The Nikon AF-S Nikkor 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR ($1,049.95 direct)($846.95 at Amazon) is a zoom lens with an impressive 10.7x range, designed for use with full-frame Nikon cameras. It doesn't manage the fixed aperture of the company's pro-level zooms, but if you're looking for a fairly compact all-in-one zoom for travel or hiking, it's an appealing choice. The lens leaves very little to want in terms of sharpness, but distortion is an issue throughout its range. That's not atypical for a zoom of this range, especially one that manages to be fairly compact and cover a 24 x 36mm image sensor.

The 28-300mm measures 4.5 by 3.3 inches (HD), but does extend when zoomed. It's a bit heavy at 1.8 pounds, and its big front element requires 77mm filters. A reversible lens hood is included. There are a couple of control switches on the barrel: One toggles the Vibration Reduction system, the other switches between manual and autofocus. The manual focus ring is located toward the base of the lens, closer to the mount than to the front element, and is rather narrow. The zoom ring is larger, and is placed just behind the front element. The minimum focus is 1.6 feet throughout the zoom range, which gives the lens a pretty decent 1:3 macro magnification at 300mm.

I used Imatest to check the sharpness and distortion characteristics of the lens at multiple points throughout its zoom range. All tests were performed using the full-frame Nikon D800. At 28mm f/3.5 it's impressively sharp, scoring 2,226 lines per picture height on a center-weighted test, better than the 1,800 lines we require to call a photo sharp. There's a little bit of softness at the edges; they show 1,523 lines at f/3.5. But stopping down to f/5.6 increases the overall score to 3,143 lines and edges top 2,000 lines. At 28mm there is 4.5 percent barrel distortion, which causes straight lines to bow outward, giving images a near fisheye look. It's something that you can correct using the built-in profile for the lens in Lightroom, or manual distortion correction in other workflow applications.

At 50mm the maximum aperture is f/4.5, and the lens still manages 2,321 lines on the center-weighted test. But edges are noticeably blurry, scoring just 1,129 lines. Stopping down to f/5.6 brings the overall score up to 3,083 lines, and improves edges to a more reasonable 1,652 lines. At f/8 the center-weighted score improves marginally (3,126 lines), but the edges improve more dramatically to 1,938 lines. Distortion switches from barrel to pincushion, which causes lines to curve inward. There's 2.5 percent, which is noticeable in field conditions, but not quite as extreme as the barrel distortion at 28mm.

By the time you get to 105mm the maximum aperture is f/5.3. The center-weighted performance holds up—2,700 lines. Edges are noticeably soft (1,354 lines), but improve dramatically at f/8. Here the center-weighted score is 3,191 lines, and edges resolve 2,166 lines. There's 2.8 pincushion distortion here.

The 200mm setting is the maximum at which our lab allows us to measure distortion using our SFRPlus test chart. The lens shows 2.4 percent pincushion, just about the same as it did at 50mm and 105mm. The maximum aperture is f/5.6, and again we see a good center-weighted score (2,795 lines), but edges that fall a little shy of 1,500 lines. At f/8 the score improves to 3,031 lines, and edges are a respectable 1,730 lines. Results are almost identical at 300mm.

The Nikon AF-S Nikkor 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR isn't an optically perfect, wide-aperture lens that doubles as a workhorse for pros and a dream lens for enthusiasts. But it is a pretty decent zoom for those times when you've got enough light to feed its f/3.5-5.6 aperture and don't want to deal with carrying a couple of f/2.8 zooms or a few primes to cover the range, or if you simply don't want to change lenses in the filed. Its macro capability is surprisingly good, and narrowing the aperture just a bit delivers impressive sharpness, even at the edges. Distortion is the lens's bugaboo, so be prepared to live with it or to do some work in Lightroom or the workflow application of your choice in order to minimize its effects. Full-frame Nikon shooters don't have a lot in the way of options of lenses with this range, but it's good to know that this one is a decent performer with a price that's not unreasonable.

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