To put all this into perspective, I decided to do a little testing, along with adding the known information about 6 lenses.
I chose 50mm for this test for two reasons: It's about as common a focal length as you can get, plus I own three zooms that cover 50mm and three 50mm primes.
So, the contenders are:
Left to right:
Nikkor
28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-D
Nikkor 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 G AF-S
Nikkor 24-120mm f/4 VR G
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 Series E, early version
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AF-D
Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.8 G
As I was near the Iowa capitol building earlier today, I thought that would make a nice test subject. I found a common place to shoot it from, with plenty of sunlight for the comparison shots:
Since you'd need to download the full-scale images to really see the differences between them, I'll spare you that process and post both center and corner, 100% crops from all 6 lenses.
To make this a fair test, I used a tripod with a remote, and chose ISO 100 and f/8 for all the lenses. As the lighting changed slightly between lens changes, the shutter speeds will vary slightly. But being in the sun, the shutter speed was high enough to not be a factor.
I let the five AF lenses auto-focus, and used the viewfinder rangefinder to focus the Series E lens.
And so, here's the results:
28-200 AF-D:
24-85 AF-S G
24-120 AF-S G
50/1.8 Series E
50/1.8 AF-D:
50/1.8 AF-S G:
As you can readily see, the primes are sharper and have better contrast. Issues such as distortion, vignetting, etc. are not part of this comparison.
So here's the specs:
Size:
Nikkor
28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-D......................78 x 87mm
Nikkor 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 G AF-S...............73 x 72mm
Nikkor 24-120mm f/4 VR G.........................84 x 103mm
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 Series E, early version......33 x 63mm
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AF-D.............................38 x 64mm
Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.8 G..........................53 x 72mm
Weight:
Nikkor
28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-D......................520 or 555g, depending on age
Nikkor 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 G AF-S...............415g
Nikkor 24-120mm f/4 VR G.........................708g
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 Series E, early version......135g
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AF-D.............................155g
Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.8 G..........................185g
Filters:
Nikkor
28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-D......................72mm
Nikkor 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 G AF-S...............67mm
Nikkor 24-120mm f/4 VR G.........................77mm
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 Series E, early version......52mm
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AF-D.............................52mm
Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.8 G..........................58mm
And, of course.......Price:
Nikkor
28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 AF-D......................Out of production: Used street prices vary from $130 to 250.
Nikkor 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 G AF-S...............New: $600 Used: $325
Nikkor 24-120mm f/4 VR G.........................New: $1300 Used: $850+
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 Series E, early version......Out of production: $50 street price.
Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AF-D.............................New: $135 Used: $80-100
Nikon AF-S 50mm f/1.8 G..........................New: $220 Used: $125
And THAT's why everyone should have at least on prime. Maybe not 50mm, but a prime of a focal length they use a lot... whether it be 20mm or 28mm or 35mm or 85mm or 100mm or 200mm. Primes just can't be beat on this field.
