From my other shots, all corners perform similarly, it's just that I didn't post all of them here. Yes, distortion might play a part, but if you look at the cars in the corner shot, all are horrendously distorted but some are still sharp.
If you wanted to see what the whole picture looks like, I had already posted the whole resized picture right at the top. I know some people are worried about the corners on the D800 with this particular lens, hence the 100% zoom so they can draw their own conclusions without having to speculate. If you want nice composition, you'd have to wait for me to borrow the D800 for a few hours.
You're right, a good lens is essential if you want to squeeze out every bit of quality from the D800. I was simply curious as to how my older lenses perform on such a high-quality sensor. And since my old AF-D 28-105mm lens doesn't do the D800 justice at full resolution, I would either have to change to perhaps 24-120mm f4 or shoot with primes only if I do get the D800 and want the best quality. I'm not knocking the D800, I was very impressed with the samples from the 17-35mm. But for those who scrimp and save to get a D800 and hope that they can get by with their older generation lenses, the shots show that it is best to test first before deciding.
For cheap lenses, I think the 50mm f1.8 (D and G variants) would perform very well with the D800, and they don't cost that much.
