Nikon 24-120mm f4 G AF-S ED VR Lens

This is a briiliantly sharp and versatile lens.It is quite large, but easy to hold and well balanced. The zoom is very smooth.

The images are very sharp indeed, and the colour saturation and contrast is exceptional.

The VR works very well too. My only other experience of VR was with a Sigma lens I borrowed, whose VR would have woken the neighbours. When I switched the VR on, on this lens, I wasn't sure it was working as it was so quiet. I had to put my ear to the lens to make sure it was working. But it was. It is brilliant!

This lens has virtually replaced my Nikon 24-70 (2.8) for most purposes. The VR and the extra reach are useful while the loss of a stop (f4 rather than f2.8) is no real hardship since in most of my day to day photography I aim to shoot at f8 for optimum image quality (excluding portraits). I read a lot of reviews on this lens before taking the plunge. The image quality is excellent. Perfectionists may cite the added barrel and pincushion distortion of the 24-120 over the 24-70 but it's easily corrected in post processing.

This is a nice lens. Significantly larger and heavier than it's predecessor, but it is a full stop faster. The build quality is first class - it feels very solid with no wobbly bits, although the manual focus ring on my example is a little stiff. This may be no bad thing as it may well loosen up in time.

The optical quality is way better than the older version of the lens. I use mine with a D300 (not a full frame camera) and even at F/4 it is sharp right across the frame at all focal lengths. I did notice that at F/4 there is some colour fringing on bare branches against a bright sky, but this was only on one image so maybe an isolated case. The brightness contrast was pretty extreme so a very severe test of the lens.

With that one exception every image I have made with this lens has been more than acceptably sharp regardless of aperture or focal length.

The VR works very well, just as it did on the old version, and the autofocus is SO quiet that I had to check to see if it was actually working !

One downside - it's an expensive lens and I think it's overpriced, but it certainly does deliver so maybe that's what you have to pay for performance. I'm very impressed with it.

Hugely better than the old Nikon 24-120 lens. This IS THE LENS my D3X has been waiting for! Turns a D3X from an awkward (got to carry three prime lenses around with you) piece of kit into a fantastic camera that's easy to use and produces STUNNING results. What a revalation! Well done Nikon. And no colour aberation that I can see (contrary to blogs I've seen).

Pixel peepers may notice a very slight softness in the corners. In the real world if you dont wear a brown anorak then a first class lens if you want a good range and a constant f4. Use mine on a D700 and it is spot on. Well done Nikon.[...]

I've been waiting for a good quality do it all lens for my D700 for a while.

The Nikon 24-70 was too big and heavy and no VR.
The image quality of the old Nikon 24-120 was just not good enough for me.

The problem with the old 24-120 VR was it was sharp in the centre but soft in quite large parts of the edges - even when stopped down.

I'm pleased to say that while the new 24-120 VR is soft in the extreme corners at f4 it does sharpen as you stop down. By f8 its acceptably sharp in the whole frame.

It can suffer sometimes from chromatic aberration but on the whole I find this can be controlled via PhotoShop or Nikon Capture NX2.

I have a number of other Nikon lenses - 16-35 VR, 50mm f1.4, 24-85 and a 70-300. I did various comparison shots and found:

16-35 vs 24-120 - the 16-35 is definitely better at f4 especially in the corners. Stopped down and the difference becomes negligible.

50mm vs 24-120 - No doubt the 50mm is sharper in centre and corners at f4. Stopped down and the difference is very small though the 50mm stills wins. But then you expect a prime lens to be sharper.

24-85 vs 24-120. The 24-120 wins even at f4. At other apertures the 24-120 is still sharper but the difference is quite small.

70-300 vs 24-120. Again 70-300 is slightly sharper in the corners but difference is small when lenses are stopped down.

Overall the 24-120 is a little soft in the corners at f4 but by f8 its sharp all over.
Chromatic aberration can sometimes be a problem but more so when importing RAW files in PhotoShop CS5. Nikon Capture NX2 does a better job of minimising chromatic aberration even when just doing a batch conversion. I suspect fiddling around with PhotoShops RAW image conversion options will fix chromatic aberration issues.

What I do love about the 24-120 is the VR ( vibration reduction ). This works very, very well. I can hand hold at 50mm with 1/2 second shutter and still get some shots which are keepers. The success rate does improve at 1/4 of a second where most are keepers as long as you are holding steady yourself. VR coupled with the D700's high quality at ISO 6400 means I can take good shots without a tripod even on a dark street.

If this lens was sharp in the corners even at f4 I'd definitely give it 5 stars. As its not I've dropped a star but even so this is definitely a lens I will using very often. It may not be perfect but its versatility makes the small quality compromises well worth while.