Fedex was kind enough to hand over the new lens today, let’s get right to the unboxing. The packing is much like it is for the 70-200 VR lens, a very nice case that I will never use but it’s nice to know that if my future wife wants a handbag I have one right here that can surprise her with.

To comment on the size, the barel is significantly smaller than it’s predicessor the 28-70 2.8. The build is top notch and the lenshood really clicks into place unline the 70-200 which can spin easily.
I did take some aperture test to check for sharpness, as you can see below. The text sections is a 100% center crop of the back of an atlas book. Please note, that this was a very old book and it had some wear and tear on it, f8 is as sharp as the text could be so keep that in mind when you look at the different f stop ranges. From my observations, f/2.8 is a tad soft but sharpens up a f/4 and very very sharp at f/5.6 I will not know how I feel about this lens until I shoot a wedding where I may need to shoot at f/2.8. Please read the descriptions in the enlarged photos for the aperture.
Also, I shot these in RAW on the D200. No shapening applied at all. The D200 shoots softer by default.
EDIT: I have retested the lens, be see this link. http://nikonfanboy.com/2007/11/15/lens/nikon-24-70mm-lens-testing-retested/
I took some samples with the new lens on the D200. I won’t know if I will love this lens yet until I get this on the D3, for now it shoots it’s focal length as it should but is it worth the price over the much cheaper Tamron 28-75mm or a used Nikon 28-70mm? It does perform much like the Tamron 28-75mm lens that I used for a long time had and sold for this lens. I do not have comparison images but I do think that they preform remarkably similar to my untrained eye. The biggest downsides to the Tamron 28-75 f2.8 is that I found the focus to be constantly back focusing even after I sent it back to Tamron and waited 6 weeks for it to be calibrated. It is a significant price difference but you can’t put a price tag on getting the shot in focus when you need it to be. If the Tamron could hold it’s focus I probably would stick with that based on DX sensor testing, I have no knowledge of how it will preform on a FX sensor but regardless it couldn’t so the a big negitive for the Tammy. The reduced barrel size alone would is choice enough for me choosing the Nikon 24-70 over the Nikon 28-70mm. I returned “the beast” the very next day after it arrived. Ok that’s enough of my jabbering.
I am not an expert at lens testing or lens IQ. These are my thoughts as a photog that primarily shoots weddings and models, onto the sample images of beautiful Cincinnati.