Name: Used Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF Zoom NIKKOR Lens - U.S.A. Warranty undefined
Brand: Nikon
SKU: US1657060
Price: 119.00 USD
Availability: Discontinued
Rating: 4.7 (195 reviews)

Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF Zoom NIKKOR Lens - U.S.A. Warranty

Nikon 80-200mm

Nikon

Adorama

Used

Photography

Lenses

SLR Lenses

Nikon SLR Lenses

Nikon 80-200mm 

Clearance: Used Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF Zoom NIKKOR Lens - U.S.A. Warranty undefined

Used Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF Zoom NIKKOR Lens - U.S.A. Warranty undefined

... this still one of my 2 favorite lenses. I shoot landscapes and very occasional outdoor portraits. There are 2 lenses I basically alternate between, the 20mm F2.8 D which is an astonishingly sharp wide angle prime and this stronger than a tank with reinforced armor 80-200mm which produces beautiful images at the other end of the range. Would I like something with a little more reach, yes I would, but I'm more likely to buy a D500 crop sensor spare body than I am to replace this lens on my D750.

5 years on and it's 2023 and ...

The only reason you buy a Nikon camera is to use the best glass ever Nikon.

Nikon glass is the best.

Acquis cette année, il m'apporte le "petit" plus que je n'avais pas avec mon 35 mm. Très bon piqué pour son âge et un doux bokeh. La mise au point est bien perceptible mais le bruit me rassure et ne me gêne absolument pas. Grâce à son ouverture de f/2.8 il permet facilement d'obtenir de superbes compos de nuit (faible éclairage bien entendu). D'une polyvalence absolue couplé avec un filtre ND 1000 pour les poses longues.

Doux bokeh et super piqué

I was fortunate to pickup a mint copy of this lens for $ USD in late 2018 as I continue building my 'enthusiast' level glass collection. 
Let me begin by saying I purchased just a ~month prior a Nikkor 300mm f/4D AF-S with a TC-14eII which continues to blow me away with sharpness and overall image quality.
My hopes and expectations were now very high for the 80-200mm f/2.8D AF ED.  However, these are two very different lenses with their own 'personalities'. 
I actually like the tripod mount on the 80-200mm after the sub-par (and immediately replaced with a Kirks) on the 300mm. It's working great for me and holds the lens rock steady .. which is all I ask of a mount. ;)
The 'Auto - Manual' collar switch is a pain in my bum. I'm considering just taping it down, likely on the bottom, to hold it in 'Auto'. Not a great setup but far from a 'deal killer'. As I get accustomed to handling the lens it gets in my way less and less each outing.
Optically this is a zoom, not a prime, and although faster by a stop than my 300mm it's not as sharp. It's not 'bad', just not ultra sharp. This could, and perhaps should, be considered a plus when using the 80-200mm for portraiture. The rendering is lovely in that genre. Using it for sports is pretty good, not great, and far from awful. It is a D-Series (which I tend to prefer as they often last an eternity w/o the risk of losing an internal focusing motor. So there's pros and cons to everything.
My copy also had what I would describe as 'considerable' back-focusing I have corrected it with AF Fine Tune with a -13 (out of 20) correction.  
Focusing on items that do not fill the auto-focus rectangle in the viewfinder can be a little challenging but, again, it's not terrible. The way I look at that is why am I trying to focus on something so tiny?? Either move closer, or get longer glass (just my take).
All in all I'm quite pleased with this lens. It is stoutly built which I luv about this genre of lenses. If you can rent a copy first (or better yet borrow one) that is always advisable.
To close, I am not being hyper-critical on this lens ... I actually really (really) like it and it certainly has an honored place in my bag as I never leave it behind. 
I will in all likelihood continue to look at/purchase D-Series Nikkors as I just luv the build, the feel, the optics, all of it. Truly a classic series. Learn to luv their personalities and have a ball shooting with them. 
Do Enjoy!

Okay, Here's The Deal ....

I purchased this lens many years ago to photograph my son's soccer games. Although the lens is not what I would consider "inexpensive", I'm glad I made the purchase. 

All of the team soccer parents were both impressed and thankful for the "moments" I captured for them using this lens even with my "Nikon D7000's APS-C cropped sensor". 

One thing I do regret, however, is not buying the 70-200mm. Although it's much more expensive, that extra 10mm could have saved some spectacular images that were lost by being just out of my field of view using the 80-200mm. 
(Note: A "full frame sensor" camera would also have helped!)

We can always "crop-in", but it's impossible to "crop-out". 
Once those moments have passed, they are gone forever.

Great Lens. But consider the 70-200mm.

I recently purchased this beautiful lens, and it performed like a champ and as expected....Along with the quality of a Nikon Lens, this completes my trifecta in my arsenal.....This lens is a must for every photographer......

Trifecta

Seems like a great lens so far, nice bokeh, sharp, and feels sturdy in your hands.  A bit heavier than other lenses but I don't mind it.  Good choice if you don't want to pay the extra money for the 70-200 and don't mind losing the VR.

Great Lens

I owned this lens for about two years and took some great photos with it. I sold it due to it's weight needing something similar but easier to carry around all day. I do not recommend it for hiking due to the weight but to use on a tripod or an occasional hand held shot, it's awesome. I did a video of the demolition of a historic building which local leaders had no foresight to save but the Nikon preserved it.

This lens is perfect for the yearbook staff at our school. We have already made some outstanding sports shots as we can zoom from one end of the court to the other! Highly recommend!

Great for action shots

Get this one, you will not be disappointed.

PRO GRADE LENS

Love my new lens!!!!  Great service and shipping was quick!

Love it!!

For anImals and birds in trees the manual focus lock causes the autofocus to jam on D600 & D7100.  Otherwise great sharpness and color onD600 1/500s, f2.8 - 5.  D7100 sometimes slightly blurred even fine tuned.  Not as clear at 200mm as the Nikon 200-500.

Good 2.8 but mechanical problems on 7100.

Beautiful glass. I've been shooting this for over a year and I love it. Fantastic and quick for indoor basketball games in poorly lit high school gyms, as well as shooting portraits outside--beautiful bokeh!. It's a little heavy but it's a great lens and nearly half the cost of the 70-200 2.8 so I say go for it. 

Love it!

Excellent, traded up from a slower lens. Love everything about this, was not expecting the increase in size though.

Excellent

I had been lusting after a 70-200 f/2.8 AF-S VR for a while, and stumbled upon a nice used example of this lens at my local camera store. The price was right, so I snapped it up and have never looked back - the AF-S VR is no longer on my wish list.

This lens is built like a tank, focuses almost as fast as the AF-S VR, and has a straight-blade iris that gives wonderful sunstars. Color rendition and sharpness are just fantastic too.

At around half the price of the AF-S VR, this really is a no-brainer for anyone shooting action where VR is of questionable benefit anyway.

Buy one, try it, and if you really don't like it you can sell it for almost what you paid for it - this lens is so good that (a) Nikon is still making it almost twenty years after it first appeared, and (b) used copies sell for almost as much as new.

Odds are, you'll love this lens and still have several hundred bucks left to spend on something else!

A true sleeper

Paired this with my D7000 and after a little bit of af fine tuning it shoots great. Absolutely love this lens. Produces better color rendition than the 70-200 f2.8 VR2. Fast af even with a screw drive. I shot a basketball tournament yesterday and the af had no problem keeping up with subjects running straight at me! Highly recommend this lens for everyone just make sure to pick up a monopod.

Superb optical quality

Got this used from Adorama, I am buying more and more from those guys. Awesome lens. Used it at a lax game and portrait on a D7100.

Used it at a lax game and portrait on a D7100

If you are not a pro, or even if you are a pro but don't really need the VR, this is the best lens for you at this range.

My Best Nikon Lens

The lens conditioned matched exactly to the rating, it was also very clean and packaged carefully to prevent any damage in transit. I have bought lenses from Adorama before and will keep doing so for the great pricing and honest rating for used equipment.

matched the rating exactly

When you see those photos off Getty images, professional basketball, football games, and concerts this lens makes that level of imaging. Doesn't matter rather you use it on a DX or FX camera, it produces sharp photo regardless. It's a waste of money I feel to even invest in the 50mm and up lenses, VS just getting this one. You get this lens, all you need is a nice wide angle to cover everything else and you're set.

It's very heavy as it's metal, but at the same time, built to last. You get used to its heaviness after awhile actually. Plus the photos look so nice, with such excellent color rendition that you can take them straight off the camera without needing photo shop, for those that always want to tweak photos. In a lot of photography I've done, the black color seems to fall off at a point and I see a lot of distortion as a result. This lens has what seems zero color fall off, and all you need is minimal light to take great photos.

It gathers the light so well, it's mind blowing. This is one of those lenses once you use it once, you'll want to take photos of everything with it. If you have portfolios built, you'll want to rebuild your whole image off this lens, it's that serious. It might be pricy, but good imaging does not come cheap, and if you do photography full time, this lens will be a reason you get repeat business. People just get hooked on the look once they see what they look like.

Great for sports, portraits, or anything you want to take a photo of honestly, as it just keeps pumping out crystal clear images like nothing. When I look at a well lit photo off this lens, its literally like I'm looking through a window, no joke...

A must have for any level of photographer

Je possède cet objectif depuis 2001 et après 14 ans il n'a jamais eu de défaillance super qualité d'image construction robuste,durable image encore impécable.

Très bonne achat , très bonne Qualité

This lens is a go to lens in my bag, as a great landscape tool as well as street photography and even portraits and head shots. Very fast focus, one of my favorite Nikon products.

Great bokeh, fantastic lens

This will probably be one of the most desired zoom lenses Nikon ever.        Still continue to have a good demand and its share price, despite the innumerable quantity sold in each of its versions, is a reflection of the robustness and quality with which they were built.        Produced from 1987 to 2008, was sold in four models:

*1 (1987-1992) 80-200mm Nikkor f / 2.8 ED AF - model push / pull with 3 ED elements.

*2 (1992-1997) 80-200mm Nikkor f / 2.8 ED AF-D - going to be an objective of the series D (now has the distance information to the object focused for better light metering, now possible in 3D Matrix). Is also a push / pull with 3 ED elements in your building model.

*3 (1997-2006) 80-200mm Nikkor f / 2.8 ED AF-D - also D series, this third model (review here) has won a string of tripod and went on to have two rings - one for adjusting focus and the other for focal length. As with previous models has three ED elements.

*4 (2007-2008) 80-200mm Nikkor f / 2.8 ED-IF AF-S - D series, this latest model now has a system of internal focus IF. Its optical construction features 5 ED elements.        They all have in common the excellent optics and build quality.

       The optical quality of this lens is excellent! Produces images with vivid colors, good contrast and very sharp. Certainly the three ED elements present in its construction contribute to such good results.        The blur is excellent, very smooth! Produces beautiful results in all situations is not necessary to use it only in larger apertures.

       The level of construction, just pick up one of these lenses to feel its weight and robustness denouncing their quality. Very well built, made primarily of metal.        But it is important to pay attention to some details: this is not a sealed and resistant to dust and moisture objective! It takes some care to use it wherever you go. This objective suffers easily with condensation. Careful when exiting a hot environment and go to a cold environment with this objective!        It is also good to be careful with the focus ring, it seems that plastic is used internally to keep you stuck. This plastic can break the misuse. I've worn a used model that was being sold and the focus ring suffered this damage.

       Only handle this objective is already a pleasure! While "big" and heavy is a comfortable lens to use. The two rings are well placed - the zoom ring is not "glued" to the camera body - which allows you to switch between them expeditiously.        DX used in this objective becomes a 120-300mm f / 2.8! A good range of distances and certainly more than enough for a multitude of situations.

Nikon Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF

This was an excellent lens before the D800/D600 era.  I bought this lens two years ago, and I was pretty happy with the results because I mainly used the focal lenght between 85 - 135mm.  I didn't care for anything at 200mm because they looked somewhat soft; a typical behavior of telezoom.  Recently, I was doing IQ comparison with all my lenses and I discoved that the lens couldn't focus at 200mm on smaller objects no matter what I did.  I sent the lens back to Nikon and the tech rep suggested it might be a issue with back focusing...anyhow, I got the lens back within 2 weeks, and there was a letter from Nikon explaining that this lens may not better 100% compatible with new DSLRs due to advance in AF technology.  Furthermore, there isn't any modifications they could do to fix the problem.  I then tried to use to AF Tuning on the D600 and was able to make the images a little sharpen at 200mm, but still unexceptible by any standards.  I have both D800 & D600, and the lens has the same problem with both. If you are thinking about saving some money and settle for this older version, be warned!

An excellent lens, but....

Convention and landscapes
This lens is not as sharp as the VR  versions but the lack of that added weight makes this superior for my use.

Great lens

Very sharp and consistent medium range lens, great bokeh and very little fall off at lower stops. It's heavy but that's from great construction and it's built to to last .

Great shots....

I generally don't rate items as 5 star but I'm hard pressed to find fault with this lens at the price it sells for. I owned a Nikon 70-200 VRII but didn't have the cash to replace it after having it stolen. I hoped this would be an acceptable replacement. After having this lens for a few weeks, I'd have a real hard time spending the money again on the 70-200. While there are some advantages to the 70-200, namely the VR and a little better job handling flare and CA, I'm not sure if the extra $1200 is justified; at least not for me. The image quality with this lens is every bit as good as with the 70-200. If you want to pixel peep you might see some marginal improvement in areas where there are contrasting tones/colors hitting at hard edges but that's not really going to be an issue for most users. The VR is what is ultimately going to be the deciding factor for me if I have to chose again at some point. The shooting I do, either with flashes or subjects in motion, the VR doesn't really have much benefit. Now if I was someone shooting a lot of static subjects, racked out to 200mm, in low light, hand held, then maybe the VR would something I'd need. Even then, I'd have to decide if the VR was worth the extra expense. As it is, I thought I'd be disappointed moving from the 70-200 to the 80-200 and I'm not at all.

Image Quality on par with Nikon 70-200

At half the price of the 70-200 2.8 it's a great lens. Focuses fast on my D800. It's a little soft at 200mm at least on my copy but at 135mm and lower it's great.

Great alternative to the pricey 70-200

I just got this lens just 2 weeks ago and I been using it everyday for taking photos of birds, squirrels, and what ever else comes along. Focus is soft at f2.8@ 200mm. But gets sharper at f/4 and on up. Had fun making some Monet shots of trees in my backyard and they turn out great. It is heavy but I'll get used to it because I love the results I've been getting so far. Best used with a tri-pod or monopod.

Great prime lens for the price

I’ve been with Nikon gear since 1993 and my “mayor” fist buy was the older version of this lens (the push-pull barrel with no tripod mount). I start with this comment because this version corrects almost all the disadvantages of its predecessor. The “slow” barrel motion to get the correct focal distance and the BIG issue that you need to buy a “cradle” to hold the lens to a camera in order to put both together mounted in a tripod.

In terms of price you’ll find it in about $1,200 and it worth every dollar invested. The “new” version moves smooth and fast depending on which camera you put on. The new versions like the D600 are quite faster than the older ones but the fact that still uses the motor in the body makes it a little slower vs. the 70-200mm version.

The optics are exceptional and with poor light conditions or indoors you can get razor blade sharp photos at f/2.8. This lens is also great for portrait because you can move form 85mm to 135mm with a little twist of hand. Allowing you to be more still or to keep a good distance vs. your subject. The other advantage is its shallow depth of field that allows you to have really blurred backgrounds.

Since I can remember all the Nikon (ED rated) are simple the best in class. The colors are true and the definition and sharpness always at the top. They worth the extra bucks!

Another advantage is the filter size (77mm) if you are considering to move to top of the line gear you can invest in Nikon Filters such as the New soft focus or the circular polarizer and use between them. There are now plenty of other top lens with such filter size. This is important when you buy a Polarizer of +$125 USD.

I tested the 80-200mm VR and the outcomes in terms of quality are almost the same, the difference is if you take photos without tripod at focal lengths higher than 105mm. As a thumb rule you need a speed that doubles the focal length in order to avoid camera movement. In this case to obtain a 1/250 sec. in low light or indoors is not that easy. Nevertheless now we can “compensate” using a higher ISO number. In the old days the use of an ISO 400 film was considered fast. Now with the newer Nikon DSLR you can set the ISO at 800 or 1600 and still get outstanding results.

Some consider this lens “old fashion” because don’t come with the VR features but this depends on you. I still like to “think” when you are taking portraits and compensate the camera movement and lighting conditions, making photography both, challenging and rewarding.