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Nikon has really upped their
game in the past two years, coming out with a series
of new, high-quality digital cameras, and new
high-quality lenses to fully utilize the increase in
sensor resolution. That's great news for Nikon
users. But what about us Canon guys? Sure, there's
some trickle-down effect resulting from Canon
feeling the heat, and responding with new products
of its own to compete. My new
Canon 5D Mark
II is a perfect example of that, so I can't
complain. But here and there Nikon has come out with
something so perfect, so excellent, so "gotta have,"
that we have yet to see Canon's answer. Such is the
case with the superlative Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 zoom
lens. Canon has put out a nice series of new prime
lenses ranging from 14mm to 24mm, but as of yet they
have no
ultra-wide zooms that truly competes in this
range. What is a Canon user to do?
The answer: adapt the Nikon
lens to a Canon camera! That's what I've done, and
now I'm happily using the Nikon 14-24mm on my 5D
Mark II, a perfect pairing between sensor resolution
and optical quality. But before I get ahead of
myself, I need to make the case for the lens; which
is, in my opinion, the finest ultra-wide angle lens
available, even better than most primes in its
range!
Other sites have done
extensive resolution testing for this lens against a
range of competitors, and I do not intend to
replicate those results here. I will post a few 100%
crops as examples of the quality of this lens. But
overall, my goal is to present a more subjective
review, just a working pro's sense of the lens'
performance based on experience and intuition.
"Sandstone Storm"
The Nikon 14-24mm zoom at
its best—goin' ultra-wide, including lots of
sky and foreground!
Optical Quality
Simply put, the optical quality of
this lens is astounding. I have used a number of wide angle
lenses, including the following: Sigma 12-24mm, Canon
16-35mm L, Canon 17-40mm L, Canon 24mm L tilt-shift, and
even the legendary Contax/Zeiss Distagon 21mm. I can say
without hesitation that the Nikon is the best of the bunch!
Other reviewers have tested the Nikon
side-by-side against other lenses such as the Canon 14mm L
II and the Distagon 21mm. The Distagon is reported to be
just a hair sharper than the Nikon at 21mm. Personally, I
like how images are rendered by the Nikon better than the
Distagon, which to me always was impressively sharp but the
detail looked somewhat blocky. I think that the Nikon
details looks equally sharp as the Distagon, but with a
smoother feel to it. In my own experience, the Nikon
outperforms the Sigma 12-24mm and above-mentioned Canon
lenses. Here's a sample image, with 100% unsharpened crops
from the center and the corner.
"Dogwood Spring"
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
100% center crop:
100% corner crop:
Note that there's a tiny bit of motion
blur in the corner crop for one of the branches. Also note
that this is a scene that is especially punishing on digital
sensors, which have a tough time with lots of small detail
(such as small branches and tiny leaves). One further
caveat: I had to stop down quite a bit to get enough depth
of field in this shot, so I'm not using an optimal aperture.
Nonetheless, to my eye the performance of this lens is
exceptional.
The Nikon especially excels in the
widest half of its range, being incredible from 14mm to
around 20mm. From 21mm to 24mm, I would say that it is
merely excellent to very good. Overall, the Nikon shows a
corner-to-corner sharpness that I have seen with very few
lenses. But there's more—the excellent optical quality
doesn't just happen when the lens is stopped down a bit, it
start's at f/2.8! Assuming you can find a subject that falls
within the same narrow plane of focus, you can expect sharp
corner-to-corner performance even when the lens is wide
open. This is what makes this my go-to lens for night-time
shooting, when I need excellent performance even at wide
apertures.
Star Trails, Valley of Fire State
Park, Nevada
Here's a 100% crop from the center of
the shot above. Note that this shot was taken at f/2.8, and
because it was a long exposure the sensor built up some
noise which had to be removed, degrading optical quality
somewhat. Also, there's not a lot of contrast in the
evenly-lit rock. Nonetheless, I think the results are still
extremely impressive! (This performance is even throughout
the frame, but since the corners are in dark areas of the
image, the resulting increase in noise and overall darkness
make them look somewhat less impressive, so I have not
posted corner crops from this image—but they are in fact
sharp.)
100% crop from center, unsharpened
Angle of View
At its widest end, the Nikon 14-24mm
is what I call a "big sky" lens. It's about as wide as you
can go on a full-frame camera without using a fisheye. Its
generous field of view allows you to include lots of sky and
lots of foreground at the same time. I like to use the lens
at 14mm whenever I have very dramatic clouds in the sky; it
is also very useful in tight spaces such as slot canyons. As
you head to the longer end of the zoom range, you start to
approach a more practical wide-angle field of view: 24mm is
my "bread and butter" wide-angle focal length where I shoot
the majority of my scenics.
"Eye of the Storm"
The Nikon 14-24mm excels when you
need extra room for big storm clouds coming in!
Lens Flare and Chromatic
Aberration
Overall, this lens handles flare and
chromatic aberration (CA) very well. CA is virtually
none-existent, although I can sometimes see some in very
high-contrast areas (such as dark twigs against a bright
white sky). Whatever CA that can be found is easily removed
during the raw conversion process or in Photoshop. Lens
flare is reasonably well controlled for such a wide angle
lens. Because of the "Popeye" design of this lens, with its
huge and protruding bulbous front element, stray light
coming from glancing angles can create some flare. The lens
has a built-in metal lens hood that helps quite a bit. I
shoot into the sun a lot, and haven't found the flare
created by this lens to be any worse than other lenses I
have used. The Nikon creates an attractive sunstar (unlike
other lenses I have used, such as the Sigma 12-24mm or the
Distagon 21mm, neither of which create attractive sunstars
in my opinion). The image below is a good example of how the
lens handles flare and sunstars: since the sun was filtered
somewhat by wispy clouds, I ended up with an image with
virtually no flare, easily removed in post-processing. Of
course, on a cloudless day with nothing to block the sun,
flare will be much more noticeable!
"Standing Ovation"
Flare is very well
controlled in this image, and the sunstar is a
winner!
Close-focusing
The Nikon focuses surprisingly close,
within a few inches, allowing for very dramatic,
in-your-face compositions of nearby subjects. Optical
performance remains very good, even in the lens' "macro"
range.
"Toad's-eye view"
Only a few inches away from the
toad, I was able to get a unique ultra-wide angle
perspective.
Weight
There's a penalty for the Nikon's
excellent optical characteristics: this lens is very big and
heavy. Its huge front element protrudes, making handling the
lens a nerve-wracking experience: one tumble to the ground
and the glass will surely explode! Furthermore, the lens is
extremely unbalanced, with the front element being much
larger and heavier than the read end of the lens. Weighing
in at just over two pounds, it definitely has some heft, but
won't break your back. It certainly is not as big and heavy
as carrying 3-4 prime lenses to cover its range! As a
result, don't use this lens on a crop sensor camera. It was
designed to give excellent corner-to-corner sharpness on
full frame digital cameras, so all the extra weight and bulk
will be wasted on crop sensor camera.
Filter use
Using filters on this lens, or
any ultra-wide for that matter, is a real challenge.
The front element of the Nikon, with its protruding
glass, makes it nigh impossible to fit a filter, or
filter holder, on the lens. But I said "nigh"
impossible, not impossible. The solution: the Cokin X-Pro
filter holder system! The filter holder is sold as a
kit along with a polarizer and a 2-stop neutral
density grad. In addition to the X-Pro filter holder
kit, you'll need to purchase the
Universal Adapter Ring which will allow you
to mount the holder on the Nikon. The Cokin X-Pro
filter holder is huge, perfect to fit on a huge
lens! The Universal Adapter Ring mounts on the lens
using four screws which are tightened onto the lens
barrel. After mounting, to prevent glare on the
filter you'll need to block stray light coming in
from behind (as the holder does not sit completely
flush against the lens), which can easily be
accomplished by wrapping a small cloth around the
back of the filter holder.
I took the foam insert that
comes with the Nikon lens packaging, cut it down to
size, and taped it using black electrical tape to
the adapter ring. This accomplishes two things.
First, the foam insert, when taped to the adapter
ring, is a snug fit for the barrel of the lens,
allowing me to use the filter holder without
screwing it on to the lens each time. Second, the
snug fit blocks any stray light. Not a perfect
solution, but it works! Here's my setup in action:
Now here's the big caveat:
with this set-up you can use filters only when the
zoom is set to 18mm or higher. Any wider, and you
get noticeable vignetting. That means you cannot
polarize anything wider than 18mm, and you can't use
neutral density grads either. This, of course, is a
problem with any lens that is 14mm, and very few
zoom lenses go much wider than 18mm anyways, so it's
really not that big of a deal. [UPDATE
5/26/09: I have
found that I can use filters other than my polarizer
all the way up to 14mm. Only the polarizer vignettes
wider than 18mm. I can use a neutral density
graduated filter, for example, even at 14mm
(vertical or horizontal) so long as I use the filter
slot that is at the outside of the filter holder,
and push the filter holder as far back as possible
on the lens. If I rotate the filter holder at a 45
degree angle, however, some vignetting will occur.]
Lower Doyles Falls,
Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
Some shots, such as those
with wet foliage and rocks, simply need a polarizer!
Adapting to Canon Cameras
If you are a Nikon user, skip
this part, go to the Amazon link below, and buy the
lens! You're all set. Canon users, however, need to
get an adapter. I'm aware of only one adapter on the
market that allows one to use this lens on a Canon
camera, which is available from a seller in the UK
called
16-9. Please note that the adapter sometimes
takes a long, long time to ship: I waited four
months to get mine. There are two kinds of adapters
available: one with a lever, and one without. I have
the original "rotating" adapter that does not have a
lever. The rotating adaptor enables the lens to be
stopped down simply by rotating the lens in the
mount through a stepless 10mm range. Legends on the
adaptor indicate f/2.8, f/8, and f/22, though any
aperture can be selected (albeit imprecisely). As
quirky as it may sound, the rotating adapter
actually works reasonably well. The newer version
simply adds a lever that stops down the aperture.
Note that when using an adapter, you lose autofocus
and auto exposure. Before taking the image, you must
stop down the lens manually. The adapters come with
auto-focus confirmation chips. I find this lens to
be a joy to use with Live View, as I can stop the
lens down to the working aperture, and use Live View
to check critical focus and hyperfocal distance,
making adjustments to focus point and aperture as
necessary, resulting in perfect depth-of-field every
time!
Conclusion
The Nikon 14-24mm
zoom is truly amazing. Heavy and unwieldy, yes.
Expensive, but cheaper than buying a bunch of
matching primes. In my opinion, it is simply the
best lens in its class for full-frame digital
cameras, whether for Nikon—or
Canon—users!
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