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I came into work today and was surprised that we received a copy of the AF-S Nikkor 16-35mm F/4 VR. Now being me I could not resist giving this lens a once over.

So, mounted on a D3000 (first camera I grabbed) I had a peek.

Thoughts?
-SHARP - great in the centre all the way to the edges, a bit soft at edges at F4, but very good by F/5.6
-DISTORTION - noticeable, but not bad barrel distortion at 16mm, only seen because I shot some tiles
-CHROMATIC ABBERATION - present at the edges, but very small amounts and not something you would notice in usage.

I WANT ONE!!!

So if you were thinking about this instead of the 14-24 do have a look. PS. Build is very solid, rubber seal is present, both zoom and focus rings are nice...very 24-70 like, but the lens feels like it is made from plastic rather than metal

NOTE I only had a very brief play with this lens and only took half dozen or so photos looking for these things in particular, so I do believe that you wont notice these things as much in normal use

thanks for the heads up cam. everything i've seen from it IQ wise is very impressive. looks pretty big though; i've seen some photos of it next to a 24-70 and it looks to only be fractionally smaller and its actually larger than the 17-35/2.8. to me, i saw this, (being an f4 lens), as an opportunity to have a nice UWA lens that is a fair degree smaller. that doesnt seem to be the case at first glance. i look forward to having a play whenener it lands although the 24/1.4 is infinately more appealing.

Rooz wrote:looks pretty big though; i've seen some photos of it next to a 24-70 and it looks to only be fractionally smaller and its actually larger than the 17-35/2.8. to me, i saw this, (being an f4 lens), as an opportunity to have a nice UWA lens that is a fair degree smaller. that doesnt seem to be the case at first glance.

Chris, the IQ is impressive, but it aint a 14-24. Size wise, it is a lot lighter (to me anyway) than then the 24-70 athought roughly the same size....it does have a rather pathetic looking hood, just like the 70-200mm VR II.

photozones review is up and its pretty lukewarm.
http://www.photozone.de/nikon_ff/492-ni ... _1635_4_ff

to me it reads pretty similar to a 17-40L so i wont be disappointed optically cos i enjoyed the 17-40 alot. again...the size is surprising to me but what i am more concerned about is nikon seem to have again fallen short of the mark in AF speed. this is a brand new lens, it should not be met with reviews that say that the AF is "reasonably fast".

if the 24/1.4 is going to get the same sort of lukewarm response in the AF stakes then bloody hell...

Well can I note that it looks really good on DX!!!

I think we all had really high hopes with this lens after the 14-24 so it is not unlikely that it doesnt meet those expectations. I cant wait till more reviews come out.

I was thinking of down grading and economizing to the 16-35 from the 14-24 and 17-35. Look forward to more feedback on this lens also.

MATT