Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 AF-D

 

 

Every photographer has one of these—a favorite lens. Something that we just love to use, and no matter what anyone else has to say, we keep using it. Welcome to the review of my favorite, most used, most abused, most profitable, most…everything lens that I have ever owned.

 

 

I’m going to say this upfront: I’m tired of shooting product photos in a white box, and trying to outsource the photos has turned into a major headache. So, I’m going to post just normal, everyday photos of the lens with the shots that the lens produces, because at the end of the day, most of us are only concerned with the quality of the image the lens produces. My lens is really weathered, beaten down, scratched, and abused over a period of 9 years of professional use. This lens has gone to war with me, and it has survived. This is the toughest lens I have ever had, and even though it is close to falling apart on me, it still keeps ticking over, making money with shots that leave me very reluctant to retire it.

 

 

So, let’s go over the many reasons why I absolutely love this lens, and the best place to start is with its design. The build quality of this lens is insane. It is constructed entirely out of metal and put together in Japan, not outsourced to the cheapest labor market possible like so many of today’s lenses. So, how tough is this lens? Well, I think if you hit a tank with it, the tank would break. I have used this lens for nearly 9 years now. I have been bashed around in a mosh pit with this lens on my camera, and I have been arrested twice by being tackled to the ground with this lens on my camera, and it just keeps on working. The number of photos I have taken with this lens is insanely large—I take about 10,000 photos a month, and I would guess about half of them come from this lens, so that’s about 5,000 photos a month. If my math holds true, then I have shot about 540,000 photos with this lens. My copy of the lens is so well used that some of the rubber bands on it are coming loose, there is some brassing, and I have gotten a small scratch on the front element thanks to a careless policeman, but it just keeps going. So far, nothing has stopped this lens. As a professional photographer, this is what we want—gear that works no matter what you throw at it.

 

 

If you look at the optical design of this lens, it has a much simpler optical design than today’s modern 70-200mm lenses. It is composed of 16 elements in 11 groups, which is much more simplified than today’s over-engineered plastic replacements that have 21 elements in 15 groups. Lenses today are simply over-engineered, and the way they render images tends to be too flat for my liking. I much prefer the images I get from my 80-200mm lens compared to the 70-200mm lenses.

 

 

This lens is completely mechanical—no focusing motor, no VR, just pure mechanical engineering at its best. This is great because almost all my Nikon lenses with focus motors in them have burned out after a couple of years. I love that this lens has nothing to get in its way. The downside to this is that the auto-focus is driven by your camera, so you need a good camera to get the best out of the auto-focus. If you are shooting with one of the cheaper DX bodies, this lens will not auto-focus. The lens design itself is good. You’ve got your aperture ring (thank God, I absolutely hate G lenses), another ring in the middle of the lens to set manual or autofocus, and a limit switch at the front of the lens. Very basic layout, and that is why this lens is a tank. There is nothing to weaken the lens.

 

 

 

The lens is well-balanced and feels good on all the full-frame bodies that I put it on, but it did feel front-heavy once I put it onto a DX camera. Zooming the lens is fantastic; the zoom provides just enough resistance while remaining smooth. It’s easy to work with, and you can change from 80mm to 200mm very quickly as well. Speaking of 200mm, this is a true 200mm lens, unlike the 70-200mm, which can really be a 70-180mm depending on the focus distance.

 

 

So let’s start with the auto-focus. The auto-focus of the lens is largely influenced by the camera you are using. With my D700, the lens focuses well, but it is not a speed demon. When I put the lens on my D3s, the focus is substantially better. Still, it would lose to a lens with a focus motor built into the lens, but not by much. The good thing about the focus system with this lens is that there is no hunting around. The lens focuses on the focus point quickly. I have never missed a shot because the auto-focus was too slow on this lens.

 

 

This lens is definitely good at focusing in low light. It does not hunt around in the dark or get distracted easily by bright lights in the background. So, in dark situations, this is my go-to lens. You can speed up focusing on this lens using the limit switch at the top of the lens. If you switch on the focus limiter, then the focus will be limited to 9 feet (2.7m) to infinity. This does speed up auto-focus by about 15%, but anything within the 9-foot radius will not be able to get a focus lock, so only use this option when you are sure that your subjects will be far away.

 

 

Speaking of auto-focus, I have used the lens on my D300, D700, D3, D3s, and D4, and I thought the lens focuses extremely well and quickly. Maybe not as quickly as a lens with an auto-focus motor, but it was still within the usable range. I never once found myself cursing the auto-focus for being too slow. Of course, these results will vary depending on the body you are using, as the camera body is driving the auto-focus. So, focus speed is not a problem, but noise is a problem if you shoot in a quiet environment. The screw drives on cameras are noisy. There is just no getting around that. A lens with a silent wave motor will make almost no sound when auto-focusing, and in comparison, this lens sounds like a raging bull. However, the noise is all generated by your camera, not the lens.

 

 

The image quality from this lens is excellent. It is sharp, has good contrast, and just enough sharpness that you will always be happy. Whenever I shoot a show and look at the images, I am never disappointed. The lens is really sharp across the frame, even when shot wide open. I have never taken a photo and thought, “Well, if only the corners were a little bit sharper.” I have absolutely no complaints about this lens’s sharpness. I have read some people say that this lens is soft, but this is my second copy of this lens and both of my copies were very sharp. I would say it is just as sharp as my new Tamron lens, and only my Nikon 50mm f/1.2 lens stopped down at f/2.8 is sharper than this lens.

 

 

The lens has very little vignetting, and it is almost impossible to spot. The same can be said for chromatic aberrations. There are very few chromatic aberrations in any of the frames that I have shot. I have never shot this lens specifically looking for chromatic aberrations, but in my work, I have never found any. However, as good as I think this lens is, there are some shortcomings to it.

 

 

 

The lens can flare a little, especially if you are using the original lens hood. I solved this problem by using a larger 3rd part lens hood, but if you are using the original lens hood, just keep flaring in mind.

 

 

I have replaced the lens hood with a third-party lens hood which is much bigger and it has completely solved any minor issues I had with flaring. If you buy this lens, I would highly recommend that you purchase a new lens hood, it is much deeper, it provides more protection to your front element from being banged or scratched and it helps to deal with some lens flare.

 

 

Another downside to this lens is that it has no weather sealing. So shooting in the rain is not advisable but having said that, I have used this lens multiple times in the rain with no problems. But it is not a weather-sealed lens, so you risk your equipment if you shoot in the rain.

 

 

The last drawback for some people would be that the lens has no VR. I usually try to keep my shutter speeds around 1/320 when I shoot shows, but if it gets very dark and you have to drop your shutter speeds, most people would need to shoot at 1/200 when shooting at the long end of the zoom range.

 

 

If my gushing all over this lens has not convinced you that I love this lens, let me put it this way: if my lens were stolen tomorrow, I would immediately go buy another second-hand copy. Unfortunately, Nikon does not manufacture this lens anymore, but there are many copies available on the second-hand market. These lenses are an absolute steal and usually cost about 40% less than a new 70-200mm lens. If you can live without VR and your camera can drive the autofocus, you really need to think long and hard about this lens. I would never go to work without it. It is always in my lens bag and always will be as long as I am shooting with Nikon cameras.

 

 

 

Now, you will notice that there is one section missing in my review: I have not talked about bokeh with this lens. Truth be told, I have no images to show for that aspect. When I shoot models or do band portraits, I use prime lenses and prefer a shorter focal range. I like being close to my subject, so I have never used this lens to shoot any portraits. I have read that the bokeh is good at the 200mm end and average under 100mm, but I cannot give you my opinion on that.

 

 

 

So, who is this lens for at the end of the day? In my personal opinion, this lens is perfect for sports shooters, concert shooters, and event photographers. It focuses fast, even at night. It tracks well with moving subjects and is built to be used and abused. A true pro’s lens at a bargain price—you really could not ask for more than that. However, if you are a wedding photographer, I would most likely pass on this lens, purely based on the fact that it uses the screw motor in your camera body, and that could be noisy. Like I said previously, this is my most used lens, and no other lens that I own has come close to making me as much money as this one.

So my final rating is

Rating

• Image Quality: 5 out of 5
• Focus speed: 4 out of 5
• Build quality: 5 out of 5