[Leif]

Earlier this year I bought a Nikon 24-85 AFS lens as a cheap general purpose zoom. It was on offer at Warehouse Express. Net reviews are universally favourable. Sadly it is soft at all apertures and focal lengths. I compared it to my 28-105 AFD and 75-150 F3.5 lenses and IMO it is unuseable. Has anyone else had this sort of experience? I was going to sell it on WPF, but after testing the lens, I don't think I can do that as it is worse than I thought. (I also found that half the images taken in the field were extremely soft and half slightly soft, which I cannot explain since I use MLU and a tripod.) I have heard about Nikon and Canon re-calibrating lenses. Does anyone know anything about this? I assume this is re-collimating the optics. I will contact Nikon as I think a lens should be useable.