NOTE: This article was first published over at nikonglass (https://goo.gl/VCgrMn) on the 18th February 2011
The AFS 17-35mm f/2.8D was and still is a great lens! At the time of its reign, users from all over the world would flood the various photography forums praising the capability of this lens to finally make prime lenses redundant! Even Bjørn Rørslett elevated this lens to Legendary status with his in depth review. Given both the high praise and high cost, one would think that the lens must be a worthy investment for the professional photographer. But 10 years on, and a quick search reveals that a lot of users are screaming foul. It may only feel like yesterday when this lens hit the streets, but its been over a decade, so has something changed in the mean time or was this lens overrated from the start. Read on to found out!
The lens was introduced in June 1999 as a replacement for the not so old (5 year old) AF 20-35mm f/2.8D. The then new AFS 17-35mm lens added silent wave focusing technology and a much wider angle of view without sacrificing anything since as you will find out further down, the optical performance is just as good and in some cases even better than its older brother. Even though designed as a full frame "film" lens, at the time of its introduction, it was seen (and eagarly awaited) by most pro's as a way to go "wider" on the newly introduced digital Nikon D1. On the DX format cameras, the angle of view becomes equivalent to 25.5 on the wide end and 52.5mm on the long end.
The AFS 17-35mm is a well made and tough lens. The zoom ring has a smooth operation though there is some play. The focus ring on the other hand is slightly less smooth in its operation but at least has no play, making manual focus a pleasure compared to other AF lenses. The new AFS lens although bigger and heavier, at least offers snappier near silent focusing with the ability to take over focusing manually without the need for switches. Also worthy of note, the front element doesn't rotate during focus, and accepts 77mm filters on a metal thread. I should also point out that a "fat" filter screwed on the front won't cause further darkening of the corners when zoomed wide. The lens comes with a HB-23 bayonet hood wich is the same as found on the AFS 18-35mm and AFS 12-24mm lenses. The lens comprises of 13 elements in 10 groups, three of which are aspherical and another two are ED (low dispersion glass). SIC coating is also present. The close focusing distance is marked as 0.28m and when combined with the PK11 ring wide angle macro photography becomes possible and much fun. The lens offers 9 curved diaphragm blades, for better out of focus highlights.
Focusing speed like on most wide lenses is very snappy. Manual focus is easy and sure, though I wish it offered more than a quarter of a turn to go from infinity to closest focusing distance. Over the last few years I have witnessed squealing AFS motors on a number of copies of the AFS 17-35mm and AFS 300mm lenses but haven't heard of a fix from Nikon apart from the owner of the lens paying for a replacement motor, which is fair enough, until you get the quote of repair!
On film, this lens performs superbly and it's very hard to fault. Take most of the positive reviews of this lens on the net, think of film, and you have your legend. Used on DX cameras, especially some of the older models such as the D100 and D70, and there might be some issues showing up. Some may be due to field curvature, especially between 17 and 18mm, others because of moire phenomena and others with chromatic aberrations. Generally, I have found this lens to be tricky to use on digital cameras, giving unpredictable results but it's a different story on the 12MP FX sensors.
17-21mm: Sharpness is excellent (4.5/5) in the center and most of the frame with the extreme edges of the frame sharpening up also by f/5.6.
22-30mm: Sharpness is even better (5/5) in the center with the edges catching up by f/4.
30-35mm: Center sharpness has degraded to my pixel peeping eyes (4/5), but seems more even across the whole frame resulting in better overall performance when used wide open. Great if you are street shooting or a PJ. On the D700, diffraction will limit most users to f/13 or even f/16.
Overall this is a nice lens but in 2011, its showing its age, since we Nikon users now have more options available that do perform better.
Modern cameras (eg: D300, D700 and D3) and most recent editions of the more popular RAW converters offer built in corrections for light fall off, chromatic abberations and distortions so this helps elevate the performance of some of the older lenses. Generally this lens performs well, but it can show some color fringing when shooting high contrast scenes placed towards the edges of the frame.
Like all wide angles care must be taken when shooting into the sun or other bright spots. Overall, this lens performs very well, but it can still cause "tolerable" flaring and ghosting. Older lenses under the same conditions caused more noticeable and horrible ghosta and flares. You can usually see the reflections in the viewfinder so with some minor movement of the camera you can minimize them or get rid of them all togeteher by creating the right shade with your hand or other device.
As a photographer i wouldn't be concerned with the little vignetting of this lens. It's worse at 17mm wide open but gone by f/5.6.Between 20-35mm there is some minor falloff at f/2.8 but completely gone by f/4.
As expected at 17mm there is some pronounced barrel distortion which slowly disappears as you zoom towards the long end. For the most distortion free images, try to stay within the 20-30mm zoom range.
I don't usually mention Coma (saggital coma flare) performance in my reviews, but since I happen to come across it with this lens I thought I would mention it. Basically you will see it when the lens is at's weakest - wide open at 17mm and still there at 35mm if you go looking for it! Close down one stop and it starts going away.
The 17-35mm f/2.8 D AF-S is a solid professional lens that can perform as a "Legend" when used on a film body. Digital is another beast requiring much better and modern designs. Though the only digital bodies that can use this lens are the 12MP D700 and D3 series. . It's got great optics, mechanics and performance, and you pay for it.
On their own, the results from this lens look great, but when placed next to results from the AFS 16-35mm VR, they suddenly become second rate. Bring the AFS 14-24mm to the race and then the old "legend" takes third place. At f/5.6, the 16-35mm was clearly sharper than the 17-35mm beyond the center of the frame. At 17mm wide-open, the extreme corners of the image are distinctly soft, but these clean up quickly past f/5.6. Since most of you will probably use the 17-35mm as a landscape lens, this shouldn't be of any concern. When compared to the new kid on the block, the AFS 14-24mm f/2.8 the differences are night and day. This doesn't mean the AFS 17-35mm is a bad lens, on the contrary, it goes to show how great all three lenses are. The AFS 14-24mm is the sharpest and most distortion free zoom to date. The AFS 16-35mm f/4 VR has some light fall-off wide and noticeable barrel distortion. CA is very well controlled on the two newer lenses but very evident on the AFS 17-35mm.
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