Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 G IF ED

Excellent Travel Lens with Excellent Vibration Reduction. Light-weight lens ideal for travel. Not bulky compared to other zooms. Body is tough with a metal lens mount. Auto-focus hunts a little in low light condition, i.e. in dimly lighted rooms with lens aimed on a light colored-wall, thus, the 4-stars (or 4.5 stars). Otherwise, it is of great value, and the VR is a plus especially for night shots. I have taken sharp photos, hand-held, at 1/4s with VR on. Manual focus is great with very good damping. This lens replaces my previous light-weight travel lenses (28-200G 3.5-5.6D and 28-70/3.5-4.5D). Lens balances well with lightweight or professional bodies. I did not miss focal length in excess of 85mm. I switched to DX if I need anything longer than 85mm. The 24mm is a big plus for narrow streets, and other tight spots. Photos are sharp, with brilliant colors.Read full review

Very versatile, high quality lens I've had this lens for more than a year now and taken a few thousand pictures with it. It blows my old Tamron zoom completely away. 24-85mm is a huge range. It's just so darn convenient to zoom instead of changing lenses. The color is excellent with only a little aberration noticeable with extreme contrasts. It's certainly bigger and heavier than a point-and-shoot camera, but it delivers the same kind of instant flexibility. The "macro" switch is a little cumbersome and mine broke off after a while. I have other lenses for macros so I put a piece of tape over it and haven't missed it. It takes sharp photos, but certainly not as sharp as my Nikkor 60mm f2.8D macro. My biggest gripe with this lens is the barrel distortion at the wider-angle settings. I can never seem to fully correct the distortion in Photoshop and on architecture shots I could spend forever trying. I hardly ever use the 85mm end of this lens and over half the pictures I take (on my D50) are at 24mm. I've never tried the Nikon 17-55mm, but it is highly rated and I sometimes think of trading this in for one. But that lens is much more expensive. Heck, if money was no object, I'd hire a porter to carry around a bag of prime lenses and clean each one every time I switched. But in the real world, this is a great all-purpose lens in its price range. Not to mention that leaving a lens on the camera eliminates the chance of a piece of dust landing on the sensor.Read full review

Great optics, not so great image stabilization durability on my used lens copy The VR electronics on a used lens seems to deteriorate over time as in the case of this lens. For every single picture taken with VR on, they came out a little bit soft. Granted, it was only noticeable when fully zoomed in. However, turning VR off under the same conditions even hand held pictures always came out sharp as a tack. The only instance when I used VR was whenever hand holding and the shutter speed was too slow that camera shake would introduce even more blur or softness.