I have a Nikon F4 and am in the market for another lens. I'm considering a comprehensive 28-200 AF zoom. The choices are Nikon, of course, Tamrom's new Super-Zoom, Tokina's version...help! which one should I seriously consider and why? Should I avoid any like the plague? Should I forget this idea all together and get several seperate lenses? Any imput will be appreciated. Thanks, D.Young

-- D.Young (Aleedar@excite.com), February 14, 1999

Answers

Nikon, Tokina, Tamron and others make some very good lenses. Unfortunately none of the lenses you are considering matches the F4 in quality. A 28-200 lens compromises a lot in speed and quality when compared to a 28-70 and a 70-200 lens. A 28-200 would be more apropriate with a Nikon N50, N60 or even N70. It really just depends on how you are planning to use the lens.

-- Pete Camarena (camarena@inreach.com), February 14, 1999.

Do you want good photos or mushy images with flare problems and low contrast? The 28-200 zooms are consumer toys made for people who never plan to enlarge past the proofs they get from their drugstore's one-hour lab. If you are serious enough about photography to find this forum, avoid these lenses and go for prime lenses or at least get Nikon's pro model zooms.

When I was a photographer at the Kerrville Folk Festival I used a Canon F1 with Canon prime lenses. One of the tourists liked my photos, so showed up one year with a new F1 and a Vivitar zoom lens. He never did figure out why his images were poor, despite the many times I told him his lens was a good paperweight but useless for location shooting.

I had a Tamron 28-200 for about 18 months. It was OK for small prints, but too soft for 8x10 prints (and I always use a tripod).

-- Darron Spohn (dspohn@clicknet.com), February 16, 1999.

IF you want maximim quality from zoom lenses, stick with the fixed aperture pro zooms. I own the 80-200 f2.8 ED AF and it can produce sharp 16x20 prints(80 to 100 lp/mm), comparable to nikons best primes. The only lens I own that surpasses the 80-200 is my 55 micro-nikkor at f11.

I understand that the 35-70? f2.8 zoom is excellen and I plan to pick one up some day, if a contimue to invest in 35mm (All my $ are into MF at this point)

-- Gene Crumpler (nikoguy@emji.net), February 21, 1999.

Sorry, the above post has an incorrect e-mail address

-- Gene Crumpler (nikonguy@emji.net), February 21, 1999.

I fell pray to the trap myself once. I had been using Vivitar primes (not exactly pro quality glass here)and decided to break out and get one of those Tokina 28-200s. I duplicated shots taken with my old Vivitar prime and was extremely let down at the quality of the images with the Tokina even at 4X6. More than the sharpness issue was the lack of contrast and color rendition given. I've learned a lot that day about the difference the lens (not the camera) makes and began critically evaulating my Vivitars. Today, all my lenses are Nikon primes and one zoom, the new 28-105 for which I've been (surprisingly) very impressed.

-- JLee (jlee@sccoast.net), May 04, 1999.