I been contemplating to buy from the past to buy a Nikon 80-200mm pro grade lens. I love its build quality and image quality. Though I don't have much moolah to buy a  new lens so looking for used one. Out of the one ring and two ring version, I am inclined over to buy 2 ring version. I got an offer of $545 for 2 ring version but it has a little spot of fungus on the inner glass area. I really cannot makeup  my mind to buy it or not. Hope some expert opinions would help me make good decision. I am attaching pic of the fungus affected area here for your advice and comments.

I would suggest not buying it.  Not sure about inside of a lens, but in general, fungus propagate easily.

Defiinitely do NOT buy it.  I would suggest checking with Adorama and B&H Used departments online every so often.  The 80-200 turns up from time to time in various conditions.  I have bought several lenses from them, mostly from Adorama, including 24-50 and 18-35D zooms and a 180 f2.8 prime.   In all instances, the price was reasonable to quite cheap and the condition of the lenses was better than advertised, using their own company-specific rating categories.

Not able to find used nikon 80-200mm 2 ring version for less than $800 over ebay or adorama. Though push pull version are selling for cheap.

sumchamp wrote:Not able to find used nikon 80-200mm 2 ring version for less than $800 over ebay or adorama. Though push pull version are selling for cheap.I'm constantly confused by the general names that get assigned to Nikon lenses. Is there a product # of the lens you are looking for? Here is a list, but it is probably only active lenses (not discontinued)http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Nikon-Products/Camera-Lenses/All-Lenses/index.page

Good site for older lenses with mini reviews and ratings (Naturfotograf)Thom HoganOf course.  Can't go wrongMr Rockwellactually has a nice readable compatibility chart and definitions of all the abbreviations  Nikon uses. I'm not sold on the reliability of reviews.Photozoneseems to be reliable in my experience.MIRHave no idea how often (if ever) this website gets updated but it has useful information.PBaseit would be difficult to find a more complete "list" of cameras and lenses (scroll down a lot to get to the lenses).  But the only information about the lenses are dates of production and if you are lucky filter size.  But thousands and thousands of photos.I'm sure there are more

Last year I got fungus in my twin-ring through leaving it unused and sitting in the dark for too long.It cost me about $200 to get it cleaned.  It came back perfect and they said the fungus hadn't been there long enough to damage the coating. If the fungus is there too long it exudes a chemical which attacks the coating.Although they were confident they wouldn't offer an absolute guarantee the fungus wouldn't regrow.If you add the cleaning cost to your buy price it pretty much nulls out the saving.

If a lens has a fungal infection then the possibility s that it has also started affecting the inner coating (black) of the lens also. Eventually the coating integrity will fail and you'll end up with black 'flecks' on the glass elements inside as well as some shiny surfaces and resultant reflections.My opinion is to stay well away from this purchase.Otherwise the 80-200 is a great lens at medium to far focal distances. Closer focus is IQ is 'iffy' - at least my copy.

dad_of_four wrote:sumchamp wrote:Not able to find used nikon 80-200mm 2 ring version for less than $800 over ebay or adorama. Though push pull version are selling for cheap.I'm constantly confused by the general names that get assigned to Nikon lenses. Is there a product # of the lens you are looking for? Here is a list, but it is probably only active lenses (not discontinued)http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Nikon-Products/Camera-Lenses/All-Lenses/index.pageThis lens database might be helpful:http://www.photosynthesis.co.nz/nikon/serialno.html