Best 24-70 f/2.8mm for handholding on D800?

You must have a bad copy. Here are some extracts of a review from well known nature photographer and highly respected lens tester Bjørn Rørslett :

"levels of distortion are so low that they encroach on those found in fixed-focal length territory. You can shoot architecture with this zoom lens. Simple as that, really"

"Compared to the older 28-70, the 24-70 handles adverse light conditions much better and flare and ghosting are rarely an issue."

"The 28-70/2.8 has long been recognised as among the best ever made by Nikon. I'm happy to report that the new 24-70 takes this quality even further. It has a very modest amount of field curvature at 24mm and virtually none at 70 mm"

"Very sharp images result on-axis at 24 mm even at f/2.8 and the contrast was good all over the frame with corners ever so slightly softer. At f/4 the entire frame at 24 mm appears sharp and crisply defined with excellent contrast and colour saturation."

"For the long end, f/2.8 delivered sharp images across the entire frame and this improved further at f/4. Absolutely state of the art optical performance and the enhanced acuity and better micro-contrast compared to the identical capture with the 28-70 were plainly visible. "

"Both in test chart shots and in the field, I had a hard time detect any CA nasties with this lens (snip) so again this is state-of-the-art performance"

Finally the line which may apply to your lens:

"I have used several randomly acquired samples of this lens and they all have behaved in a very similar fashion. However, some users complain about severe light fall-off or field curvature. Since these reports are at variance with what I could observe, there is always the possibility of QC issues." And my own comment: there has indeed been a number of complains about QC with this lens since Bjørn wrote his review.



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Thierry - posted as regular forum member