format, the digital body utilizes the "sweet" center portion of the lens, for better quality. I have not used this lens on a film camera and so I cannot give a firsthand report on how significant this is. Others say that it is, in fact, a significant advantage of this lens.

The VR helps, sometimes a lot, but VR is not a cure-all for a lens being slow. VR does not affect the brightness of the image through the viewfinder, although it will improve the quality of the picture by damping out camera shake.

The autofocus on this lens leaves nothing to be desired--it autofocuses at lightning speed. Nikon cut no corners here.

This is a very good all-around lens for the user who does not want to spend a lot of money and who can put up with this lens' relatively slow speed. A great lens for daylight shots.

The new 18-200 VR ED DX Nikkor is getting better reviews, and digital SLR users will want to consider that lens as an alternative to the 24-120.

I shoot events for a major university. I use a Nikon D3 and just started to spend some real money on glass. Let me tell you the old adage is true. You get what you pay for. That said, the Nikon 24-120mm 3.5 zoom lens is a very good lens for the money. I have been using it to shoot the events for about three months. Let me tell you what I experienced with the camera stuck to my face all day long. This lens is much sharper then is reported. It is rather slow it's true. However with the D3 you push the ISO and there isn't too much of a problem. There is some vignetting at 24mm which can be corrected in photoshop. The "VR" is terrific and the auto focus is very fast! Just make sure you focus on your main spot in the frame. It is easy to get an out of focus image with this lens if you are not careful! The build quality is good. It is pretty smooth to zoom with and is just light enough to stay on your camera for most of the time. I really like this lens. Much better then the cheap 55-200mm Zoom. That lens feels like it is made out of cardboard! The main reason I just came back from buying the new Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom lens is that I can't compete professionally with the 24-120mm zoom lens. The Nikon 24-70 is much sharper (razor) and the color renditions are breath taking, not to mention the speed. I have tried to get away with spending a third the price and it just doesn't cut it in the world of pro photography! I will however miss the versitility of the zooming focal length of 24-120mm, what a spread! The 24-120mm is a lens I will take on vacation with a D300 and it will be more then enough to ring back some good shots. Most of my shooting will take place outside in sunlight. If you don't need to compete to make a living in photography, save yourself a lot of money and get the Nikon 24-120mm f/3.5 zoom lens. It's a wonderful lens and will always be one of my favorite fun lenses!

This lens came with my D700 kit. For the longest time, I did not have a term for comparison. I finally acquired a Nikon 80-200 2.8 (push-pull), which is supposedly much sharper than this lens (in the overlapping focal range). Surprise - it isn't! Even when pixel peeping, I could not see the difference in sharpness when shooting at the respective lens optimal aperture. Now, this lens is NOT as sharp as a prime (compared with a 50mm 1.8), but neither is the more expensive 24-70mm 2.8.
Pros:
- Good image quality for a 5x zoom.
- Reasonably wide on FX - it was definitely an eye opener after the 18mm typical wide end of most DX midrange zooms.
- good build quality for the money (except for the butterfly hood thread). I'd say this is solidly in the 'middle' class of the Nikon lens universe - in between the likes of 18-55, 55-200 DX on the low end and the fast zooms on the high end.
- VR works like a charm.
- relatively light for the focal range covered
- AF is fast and silent.
- Front element does not rotate - good for polarizing filters.

Cons:
- Visible distortion at the wide end.
- Won't replace wide angle and normal primes in terms of sharpness, but this is the compromise you make for flexibility.
- Slowish lens, but that's to be expected for the size / price.

My only regret is that I didn't buy this second hand - you can find them for around $300 on craigs or ebay - from people dumping them for no good reason. If you have one, I'd recommend holding on to it, it will improve its resale value once Nikon stops offering this as a kit lens.

I was wary of this lens given the very strong negative reputation it had among DX and FX Nikon shooters. For the FX shooter, there just isn't a very compelling Nikon-made modern walk-around lens solution and the 24-120VR hits all the requirements: wide to tele focal length; stabilization; light; quick and quiet autofocus. Now, this lens is not fast and it gets slow rather quickly in the zoom range, but I have found the lens to be an excellent party lens, hiking lens, or general vacation lens. While I absolutely love my 24-70, it does get heavy, and at times you want that extra reach. I find the lens adequately sharp, and produces images with good color and contrast as well. Some have thought that this lens actually works better on FX sensors than DX ones (why this would be the case is not clear). Others have argues that with the release of the D700 Nikon tweaked the optics a bit so it performs better. So my advice is that if you are shooting FX and looking for that walkaround/ vacation/party lens, then give this a try. But do be aware of its limitations and don't expect image quality you'd get from the Nikon zoom Trinity (14-24, 24-70, & 70-200)

Is it the best? No! Is it as bad as its reputation? NO!!!

Enjoy.

I admit to having a love-hate relationship with this lens...

I had the original non-VR version several years ago...now THAT was a soft lens. I sold it on eBay and went with Nikon's pro lenses, but admittedly missed the wide range of the 24-120. Sure, the 24-70 beats it in every conceivable way (it should - it's twice the size and three times the price!), but I found myself lacking that one lens I could comfortably stick on the camera and walk around with all day. For my DX camera, I have the 16-85 (which is also a very, very good lens), but until now, I had nothing similar for the FX body. But every time I stared to think good thoughts about the 24-120, I'd pull out some of the images I took with my older one, and the softness, distortion, poor flare control and so on would bring me back to reality.

Well, one thing led to another and I picked up the latest version of the 24-120, hoping that Nikon made some substantial improvements in image quality since my older version. I also own the very good Nikon 80-400 - also a 5:1 zoom ratio - and I've always been happy with the picture quality it gives me, so I hoped Nikon applied some of this same magic to the 24-120. That, and thinking maybe VR would be a help. Still, after living with the latest 24-120 for a while, I have to say it's been a really mixed result at best.

Yes, the performance of the latest 24-120 is better than the old one by a wide margin - but it's still no superstar. It's convenient, has the VR feature, not too big and heavy - but frankly, the images I get with it on both top end DX and FX bodies aren't all that much better than I get on my point-and-shoot. It's not any one thing, just that very few images I take through this lens have that jaw-dropping "pop" I get from my higher quality lenses. To be fair, there are situations where the 24-120 does an admirable job. I tend to like slightly soft and low contrast portraits, and the 24-120 makes this easy. Indoors with flash and f8 or so, the image quality is also totally acceptable. Outdoors, especially in any sort of partial or fully back-lit subject, and you start to wonder why you didn't just pull out that point-and-shoot.

Sharpness is okay at f8 through f16, and colors and contrast sort of depend on lighting. Darker scenes not back-lit at all tend to be more vibrant. I tend to keep a polarizer on the lens full time to help compensate. The VR system works well, and I can get fairly consistent results at 1/10 second or so at the short end of the zoom range. There's ample distortion at both ends of the range, but nothing you can't fix in Photoshop. In terms of construction quality, the lens is about what you'd expect from Nikon in this price range. It zooms and focuses smoothly and seems built to last a long time - even though not quite to the standards of the true Nikon pro glass.

Still, what are the alternatives? For DX, I'd recommend the 16-85 - no contest. But FX users can't seem to get this range in a single lens at any price. It takes at least the 24-70 plus one other lens (70-200, or possibly just the 105 would be my choice), and now you're into lens-swapping (or carrying two bodies) and several times the weight and cost.

I'd give it a cautious thumbs up, so long as you know what you're getting. This lens is all about trading image quality for convenience - not a bad thing, just be sure that's what you want.