Review by Klaus Schroiff, published July 2006

Lens kindly provided by Michael Baier!

Introduction

The build quality of the lens is very good giving you something of the heft and style of those classic Nikkors which is missing in today's consumer grade lenses. It is made of a combination of metal and good quality plastics. As you may notice above it is a push-pull zoom lens which provides fast but also less precise access to the focal length range. There's no wobbling whatsoever in the mechanism which is a favorable quality indicator after so many years. The focus ring operates reasonably smooth but rotates in AF mode as does the front element of the lens - it's no fun to use a polarizer with this lens. The Nikkor also features a non-detachable tripod collar. In theory this is a good idea regarding the rather heavy weight of the lens but in practice the implementation is very poor because the support area is way too small. In fact I got better results during the testing after changing to the tripod mount of the camera despite the very poor balance with this setup. The lens has no internal AF motor and relies on a slotted drive screw operated by the camera. The AF speed is slow so if possible you should take advantage of the provided focus limiter.