The only lenses which are optically better than this lens are the recently discontinued Contax Carl Zeiss 100mm f 2.8 Makro Planar which I own and the Leica 100mm f2.8 APO Elmarit-R lens, which is regarded not only as the best 100mm macro telephoto lens, but also among the best in the Leica R 35mm SLR lens system. Like its sibling, the 60mm f2.8 Micro Nikkor, the 105mm f2.8 Micro Nikkor offers close focusing down to a 1:1 life size reproduction ratio. In plain English, this is the perfect lens to use to get close to insects, frogs or anything else which is small, living and liable to move quickly if it is disturbed by the photographer. The 105mm lens will give you more space to work with, so you don't have to stand literally on top of the object you're photographing. I relied on the manual focusing version of this lens - which didn't have a 1:1 reproduction ratio - for photographing small invertebrate fossils years ago. I was impressed by the superb contrast and resolution, which has only been bettered by the Zeiss lens I own currently. I have no doubt that this autofocusing version of the 105mm Micro Nikkor is a superb performer in its own right.

The quality of the lens is pretty good. Image is clear and sharp.

One thing I don't like the lens is the "focusing"... it take long time to focus on the image and the motor is noisy. Sometime the "image" is lost and will go back and forth to get the image focus. I have set it correctly on the lens (for those of you who own the lens, you know what I am talking about).

After using it for a few years, I had to sell it on Ebay and take a lost.

I am now using the new Nikon 70-210/2.8 which is much nicer/faster focus (but cost slightly more).

This 105mm f/2.8 lens is the sharpest in my arsenal. I took an absolutely amazing closeup of water droplets with my N8008s on a strand of wild grass where the droplets acted like a convex lens. You could actually see the inverted image in the small droplets.

I've now made the transition to a D70 and the lens works great there too. With the 1.5X magnification for the APS size sensor, it extends the working distance and gives greater than 1:1 magnification. The images still look great at 6.1 megapixels.

Highly recommended!

This is my favorite lens -- I often carry only it and a 28mm lens while hiking. The wide angle for landscapes, the 105 for detail shots. The 105 is super sharp and useful for way more than just macros, which of course it does flawlessly. The focal range is from mere inches to infinity, which means that the autofocus (on my N80, at least) sometimes takes a sec to work, so I usually manually focus it. In fact, for macro work without a tripod, it's easier to focus by moving the camera closer or further from the subject.
The lens is a great portrait lens -- I have used it outdoors and in the studio for close crops (head & shoulder shots). It has very narrow depth of field, perfect for high-illumination outdoor portraits to keep the background blurry.

When you get tired of the poor optical quality of screw-on close-up filters, and are sick of switching extension tubes constantly, this lens is the answer. The ability to focus down to 1:1 (pretty much fill your frame with a quarter) without stopping to add tubes is a huge time saver.

Perfect for flowers and larger insects, this lens is also a flat field and so is excellent for copy work. It's slightly long focal length also makes it a pretty good portrait lens. The best part is that it has that famous Nikon glass, so color saturation and sharpness is simply amazing. Use it with Fuji Velvia (ISO 50) with a diffused flash and you will never regret buying this lens.

In every manufacturer's linup of lenses there are always a few that achieve "legendary" status among devotees of the brand. For Nikon users lenses like the 80-200 f4.5 MF or 80-200 f2.8 MF or AF come immediately to mind. The AF105mm f2.8 is such a lens.
This was a new design from the older MF version, optically designed to produce a flat field and focus to 1:1 without extension tubes or other lens attachments. Superior to the well thought of 60mm Micro by allowing a longer working distance (approx 6 inches at 1:1)
Mechanically well built of metal - hence marking it as one of Nikon's "pro" lenses - this is a hefty package,weighing in at almost the same as most of the mid range zooms currently being produced.
Optically it is superb.

This is a very well designed performer in the Micro photography world within the Nikon family. This is definitely one of my favorite lenses to photograph nature with, as you can see from my sample shots on this page. The build quality is nice. The lens is light. The images it produces are clean and sharp.

Focusing, as another reviewer hit on, isn't the fastest. But, focusing speed isn't what micro lenses were built to excel at. This is a micro lens, designed to get up close and personal with subjects of all kinds. I find myself manually focusing when the camera has trouble finding the subject. This lens works great for what it was built to do.