Beyond lens sharpness.

I'll try, but it's hard to discribe:

In my search for a light walkaround lens I have owned a Nikon 18-105. This lens is light, small, and stopped down it is tack sharp. In fact I have never seen so much bang for the buck than this lens. But I didn't like the results that came out of it. As I told you the sharpness was there, but colors and contrast looked very overprocessed. ( straight from the camera )                 After testing several zoom lenses ( 18-70,  18-135,  16-85 ) I ended up with a Nikon 35mm f1.8 DX prime. This is also an inexpensive lens, from the same generation as the zooms I had tried. But pictures made with the 35 are much more natural, and I realy like what I'm getting here.

An other example:

I have owned 2 copies of the old Nikon 80-200 f2.8 push-pull lens, but also the 70-200 VR. The 70-200 is an excelent lens, but I prefer the older 80-200 because of the way it renders color and contrast. While I can hardly find words to expres what is wrong with the 70-200, the results from the 80-200 remind me of the days we shot on film. To me it is just a more pleasing result.

Hope this helps???

Goodlight
Ranamo