Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 16-85 mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR Lens

I've had a Nikon Nikkor AF 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5D ED (DX) kit lens for years now, and I've had a great number of lovely pictures captured using it. It's got a number of down sides for me though, so I've been looking around for a, not too expensive, alternative to replace it. My ideal would be the professional Nikkor AF-S 17-35mm f/2.8D IF-EDI, but finally settled on the Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR Lens. It's certainly not as fast as the 17-35, but at half the price it's a great compromise.Allowing for the crop factor, the 16-85mm focal length used on a DX camera gives effective angles of view of around 24 - 125mm. This overcomes one of the minor issues I had with the 18-35mm: It's a good wide angle lens, but I was forever having to swap to my 24-80mm zoom to get the longer view. This lens covers that ground nicely. It's no replacement for my 28-80 f2.8 Tokina, but it's good to have the overlap.The biggest problem I wished to overcome was that while the images from my older 18-35mm where pretty sharp, the barrel distortion at the 18mm end of the zoom was ridiculous. I can correct the bulging in Photoshop if I was careful to make sure that the plane of the camera in front of the photographic subject was well placed, but that's not always possible. The end result is that it can be very painful trying to straighten out wonky lines. There is still a little barrel distortion at the 16mm end of the 16-85mm lens, but even with the extra 2mm focal length gain, the distortion is very mild. If you're not photographing straight lines (alas, architecture is one of my favourite subjects) then you'll probably not even notice it.Being restricted to smaller apertures is not great in poor light, and my old lens gave me problems in that department. I also like shooting graffiti, which is often seen in low light conditions. The 16-85mm isn't any faster then my old lens, but with the amazing VR mechanism built in I can hand hold in poorly lit places with long shutter speeds which would have me ramping up the ISO with the old lens.The end result is that this lens is quite an upgrade. It's wider and longer at the same time, it's no faster then my old lens, but with VR it overcomes some of the issues associated with low-light shooting. It covers the ground that I needed two lenses to cover previously and it's all but removed the barrel distortion problems I've had in the past.Shooting with the new lens is a real joy. The lens feels solid and robust, with a good heft to it. The zoom action feels smooth, and can be taken from the 16mm to 85mm extremes with one twist. The focus with the Sonic Wave motor is reasonably quick, and as yet I've not noticed any problems trying to auto-focus in low light, where other lenses I have had will tend to 'hunt' before eventually locking up under similar conditions. I've only shot a few dozen images through the lens to date, but those have come back sharp, with great contrast and little by way of colour aberrations even under close scrutiny.In summery then, I think for a compromise lens (the 17-35mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S NIKKOR would be great but at around £1000... ouch!) this offers phenomenal value for money at this price. It will undoubtedly become the lens most attached to my camera going forward.

This is my second copy of this super Nikon 16-85mm lens. While using a new wide angle lens exclusively, my wife 'borrowed' my old 16-85 to use on her Nikon D90, she has the 18-135mm without VR and camera shake at the telephoto end was a problem as it was in fading light. No such problems with the 16-85mm, although at 85mm, the telephoto is a touch short for her. Still when I wanted my 16-85 back I could sense its recovery could cause problems, so I did the 'right' thing and bought a new one. Even though I had the choice of all the current Nikon and 3rd party lenses to choose from, I still regard this as the best DX zoom available for the zoom range around 16 - 200mm. Surprisingly, the 2mm at the wide end makes a significant difference over 18mm, but the 115mm over the telephoto end is not so noticeable. Those who 'need' extra at the Tele end would probably be better off with the 18-300mm anyway. One caveat, it's rumoured that this lens will be updated by Nikon soon, perhaps to a 16-85 F4, I doubt it would be optically better and for me the F4 would offer little over the F3.5 - F5.6 as this lens performs best at F5.6 to F8, and the VR II is so good that I can shoot hand held down to a quarter of a second. The increase in price may be the most noticeable feature of a new version. There is a little distortion at 16mm which completely disappears by about 20mm through to 85mm which can mostly, but not entirely, be rectified by post processing. By 18mm it has noticeably less distortion than the 18 - 200mm Nikon at 18mm. This lens really excels with its contrast and colour rendition which I think is the best of all current Nikon DX zooms, much better than my 12-24mm F4 at one third the cost. The lens is reasonably light, it fits well on the D90 / D7000 bodies or the smaller D40 / D3100 / D5100 bodies. It has a Silent Wave Motor (SWM) which is very quiet and very quick; it focuses accurately at all points even in very dim light. With all VR lenses, there is a need to let the VR settle before taking the shot, I never make allowances for this and have never had a blurred picture because the VR hadn't settled, so it too must perform very quickly. In summary, the Nikon 16-85mm F3.5 - F5.6 AF-S lens with VR II is an excellent choice and excellent value for those needing a versatile standard walk around zoom.

I really wished I had not been tempted by the 18-200mm VR Nikon lens before eventually settling on this.....I had the 18-200mm for a week before returning it as I was so disappointed with the image quality and sharpness (maybe a had a bad copy) I then tried the Tamron 18-270, slow slow slow focus, and aperture, so not a great success either, eventually sold it on Ebay. So having been burned by trying to get a lens for everything, I finally decided on a 3 lens solution, This Nikon 16-85 plus a Nikon 70-300mm VR, plus for really low light or portrait situations a Nikon 50mm 1.4 prime. So enough about those other lenses what about this. I have to say I am thrilled with the image quality, pictures are sharp, full of punch and contrast, and the extra couple of mm at the wide end is really handy. (If you are using anything wider than 16mm in my opinion it starts to look freaky anyway). The lens is a really handy compact size, but very solid feeling and nicely built. This lens pretty much stays on the camera 90% of the time as its all you really need. Admittedly sometimes you wish for a bit of extra reach without having to swap, but I have to keep reminding myself that, yes you can get more reach with a superzoom but the pictures are not going to be very sharp. The autofocus is adequate but not super speedy, so you have to leave the camera on continual focus if trying to capture running children etc, once focused on the moving target it will track it quite well so you get the majority of pictures sharp. By the way the 70-300 is also a brilliant lens. So don't be suckered by a superzoom, this is as zoomy as you should really get without too many compromises,