First a picture of the lens and of the not too useful lenshood.
First impressions: this is a reasonably priced wide angle zoom developed for full frame cameras. This is a lens from the film SLRs generation. Build quality is not very good. It looks like and it is a cheap piece of plastic. On the other hand, the lens survived a number of hits and is still working perfectly. Finishing is consumer grade but reasonable. The lens has an aperture ring and there is a lock button as well. On a DX camera it is a good normal wide angle, on an FX/FF camera it is a very wide lens, similar to the range you get with a 12-24 lens on a DX lens. Picture are very good in general but with some corner softness. Distortion is there as well, as in many wide angle lenses. This lens is probably the only real full frame wide zoom at a reasonable price. If you want more speed or quality there are better choices but with the corresponding price tag, like the 17-35 2.8 or the more recent 14-24 2.8, probably the best zoom ever made as of today.
Pros:
- cheap
- compact and light
- correct build
- delivered with caps, sunhood
- excellent (amazing) optical performance - sharpness, CA, contrast but not in the corners
- very nice range, perfect wide angle on a film or FX camera
Cons:
- could be faster (not a 2.8 lens)
- a bit soft in the corners from f3.5 to f8-9
- distortion
- average build quality
- no AF-S
Conclusion:
Recommended
Two example pictures (on the D3):
