Need help (geeze, do I ever...but this isn't a psychological discussion forum)

[Chris Calohan]

I want to buy a D800e which is not the dilemma but I want the best wide angle bang for my buck with a minimum of 12 to 14 and a maximum of 24 to 35mm 2.8, fixed or zoom. I know there are a plethora of Nikonians out there and I know there are some of the best landscape photographer on the plant here...so, if you would make some suggestions or even post an image or two SOOC, perhaps it will assist me in making a great choice. I really want to stay with Nikon even though I earlier considered a Carl Zeiss 21mm (and it's not out of the question).

Thanks.

[Wolfman]

A lot of Nikon owners and even non Nikon users say the Nikon 14-24 is a great lens: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/520635-USA/Nikon_2163_AF_S_Zoom_Nikkor_14_24mm.html

[RSL]

Chris, how important is f/2.8 in a wide angle lens? You're not going to get much DOF restriction even at f/2.8. My widest at the moment is Nikon's 16-35 f/4. It's beautiful. Sharp as a tack, and, with a camera like my D800 or D3, fast enough.

[Chris Calohan]

Russ. You know, I think it is just that I've generally had primes and have gotten used to that operational thought, but I am beginning to be drawn into the dark side as you are suggesting. it's a good thought and one I am warming up to. Thanks for the reminder.

[Chris Calohan]

Russ, I wonder how well this lens will work on my D7000 which I plan to keep.

[RSL]

I'll work fine on the D7000, Chris, but since the D7000 has an APS-C sensor it'll be the equivalent of a 24 to 52.5 mm on a full-frame. I got into the Nikon DSLR line (switching from an Olympus E-20) years ago with a D100, but I never bought a DX lens because I was sure Nikon would go full-frame at some point. That approach paid off in the long run, but I still had the crop factor to deal with until the D3 came out. And yes, I grew up on primes. Loved my Leica prime lineup back in the sixties and it took me a while to change my thinking when I started using the fixed zoom on the E-20. I have a 50mm f/1.4 prime and an 85 f/1.8 prime for my Nikons, and I love 'em both. My street camera is an Olympus E-P1 with a 25mm Summilux f/1.4 prime, which acts like a 50mm on the four-thirds sensor.

[Ray]

14mm is very useful. The Nikkor 14-24 has exceptional performance at 14mm. However, it does suffer from anamorphic distortion at the edges. Here's an example of it. The guy near the top right corner is not that broad-shouldered. 

Any color deficiencies are due to the laptop.

[RSL]

The 14-24 is a beautiful hunk of glass that produces amazing images, but it weighs 2.13 lbs, won't take a filter, and has a front element so far out front and unprotected it's just asking for a bump into something that'll ruin it. And on the D7000 it'll be a 21-36.

[slackercruster]

A lot of Nikon owners and even non Nikon users say the Nikon 14-24 is a great lens: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/520635-USA/Nikon_2163_AF_S_Zoom_Nikkor_14_24mm.html

+1

[RSL]

Any color deficiencies are due to the laptop.

Is the laptop what caused the wild over-sharpening?

[Ray]

Is the laptop what caused the wild over-sharpening?

Absolutely, Russ. But indirectly of course. I spend as little time as possible processing images on my laptop when travelling. The niceties of an appropriate degree of sharpening for a particular print size are not relevant. The purpose of my carrying a laptop when travelling is to be able to organize and store my images, and review them as I travel, searching for mistakes I may have made, such as an insufficiently fast shutter speed, inappropriate choice of aperture for the desired DoF, misfocusing or plain bungling which might, when I'm aware of it, motivate me to reshoot the scene if I'm still at the same location.

The purpose of showing the above shot, taken a few days ago, was merely to illustrate the major flaw of a wide-angle lens such as the Nikkor 14-24, which can produce some serious volume-anamorphic distortion near the edges and corners of the frame.

What I find surprising is that the 'lens profile corrections' in ACR actually make such volume anamorphosis worse, in addition to cropping the frame in a way which might not be desired.
DXO have some dedicated software which can automatically correct such distortion, but with the disadvantage of cropping the image even more than the lens profile correction in ACR does.

The best way I've found in dealing with such distortions is to manually correct them using Free Transform and Warp in Photoshop.
The attached three crops show, from left to right, (1) the image without lens profile correction, (2) the image with lens profile correction, (3) the image after my manually selecting the area at the right edge of the frame and applying Free Transform and Warp.

Hope I've satisfactorily answered your question, Russ. 

[Chris Calohan]

I'll work fine on the D7000, Chris, but since the D7000 has an APS-C sensor it'll be the equivalent of a 24 to 52.5 mm on a full-frame. I got into the Nikon DSLR line (switching from an Olympus E-20) years ago with a D100, but I never bought a DX lens because I was sure Nikon would go full-frame at some point. That approach paid off in the long run, but I still had the crop factor to deal with until the D3 came out. And yes, I grew up on primes. Loved my Leica prime lineup back in the sixties and it took me a while to change my thinking when I started using the fixed zoom on the E-20. I have a 50mm f/1.4 prime and an 85 f/1.8 prime for my Nikons, and I love 'em both. My street camera is an Olympus E-P1 with a 25mm Summilux f/1.4 prime, which acts like a 50mm on the four-thirds sensor.

This is of more interest to me as I am keeping the D7000 body and also purchasing the D800e body. I want something that will work on both. I'm still likely to sell my 70-200 2.8 and the 1.7 tele-extender as I find older arms don't hold heavy lenses nearly as well as they did 10 yeas ago and it doesn't work nearly as well on the D800 as the newer 70-200.

[RSL]

I got my D800 as soon as I could after the D800 series came out. I put in orders for both the D800 and D800e, but after considerable rumination I cancelled the D800e order and went with the D800. After looking at comparison after comparison I became convinced that unless I was going to use the camera in a studio, the e would cause more problems than it would offer solutions. All the tests seemed to show that unless you're operating at f/4 or wider, results from the two cameras are indistinguishable, and that even a small bit of capture sharpening will even out the difference when you shoot wide open. I'm still convinced. I frequently shoot old brick buildings and old buildings with shingles, and even with the D800 there are occasional moire problems since the D800's low pass filter is minimal.

Not long ago somebody -- don't remember who it was -- on LuLa said he was going to get a D800e to shoot sitting songbirds. If you look at Audubon's great pictures of small, brightly colored birds you realize that the last thing you want for photographing them is a camera without a low pass filter. You're almost guaranteed to have moire problems in their intricate feather patterns.