Yes, that’s a little weird, but it’s true. Michael Johnston of The Online Photographer used to be a big lens connoisseur. However, then they became so consistently good and less unique and interesting, and he lost some of that interest. Luckily — for him, not so much for everyone else — Nikon sent him the AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 24–120mm f/3.5–5.6G IF-ED lens when they shipped him a Nikon D700 to review. And he sure has some choice words about the quality of the lens. Check out his post, or just enjoy these highlights:

  • It’s a piece of shit.
  • Despite its fancy specs, this is for all intents and purposes a perfect throwback to the days when even good zooms couldn’t aspire to the performance of ordinary garden-variety primes. Its performance is for all the world like an early-’80s mid-level zoom—smack dab in the middle of the era in which zooms earned—and deserved—their still-lingering bad reputation.
  • It has flagrant amounts of linear distortion not only at its wide setting but well into the middle range, and apparent perspective distortion even near the middle of the frame(!).
  • The D700 could hardly focus the thing—I got more out-of-focus shots than I have with any AF lens in years
  • Its sharpness is lackluster. At 120mm, I don’t think the thing gets sharp. At least, not without stopping down further than I was able to.
  • The deterioration in performance toward the corners is often marked—and not just at the extreme corners, either.
  • Color transmission borders on sucky (I know this from having recently used the 24–70mm f/2.8 on the D3).
  • This is a very inexpensive lens that is not worth half of what it costs.
  • If you innocently purchased one of these and are not lucky enough to be using it on a DX sensor, try to get your money back if you possibly can. Otherwise, stop down and avoid the extremes of the zoom range, even though they’re probably why you bought the thing in the first place.
  • The VR doesn’t even work very well. It works, but it’s the least effective image stabilizing I’ve yet experienced.

So, there you go. Avoid the lens like something super scary that you should run away from, and be happy that Mike has renewed his interest in lens quality!