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AF 80-200mm f/2.8D ED (Two Touch) Reputation...

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David H. Hartman:
Do you want to buy mine?  :D

richardHaw:

--- Quote from: David H. Hartman on December 24, 2020, 08:35:32 ---Do you want to buy mine?  :D

--- End quote ---

no, looking for a 20/2.8ais but thanks for asking :o :o :o

Daniel Bliss:
I figured I should say something as I've used the lens a lot but wasn't on the site for a while.

I bought the two-ring in 1998 to replace a 180/2.8, owning it for about nine years. This was frustrating, because while the AF was much faster, obviously the optical performance was a step in the other direction; you could even just make it at out through the viewfinder at 200mm/f2.8 on the N90/F90. It wasn't awful; it just wasn't good. Perhaps you could say "portrait sharp" instead of "landscape sharp".  I learned fairly quickly that while it was fine at all settings for newspaper work, I had to view it for anything critical with slide film as an 80-200 f2.8-4 rather than a straight f2.8. This pretty much pertained with digital as well, although the f2.8 deficiency on the longest 30 or 40mm was not an issue on the 4MP DX D2HS.

The background with Nikon as far as I've been able to tell was this; the 80-200 f2.8 from 1987 was very, very good but also horribly slow focusing and only able to focus down to six feet/1.8m. In 1993 they replaced this with a one-touch D that had a slightly altered optical design, able to focus a foot closer, but with this deterioration wide open at the long end. The two-touch D is this exact design, only with the two touch controls.

If you treat it as a 2.8-4, it should be pretty good even on modern gear; however please note that my only experience using the lens stopped down at this kind of resolution is with very slow-speed slide film, tripod mounted and scanned with an LS-50 at about 20MP, for which it worked well; but I have not used an AF-D 80-200 with current digital gear. The current 70-200 FL however is substantially better, not only compared to the AF-D but also to the VR1 and 2.

Roland Vink:

--- Quote from: Daniel Bliss on January 04, 2021, 18:17:44 ---The background with Nikon as far as I've been able to tell was this; the 80-200 f2.8 from 1987 was very, very good but also horribly slow focusing and only able to focus down to six feet/1.8m. In 1993 they replaced this with a one-touch D that had a slightly altered optical design, able to focus a foot closer, but with this deterioration wide open at the long end. The two-touch D is this exact design, only with the two touch controls.

--- End quote ---
To the best of my knowledge, the optics of all three AF 80-200/2.8 ED versions is unchanged, although I can't rule out the possibility that some minor improvements occurred along the way. They all have 16 elements in 11 groups with 3 ED elements. There was nothing in the press releases to suggest the optical designs had changed.

The original AF 80-200 appeared in 1987. It has a one-touch zoom/focus ring with close focus to 1.8m, and manual focus to 1.5m. The filter ring rotates with focusing.

In 1992 it was replaced by the AF 80-200 D with the new D chip. The barrel was also updated. The front element is now recessed within a fixed upper barrel so the filter ring no longer rotates. It retains the one-touch zoom/focus ring with the same close focus limit.

In early 1997 a new version appeared with a redesigned barrel. It now sports separate zoom and focus rings and has a built-in tripod collar, a feature that many had asked for (the previous versions were really too heavy to be supported by the lens mount). AF speed was reported to be faster but the focus limits are still unchanged. This model continued to be produced until relatively recently as a cheaper alternative to the newer AF-S versions and with better backward compatibility with older cameras.

According to this review (http://www.verwoerd.info/nikon/zoom.html), performance at 200m declines at close range so depending on the usage it may need to be treated as a f/2.8-4 lens. Of course individual lenses are likely to perform differently depending on sample variation and how they are used (focal length, focus distance, aperture etc)

the solitaire:
I owned and used ths lens on D90, D200, D300, D3 and D800. I never used it on film though.

On digital my experience was that I had a pretty good copy.
It was good at f2,8 from 80mm through to about 150mm. It was acceptable up to 185mm. After 185mm it was no longer sharp wide open. It wasn't sharp at f3,2 either. At f4 some sharpness returned, and it was acceptable at 200mm.

Focus accuracy was good at 80-185mm. After that, focus accuracy wasn't that hot either. Possibly because of the lack of sharpness causing interference with the contrast based AF module.

As for resolution, on the 12 Mp D300 sharpness was satisfying. On the D800 the 180mm f2,8 my better half owned was so much better.
Further comparing sharpness, wide open the sharpness on the focal plane was about as good as the 85mm f1,4 AF-D wide open. Stopped down, the 85mm beat the zoom, even at f2 while the zoom was at f4.

All in all the lack of sharpness in the 80-200 f2,8 AF-D two ring prompted me to revert to the 80-200 f4 Ai-S which I liked better in many ways, starting with sharpness wide open (ok, at f4 the bigger zoom was good, but it is also heavier and bigger then the f4 Ai-S lens) but OoF rendering of the Ai-S lens was more pleasing then that of the f2,8 AF-D. Size played a factor, as did weight. And last but not least, MFD on the manual zoom was a lot closer.

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