Nikon AF Nikkor 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5D IF-ED Lens

Pros: Compact, fast AF, sharp, light-weight, and a reasonable price
Cons: Some barrel distortion at 18mm, possible vignetting at maximum aperture if you use filters

Serious photography is a very expensive hobby and it is not at all difficult to invest several thousand dollars in the contents of one medium sized camera bag. Everyone loves to save money, but in photography bargains often come with a heavy trade off...

Pros: Great optics, great contrast, minimal light falloff at corners, a real bargain
Cons: none to speak of

If you are interested in wide-angle photography, this is a great lens. It compares very favorably with prime lenses in its range, but saves the weight of carrying around an 18, 20, 24, 28 and maybe 35mm's. Indoors, it could be used as an all-purpose lens...

Pros: lightweight, inexpesive, good optics, quick focusing
Cons: distorition at 18mm

Overview
I have had this lens for about 3 weeks. I have shot about 100 frames with this lens on my N80 body. I shot two roll around the house, one at a regional park, and one at a civil war battle field. This review is based on those...

Pros: spans super wide range
Cons: performance at infinity is not very impressive. Lens hood looks goofy on this lens.

You can read good reviews for this lens in many places. I wanted to talk about problems that I have been experiencing. I am guessing that this is due to sample variation, because all these people can not be wrong.

My biggest problem is that...

Pros: Light-weight, good build quality and reasonably sharp.  A real bargain at the price.  
Cons: Wish it had VR and was faster, but then it would cost $1000 more.  

I have been using this lens for about a month and love it so far.  I needed a wide zoom and was not ready to invest what the 17-35 prime would cost.  Color rendering is excellent and it's the sharpest lens in my bag, by far.  I use it on a ...

Pros: ED Glass - Focal Range - Price
Cons: Some Distortion at 18mm

If you can afford the pro-level $1500 Nikon 17~35mm f/2.8, get it. However, the considerably less expensive Nikon 18~35mm 3.5/4.5D ED IF-AF is not what I would call a consumer lens, plus you save around $1000 bucks!

It’s built very well and ships with ED glass and 77mm filter size. That’s not a consumer profile. Add the fairly quick IF-AF and the all-wide focal range, and this light marvel is hard to pass up on a D100 or D70.

Images are exceptionally good at 35mm and very good at 24mm. Moderate barrel distortion is visible at 18mm. The supplied hood does a good job of keeping flair to a minimum.

You would pay about the same price for the fixed-focus Nikon 20mm f/2.8D and it’s just one f-stop faster.