Nikon D800 using a zoom lens?

For those with experience, how much of the resolution of the D800 is actually usable if you're using a versatile zoom lens with 10x zoom? What I'm trying to say is is the full resolution going to be detectable with a less-than crisp clear lens, or do I absolutely have to get a "prime lens" for it? How much quality is actually lost beyond recovery by using a versatile lens?

Zoom lenses for dSLR's are not listed by something like a 10x zoom, but rather a lens focal length range

Under your question criteria I have two 2x lenses. One is a 12-24 mm and the other is a 200-400 mm, both two "X", but certainly they cover different ranges.

The Nikon "trinity" of lenses will perform very well when using the D800

* 14-24 mm f/2.8
* 24-70 ff f/2.8
* 70-200 mm f/2.8

Each lens dovetails into the next and will perform very well using the D800

The Nikkor 85 mm f/1.4 lens and Nikkor 105 mm f/2.8 macro are two other exceptional lenses.

There's a lens, the 28-300 mm lens is roughly a 11x lens if you wish to use P&S camera terms.

If you are buying a D800, it's resolution is high enough that it will show even the slightest defect in a lens. So you need to also buy top-notch lenses if you are going to use this camera to it's fullest potential.

If you buy zooms, that means the Nikon trinity, with each lens costing $1800~$2400. Or high quality primes.

A marginal lens on this camera is likely to result in a worse photo than a lower resolution camera. However, like most cameras you can change the resolution with this camera. But using a lower resolution kind of defeats the purpose of buying the camera in the first place.

There are no 10x zooms for dSLRs. That's a compact camera term.

AWboater doesn't understand image sensors. It's not true that you need to use a crazy expensive lens to the most out of the D800.

The D800 is 36MP and that seems to be something that people grab onto for some reason. The Nikon D7000 has the same pixel density as the D800, but you don't hear anyone saying the D7000 requires the best optics on earth.

The full frame sensor on the D800 has a little over twice the surface area of the image sensor found in the D7000. The D7000 is 16MP, do the math, almost no difference in pixel density.

A kit lens will be fine.a cheap prime lens that covers the full frame sensor will be great. A higher quality zoom will give you more detail than the kit, but it's mostly visible when shooting wide open, and when you view the corners of the image.

So bottom line, any lens you were planning on using on a crop sensor dSLR like the D7000 will be just fine on the D800, the image sensor in the D800 is no more demanding, photographers saying so, are just flat out wrong. The only requirement is that the lens be made for full frame sensors, DX lenses won't cover the image sensor, and you will have a cropped image.

If the lens is not sharp enough, the full 36 MP resolution will show the blurriness at higher magnification than a lower resolution camera or setting would.

With a DX lens the D800 can take a cropped image, and it should look just about like it would look if taken with a D5100 or D7000.To get the full glorious use of the 36MP FX sensor requires a lens that can cover the full frame. This is more demanding on lens design. A very good prime lens or an expensive pro grade FX zoom may maintain good sharpness to the edge of the FX frame. An FX amateur lens like the 24-120mm is sacrificing some of the FX edge sharpness that the 16-85mm DX lens on a DX frame might handle better for the same angular field coverage.