Nikkor 14-24 2.8 alternatives. Landscape lens

[Destin]

Another lens I haven’t seen mentioned is the Nikon 20mm 1.8G.

I wouldn’t recommend it as a primary landscape lens. It has a fair amount of distortion, and it’s really far wider than I like for my landscape work. I’ve found that on full frame, the Tamron 24-70 G2 is my go to landscape lens.

The only reason the 20 1.8G stays in my kit at this point is that it’s a phenomenal lens for astrophotography, and it’s compact and light enough that I can carry it with me on backpacking trips to photograph the night sky.

@nerwin loves his 20 1.8. I bet I would love it, too. I have the super wide itch.
That's why zooms in this range are so attractive to me. A couple mm at these wide lengths makes a completely different shot.

Yeah, it absolutely does. I think I’d like mine more if I did more shooting with it.. the ultrawide lenses are really hard to work with if you don’t do it often because it’s an entirely different way of composing things than most of us are used to.

That’s even more true for someone like myself who prefers to shoot just about everything at 135-200mm if I’m able to because I like the compression it gives me.

 

[JonA_CT]

@JonA_CT I'm speculating that Sigma 17-35 in your sig line left you wanting that super wide, so you added the 15 prime?

Sorry to be nosy lol, your decision process may help with mine

Yes, and that particular lens is decently soft at the ends of it's zoom range. I also used it almost exclusively at 17mm, which was also the motivation. I haven't shot a lot in the past couple of months (the weather has been complete crap and my family has been more needy than usual), but I haven't mounted the 17-35mm since I bought the 15mm.

Again, for what it's worth...some shots from that lens...

newlondonexit by jwa04, on Flickr

(I used a cheapo 10 stop ND filter on this one)

You get the idea.



Have you ever owned a super-wide lens? I mean...part of me might tell you to grab the 16-35mm f4 used and see what you think of the focal lengths. You should be able to sell it for what you paid for it if you decide that you want to grab one of these primes or that you really want the 14-24mm instead.

 

[zulu42]

Geez. Those are pretty damn fabulous shots. Thanks for posting them.

I'm also really liking your thought process on the 16-35 used.

 

[JonA_CT]

Final thought...

Unless you are interested in astrophotography (hell, I would be if I lived in Nevada), any of these lens are probably fine to get a trial run with. In other situations, you’ll be shooting at least at f8, and the edge to edge sharpness on all of these lenses is pretty solid.

I have a thought. I’ll send you a PM.

 

[nerwin]

Just food for thought.

Sometimes wide can be TOO wide. Why? Distortion. When you get the wide angle bug, you want to keep going wider and wider but eventually you learn that it's too much and has unnatural feeling. Which is why I personally went to the 20 1.8G. It's wide enough to give you that ultra wide angle feel but without looking unnatural. This lens has no distortion, I can enable lens corrections in LR and most of the time it does nothing..accept fixing a little bit of vignetting if I shoot at larger apertures.

I won't lie though. I do miss the 16mm but the distortion was so bad that when I enabled corrections, it basically made it 18mm equivalent and after looking through my photos, I often was shooting around 19-22mm anyways. So I guess maybe I just gravitate toward that particular focal length for some reason.

 

[zulu42]

You are making good sense. The input helps, thanks.

 

[nerwin]

You are making good sense. The input helps, thanks.

I'm not trying stear you one way or another but honestly, just get the zoom and go from there. That's what I did.

Having a wide angle prime can be restrictive, I wish I had the flexibility of a zoom. But having that 1.8 is pretty awesome sometimes.

The 20 1.8G focuses super close too haha. It's like a wide angle macro lol. It focuses so close that you almost have to remove the lens hood and oftentimes I do.

 

[zulu42]

I can read reviews until my eyes bleed, but this conversation has more value than the whole internet at my fingertips.

Great shot Nerwin. That's some incredible bokeh for a lens that wide.

 

[Derrel]

Looking at the Best lenses for Nikon D810 carefully, I see that this newer zoom is about as good a performer as the 14-24/2.8...almost the same score overall, and the same score on perceptual resolving capability.

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5G ED

Note that this is the "new" G-series model, and not the much older 18-35mm IF~ED model.

I dunno...when I think landscape lens, I think "f/8"...and at that small of an aperture, diffraction has already set in, and that has the effect of lowering absolute sharpness to the degree that I will not hesitate to use an old,cheap,plastic-barreled zoom on my D800...because the absolute highest resolving power of a lens on a 12-MP sensor is somewhere around f/3.2, but the depth of field is so shallow that "resolving power" of the lens is not as important as is having enough depth of field (!) to show things in acceptable focus! On a 24-Mp or 36-MP sensor, diffraction hits even earlier, so even at f/5.6, you've already lost resolving capability, but have gotten into the zone where depth of field is starting to pick up and become more-usable.

If you look at the DxO Mark scores, it's clear that prime lenses are better performers, but, they have exceptionally limited focal length flexibility, as in zero focal length flexibility. It's surprising how exceptionally close the 14-24 and the new 18-35 lenses are: close, and equal, in the two metrics they list in the chart.

Check out the long list of lenses and their scores...kind of interesting for people who want to know how "sharp" various lenses are, and at what price points the performance tends to cluster. Best lenses for the Nikon D810 camera | Nikon Rumors

They way I think of it is the way Popular Photography described it years ago: at f/8 a mid-level zoom lens is about as sharp as a pro-level f/2.8 zoom, but will it last as long, and stay acceptable under rugged use?

 

[nerwin]

Popular Photography. Man...I haven't heard that name in a while. I used to buy their magazines. Haha.

 

[zulu42]

Looking at the Best lenses for Nikon D810 carefully, I see that this newer zoom is about as good a performer as the 14-24/2.8...almost the same score overall, and the same score on perceptual resolving capability.

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5G ED

Note that this is the "new" G-series model, and not the much older 18-35mm IF~ED model.

I dunno...when I think landscape lens, I think "f/8"...and at that small of an aperture, diffraction has already set in, and that has the effect of lowering absolute sharpness to the degree that I will not hesitate to use an old,cheap,plastic-barreled zoom on my D800...because the absolute highest resolving power of a lens on a 12-MP sensor is somewhere around f/3.2, but the depth of field is so shallow that "resolving power" of the lens is not as important as is having enough depth of field (!) to show things in acceptable focus! On a 24-Mp or 36-MP sensor, diffraction hits even earlier, so even at f/5.6, you've already lost resolving capability, but have gotten into the zone where depth of field is starting to pick up and become more-usable.

If you look at the DxO Mark scores, it's clear that prime lenses are better performers, but, they have exceptionally limited focal length flexibility, as in zero focal length flexibility. It's surprising how exceptionally close the 14-24 and the new 18-35 lenses are: close, and equal, in the two metrics they list in the chart.

Check out the long list of lenses and their scores...kind of interesting for people who want to know how "sharp" various lenses are, and at what price points the performance tends to cluster. Best lenses for the Nikon D810 camera | Nikon Rumors

They way I think of it is the way Popular Photography described it years ago: at f/8 a mid-level zoom lens is about as sharp as a pro-level f/2.8 zoom, but will it last as long, and stay acceptable under rugged use?

Shoot. That 18-35 G is really affordable compared to the others in contention. It would leave some room in the budget for a superwide prime like Jon's 15.

You guys are super helpful, but the decision isn't getting any easier lol

 

[nerwin]

Shoot. That 18-35 G is really affordable compared to the others in contention. It would leave some room in the budget for a superwide prime like Jon's 15.

You guys are super helpful, but the decision isn't getting any easier lol

As they say, It's only money!!

 

[Upadhyay]

I'm trying to decide which lenses to lust over.
Obviously, the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 is a stellar lens, seems to be sort of an industry standard.

Shall I just continue to save and wait for the best, or are there other wide lenses, even primes, that can get me close to the IQ of that lens?

Any other recommendations for wide landscape lenses for full frame Nikon?

Thanks!

Before making a decision do consider the fact that this lens cannot take the regular screw type filters you will have to invest in 150mm filters and specialized filter assembly which is very expensive.

You may also look at Nikon 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5G, not in the same league or focal range but this is a great value for money.

 

[zulu42]

Thank you again everyone for your help. I started looking real hard at the 18-35. With the reported image quality of that lens, I was willing to give up the vr, speed and focal range. Priced at $749 new at Adorama, I found an ebay seller advertising new USA full mfr warranty at buy it now or best offer. He accepted my $575 offer, and the lens has already shipped.

I actually expected to spend twice that amount, so the extra budget gets me a 105 2.8 micro from a forum member, and I'm getting ready to pull the trigger on a couple filters for the 18-35.

@Upadhyay , thanks for your input. You have some excellent photos on your facebook page!

 

[zulu42]

I wish I could come up with the right search terms to find some filter discussion threads. I'm looking at a cpl and 6 stop nd from a company called Breakthrough Photography that I found on Amazon. I want high quality filters for this lens because the 77mm size I think will be useful on other lenses in the future.

Those two filters in my Amazon cart are $322, and I would prefer to spend less, obviously.
Any suggestions on filters, or if you know where I can find a good TPF thread discussing filters, thank you