Thinking of 28-70 f2.8 AF-S...

[imageswest]

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[Jonathan]

I have only played with it in the shops and loved it. Personally I like the range on the 1.5crop but I was also considering it for the film body I had. If you dont have the 85 1.4 that would be my first recommendation, I loved that lens! Works real well for those low light weddings. Also look into the 35-70 2.8. It is super sharp and priced considerably less.

[Keith]

Cliff you wont be disappointed. The beast was my favourite small zoom lens, I sold a 17-55mm to move to this and never looked back. Sharp, nice bokeh and does a great job with portraits and landscape for that matter, did a great job stopped down. Worth every penny and its a work horse. Tell you what, its not exactly light either :rolleyes:
I bought a 24-85mm when I wanted to travel light :D

I think this is one of the few Nikon lenses I have never owned, or even used. I've always thought it wasn't a very good zoom range on a 1.5x crop body, but I'm wanting to do more portrait/wedding work, and I think this range would be a good choice for this type of stuff. Opinions?

[Robert]

Cliff,

I returned the first 28-70 I owned because I found it to be unacceptably soft. Others told me to get another, that I had a lemon. I had a tough time believing them, believing that the 28-70 just wasn't a great performer. I was wrong about that!!
I loved shooting with it and missed the versatility of the range,so I ordered one in grey which was sent directly from Japan and I am very very pleased with it. The plane shots I recently posted were taken with this lens and the contrast/sharpness and colour is fabulous imho.
It's a great lens for it's intended range, and some of the finest protraits I've seen in terms of richness have come from the 28-70. I highly recommend it. Feels great in the hand too!

[CrystallP]

Hi Robert,

I totally agree with you. I traded my wonderful 28-70 to a Cafe member for his 300F4 (plus cash). It sounds ridiculous now, but at the time I was trying to sell my D2H and all of my zooms in favor of the D200 and 18-200. I was trying to downsize to a travel lens plus macros. Ouch!! I regretted the trade after receiving the 300F4 (which turned out to be a perfect dealer's sample - unfortunately no packaging). I discovered that the 18-200 was not an acceptable travel substitute for my trio of zooms, 12-24, 28-70, and 70-200VR. So, now it's back to the drawing board as I prepare to sell off a few unused lenses to purchase another copy of the 28-70. Wish me luck! :D

[Robert]

Crystal,

Sorry for this late reply. I most certainly do wish you luck. It's tough sometimes to make these decisions about gear. It's all quite expensive and needs/preferences change in time. I recently took some closeup shots indoors with flash and I'm amazed at the richness and clarity of the 28-70. The shots need very little PP and the versatility of the zoom suits my needs very well.
BTW, I just this minute visited your macro galleries...beautiful work Crystal. I notice you are using the 200 f4 quite a bit. That's one lens I am very interested in.

Good luck!!

[CrystallP]

Hi Robert,

It's kind of funny, but I haven't used my 200 micro for several weeks. I was so happy to finally find one in mint condition last summer; but then my 105VR finally arrived (after 4 months on backorder) and it remains practically glued to my D200. I also recently decided to give the 70-180 another try (Connie convinced me not to sell it) and the results were wonderful. Too many choices and not enough time to get out and photograph nature! Darn!!

[Roger]

Stick with fast primes for wedding work, a WA 30ish, normal 50ish, or medium tele 85-100ish.

Stay under F2.8 if possible, F1.2, F1.4 , F 1.8/F2.0 is recommend unless you have a lot of lighting gear.

I have made a lot of posts for wedding work when I was asked to do a freebie wedding.

The same lens work good for ports.

If you going to go zoom do so with IS or image stabilzation.

Hope that helps

[dmwphoto]

It is a fabulous lens! I fought it for a long time and had a 17-55 that I was quite happy with. After selling the 17-55 and getting the 28-70 I can see why is so highly touted.
Pretty hard to beat regardless of what your shooting.
Dave

[stilllearning]

This my main portrait lens. Coupled with my obsolete D2h:nah: it can give me some great shots. Sorry about the late post but I wanted to contribute my two cents.

My daughter:
http://www.pbase.com/stilllearning/image/66319095.jpg