The Nikkor AF-S 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED is a lens with a rather short history. Despite being released in 2002 it is already discontinued according to nikonimaging.com. Seems as if Nikon didn't want to afford two 24-85mm variants (three if you also count the 24-120mm VR) so they decided in favor of the older and more expensive but also slightly faster AF 24-85mm f/2.8-4D IF. However, the AF-S 24-85mm IF-ED is still easily available in many shops. It is a full format lens and as such usable on all Nikon SLRs that are compatible to G class lenses without aperture ring. Within the scope we'll have a look how the lens performs on the Nikon D200 (APS-C DSLR) where its field-of-view is equivalent to 36-128mm on full-frame cameras. It's quite obvious that the 1.5x crop factor is a little unfortunate here because the lens looses its interesting (moderate) ultra-wide character but it can be still considered as a standard zoom. Despite the quite extensive usage of plastics the build quality is pretty decent for a consumer grade zoom. Both the focus and zoom ring operate fairly smooth across the range. As you can see in the product shot above the lens uses a duo-cam design to extends towards the long end of the zoom range. Thanks to IF (Internal focusing) the front element does not rotate so using a polarizer is no problem. A silent-wave (ultrasonic) AF motor provide very fast and near-silent AF operations.

Specification

Optical construction: 15 elements in 12 groups inc. 1 ED and 1 aspherical element
Number of aperture blades: 7 (rounded)
Min. focus distance: 0.38m (max. magnification ratio 1:4.7)
Dimensions: 73x73mm
Weight: 415g
Filter size: 67mm (non-rotating)
Hood: Nikon HB-26 (supplied), petal-shaped
Other features: Lens provides distance (D).

Item No. NL004