Lenses to take advangage of 36MP FX

I'm not exactly sure what you are point is, but my copy of the 35 - 70 2.8D has been an excellent performer on both film and digital bodies, including my D700.

Bob,
It has been mentioned on here many times that as the pixel density goes up, higher lens resolving power is necessary to make those additional pixels count, so to speak. The D700 has a much lower pixel density than the D7000 and the D800.
I hope the 35-70 2.8 D will not be the sharpness limiting factor for these newer cameras since I too have a copy of it.
Chanh

Chanh,
You got enough swell lenses, focus on your photography...

Your first two and the last one should work fine, for sure. The 18-35mm has a lot of barrel distortion on the wide end, you'd be better off with a Sigma 85mm f1.4 than the Nikon D, and I'm not familiar with the 35-70. You could replace most of those with the new Tamron 24-70mm that was just announced, and keep the first two.
Kent in SD

Sorry Chanh, I don't think any one of us has a D800/D800E to test those lenses with. Without actual experience, it is a meaningless discussion. One might think the difference between 12MP and 16MP is not that big, but a lot of us, including me, were surprised how much more demanding the D7000 is compared to the D300/D300S.

I would assume that all of the new f/1.4 primes, all of the current f/2.8 pro zooms, all of the current FX macros, and all of the current super-telephoto primes will perform well. Some of the older lenses could have a problem, but as Shun said, not many people have had any experience with a D800. So we will have to wait and see. But given the issues seen with the D7000 on some older variable aperture DX lenses, I wouldn't put a 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6 on a D800...ever.

I'll just point out that the 70-200 VR1, while it may out-resolve a D7000, wouldn't be a good choice for a D800 due to the corner performance at 200mm.

Personally, I'm a bit nervous that I've just picked up an 80-200 f/2.8 AF-D (latest) for my D700, and I may have made an unwise compromise if I get a D800 in the future. Conspicuously, all the sample images for the D800 are at f/8, and even then the 24-70 looks a bit iffy in some portions of the frame (but spectacular elsewhere).

Thanks Chanh. I'm not technically knowledgeable, so I appreciate your explanation. FWIW, my copy of the 17 - 35 2.8 has also performed really well on my D700, but as this thread points out, it is less demanding.

Why would you want lenses to out-resolve the sensor? The camera is the less expensive part of a balanced system. For a camera intended for most subjects, the camera and lens MTFs should be in balance so that you get most of the detail the lens is capable of rendering in the file, and yet the sensor resolution should not be so high that you get overlarge files that are a burden to deal with. I think there has been a large misunderstanding regarding this topic. Seeing limitations in a lenses resolving ability in images obtained with a 12MP body e.g. at wide apertures or in the corners does not mean the same part of the image would not be better resolved by a 16, 24, or a 36MP sensor. Both lens MTF and sensor MTF are smooth curves, they do not drop like a brick after some given spatial frequency. Thus, improving either lens MTF or sensor MTF will in most cases yield an improvement in the system MTF.

A totally another thing is then whether the system MTF needs improvement. IMO the image quality should be viewed as a whole, not getting bogged down on just how detailed they are.