Manual Nikkor Wide Angle Lens - 20mm, 24mm, 28mm?

[Derrel]

I've owned Nikkor wide-angle lenses in lengths of 20mm,24mm,28mm,and 35mm, of various vintages, in manual focus and AF versions. Each of the short three (20,24,28) is VERY different from one another. The 20mm produces the most corner distortion, and has the most-pronoucned fall-off of the background size, while the 35mm has the absolute least distortion of corner-located things. EACH lens is its very own, distinct, different "thing", and that is why buying some types of prime lenses can be so tricky.

Here's the way I see it: the 24mm/2.8 Ai-S might be optically the strongest of the three lenses, since it has CrC, or Close Range Correction and is a very good performer. The 28mm f/2.8 Ai that I owned in the 1980's and 1990's was optically NOT as strong as the 24/2.8 Ai-S. The 28mm lens's strength is wide-angle without "too much" distorting of things that are off-axis. The 28mm is an easy wide-angle length to learn to see with, and is very useful.

The 20mm f/3.5 Ai- is as I recall, available as a 52mm filter thread lens, meaning it's small (Or was the f/3.5 Ai the 72mm diameter wide-angle? I cannot recall. It's been years since it was current.) I never cared much for the 20mm length...too much drop-off in physically,on-film or on-sensor size to things that are more than 20 feet away. With a 20mm lens, things located toward the edges and corners of the frame look "distorted", which can be fine for creative looks, but also, a PITA on some things if you want a "natural" look.

 

[ac12]

I think you need to pause, step back, and plan your entire lens landscape for the film camera.

Example 24+50+105 or 20+28+50+85+135 or 35+105 or . . .​

Only once you have the landscape planned, then you can start to get the lenses.

If you don't plan and just buy one lens at time, you are going to run into situations where things do not work well. Like two lenses too close together or too far apart.

Have you looked at the angular coverage of the different lenses, and compared it to your 50?
Have you considered wide angle perspective distortion of the different focal lengths?

Have you ever used a 20mm lens? 13mm on your DX camera. What is your plan if the wide angle distortion it too great for you to handle?​

Is the wide a specialized lens just for WIDE coverage, or does it have to mesh with your 50 as part of a system landscape?

 

[Braineack]

And my question is, why? why Rokinon over Nikkor Lenses? You gave me no compelling reason why you think I should get Rokinon lenses.

because they aren't incredibly soft, full of CA, and distort the image like crazy?

 

[compur]

Why not just ask me, "Why Rokinon and not Nikon?"

Why Rokinon and not Nikon?

 

[Derrel]

I thought that Rokinon actually had a really good 14 mm? And I mean good as in good optics, but with very sketchy reliability mechanically. I have not kept up on Rokinon except to know that their 14mm is popular with Star-shooters.it is very low-cost, and very sharp, and as long as it works, it's a good lens. But there have been extremely quick breakdowns on a number of Rokinon lenses according to lensrentals.com

 

[gryffinwings]

I missed the bodies they will be used on - so I'll go with the second part of my post - I love my 24mm.

Note, however, that a DX lens will work on a number of FX (digital or film) bodies with some limitations, though not likely your older ones. You will get some vignetting at the wider focal length. I've used a DX 18-135 on a F90 with no issues until I got to the wide end.

Thank you for your input, it seems the Nikkor 24mm f2.8 ais, is probably best.

I always had a 28mm lens with my film cameras. So I would start with that today if I was going to jump back into film. However, I usually went with the f/2.8 as this is a good indoor lens when you are tight on space want to fit a few more people in the shot.

I would actually just buy whichever of the three lenses popped up with the best price and in good condition at the time I decided to look.

I've also heard this is a good lens, but the reports I read are that it's less than stellar at infinity in regards to the Nikkor 28mm f2.8 ai-s, I've also heard it doesn't have too much distortion.

I've owned Nikkor wide-angle lenses in lengths of 20mm,24mm,28mm,and 35mm, of various vintages, in manual focus and AF versions. Each of the short three (20,24,28) is VERY different from one another. The 20mm produces the most corner distortion, and has the most-pronoucned fall-off of the background size, while the 35mm has the absolute least distortion of corner-located things. EACH lens is its very own, distinct, different "thing", and that is why buying some types of prime lenses can be so tricky.

Here's the way I see it: the 24mm/2.8 Ai-S might be optically the strongest of the three lenses, since it has CrC, or Close Range Correction and is a very good performer. The 28mm f/2.8 Ai that I owned in the 1980's and 1990's was optically NOT as strong as the 24/2.8 Ai-S. The 28mm lens's strength is wide-angle without "too much" distorting of things that are off-axis. The 28mm is an easy wide-angle length to learn to see with, and is very useful.

The 20mm f/3.5 Ai- is as I recall, available as a 52mm filter thread lens, meaning it's small (Or was the f/3.5 Ai the 72mm diameter wide-angle? I cannot recall. It's been years since it was current.) I never cared much for the 20mm length...too much drop-off in physically,on-film or on-sensor size to things that are more than 20 feet away. With a 20mm lens, things located toward the edges and corners of the frame look "distorted", which can be fine for creative looks, but also, a PITA on some things if you want a "natural" look.

Again, seems like the 24mm is my best bet for what I want it for, landscapes, nature, skylines, etc.

And my question is, why? why Rokinon over Nikkor Lenses? You gave me no compelling reason why you think I should get Rokinon lenses.

because they aren't incredibly soft, full of CA, and distort the image like crazy?

Sounds reasonable, which specific Rokinon would you recommend? I've read reports that the lenses are not consistent from model to model. For me the focal length of the Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 ED AS UMC seems right for me, I'll look into it more, but like more opinions on it.

 

[Derrel]

Into The Night Photography: Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 Review

This 2014 review compares the $550 Rokinon 24/1.4 against a $1,750 Canon 24mm f/1.4 lens...and the Rokinon has VASTLY BETTER correction that counts hugely for star shooting: it has better coma correction. Coma is what makes point light sources, like stars, look like footballs, or other smeary,elongated blips of light, and not perfect,rounded "dots" of light. Coma is what RUINS many night-time photos of cityscapes, etc....a lens that has coma well-controlled is highly,highly desirable for night-time shooting where there are many light sources.

I know $500-$600 is not chicken feed, but for an "exotic" lens, like a 24mm f/1.,4 wide-angle, that is LOW-cost, and is far less-expensive than a Nikon f/1.8 model.

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

Having a hard time deciding on which wide angle lens to get when, so from my interweb research and forum feedback, there is quite a bit of contradiction, these are the lenses I've seen recommended:

1. Nikkor 20mm f3.5 AI
2. Nikkor 24mm f2.8 AI-s
3. Nikkor 28mm f3.5 AI-s

The truth is that the wide angle lenses were never really that good, it's the one area where computer aided design has made massive improvement. A lot of the lenses are seen through *rose tinted filters* and are often overpriced by over-optimistic reviews and *maximum aperture bragging rights*.

Tim's honest appraisals:

I gave up with them all and settled for a Milvus 35/2. They all suffer from aberrations and veiling flare wide open, all are corrected more for close focus than infinity and all are soft at the corners until stopped down.

The best performance/value by far is the 35/2. This is actually a very capable lens and still reasonably priced.

This is slightly pipped by the 35/1.4 but it suffers massive aberrations wide open and is hugely overpriced for it's real performance because of the f1.4 bragging rights. Wide open it's a lot worse than the budget 35/2.8 image below, character or just plain awful? Depends if you bought one or not...

The 35/2.8 is a budget lens and capable within certain parameters. It has less distortion than most and stopped down has a good sharpness across the frame. Wide open it's awful, see the images below. The first is wide open at close focus, loaded with aberration. The second is stopped down on the right, and a small window in the lower left edge to show the difference in edge performance. Note the overall softness and flare wide open at a distance and in light that should play to it's strengths.

For the 28mm, the 28/2.8 AiS (CRC version) is probably the best, but optimistic reviews make it relatively expensive for it's actual performance. Softer at infinity. The 28/2.8Ai is a different design and noticably less capable.

The 28/2 is again over-priced, good contest and centre sharpness at the wider apertures but needs stopping down to at least f5.6/f8 for the corners.

The 28/3.5 is again a budget lens and don't expect miracles wide open, but at the price you can get them of around £25-30 is worth a shot. It'll give you a good introduction to the legacy WA offerings. NB. Get one that's Ai or has the factory Ai ring as you can't do the home conversion with this lens.

The 20/24mm lenses were really the exotics of the time and their original price reflected this rather than their performance. Expect these lenses to perform well in the f5.6-f11 range and noticably less well outside this or into the light.

Both images resized to 25% and 50% with default ACR sharpening to be fair and mitigate some of the pixel peeping and so are more relevant to actual viewed size, :

 

[gryffinwings]

Having a hard time deciding on which wide angle lens to get when, so from my interweb research and forum feedback, there is quite a bit of contradiction, these are the lenses I've seen recommended:

1. Nikkor 20mm f3.5 AI
2. Nikkor 24mm f2.8 AI-s
3. Nikkor 28mm f3.5 AI-s

The truth is that the wide angle lenses were never really that good, it's the one area where computer aided design has made massive improvement. A lot of the lenses are seen through *rose tinted filters* and are often overpriced by over-optimistic reviews and *maximum aperture bragging rights*.

Tim's honest appraisals:

I gave up with them all and settled for a Milvus 35/2. They all suffer from aberrations and veiling flare wide open, all are corrected more for close focus than infinity and all are soft at the corners until stopped down.

The best performance/value by far is the 35/2. This is actually a very capable lens and still reasonably priced.

This is slightly pipped by the 35/1.4 but it suffers massive aberrations wide open and is hugely overpriced for it's real performance because of the f1.4 bragging rights. Wide open it's a lot worse than the budget 35/2.8 image below, character or just plain awful? Depends if you bought one or not...

The 35/2.8 is a budget lens and capable within certain parameters. It has less distortion than most and stopped down has a good sharpness across the frame. Wide open it's awful, see the images below. The first is wide open at close focus, loaded with aberration. The second is stopped down on the right, and a small window in the lower left edge to show the difference in edge performance. Note the overall softness and flare wide open at a distance and in light that should play to it's strengths.

For the 28mm, the 28/2.8 AiS (CRC version) is probably the best, but optimistic reviews make it relatively expensive for it's actual performance. Softer at infinity. The 28/2.8Ai is a different design and noticably less capable.

The 28/2 is again over-priced, good contest and centre sharpness at the wider apertures but needs stopping down to at least f5.6/f8 for the corners.

The 28/3.5 is again a budget lens and don't expect miracles wide open, but at the price you can get them of around £25-30 is worth a shot. It'll give you a good introduction to the legacy WA offerings. NB. Get one that's Ai or has the factory Ai ring as you can't do the home conversion with this lens.

The 20/24mm lenses were really the exotics of the time and their original price reflected this rather than their performance. Expect these lenses to perform well in the f5.6-f11 range and noticably less well outside this or into the light.

Both images resized to 25% and 50% with default ACR sharpening to be fair and mitigate some of the pixel peeping and so are more relevant to actual viewed size, :

View attachment 167030 View attachment 167029

Wow, now this is the kind of eye-opening information that I need, this really puts into perspective what I can use and what my current limitations are. Thank you for sharing this information.

 

[MartinCrabtree]

I have a 24 f2.8 Ai (it's an Ai-brain cramp) with CRC I'm pretty fond of. Not a fan of dissecting the minutiae I just like the way it works. It's equipped with a chip so functions well with later cameras enabling higher functions. A couple shots taken with it.

​

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

@gryffinwings I'll reply here as I know how upload images better on the forum.

Also what was the lens used in the bottom pictures, the piano one doesn't look too bad, but you can definitely tell softness zoomed in to the sheet music, which is pretty zoomed in.

The images were shot with a 35mm f2.8 "K", the middle six group version. The piano image demonstrates the workings of these lenses quite well. If I show you the middle of the image and point out the problems:

Look at the keys and the sheet music, note that on the left there is distinctly less contrast between the keys and the gaps between, note how there is a distinct softness and blue cast to the whites. This is the centre of the projected image and is where the lens when used wide open is not controlling all the wavelengths equally, or doesn't have them all under control. The blue end of the spectrum is not focussed properly and is both softening the image and giving it a blue cast, (all that uncontrolled light at the blue end of the spectrum). You can also see it clearly on the name plate, a distinct cast and softness on the left. With B&W film and a yellow filter (or any filter) this becomes far less of a problem because most of the blue light gets filtered out so the lens is generally only being asked to focus one end of the spectrum.

However if you look at the right hand side where the lens is stopped well down you will find that it's remarkably good even on a 24MP digital sensor. More than that if we look at the far edge and the little window where it's stopped down:

Here you can see that although poor wide open, stopped down the edge performance is remarkably good and distortion is minimal.

The lens is corrected for closer focus/portrait group distance and is soft at infinity, but again this is not the drawback you may presume. It is natural in perspective for detail and contrast to diminish with distance and coupled with a WA lenses tendency to make the background look more distant is not as noticeable as you may think in a finished image.

So when used stopped down to at least f5.6, shielded with an effective lens hood with a well focussed foreground object it is a reasonable performer even on digital. With B&W film and a filter the lens works well enough for 10"x 8" prints at wider apertures.

This is typical for the legacy WA lenses, it's not that they are consistently poor but that they are just not as well corrected across the full range of apertures for all focus distances as a modern lens is. You just need to learn their strengths, where they perform well, and where they don't.

The 35mm f2 manual focus, (the design was fairly constant) is actually a better lens than the later AF version. It performs quite well across a much greater range, though is still slightly soft at infinity and will have a slightly lower contrast than a modern lens.

The 35mm f1.4 was designed primarily as a photojournalist lens and so at portrait to group distances works remarkably well between f2 and f8, but not that much better than the 35/2 to justify the price difference.

The 24/2.8 Ai is pretty much the same as the 24/2.8D bar coatings and AF. Expect significant coma and softness when used wide open but a fairly competent lens stopped down. It's a tough lens to design without a good computer and was pretty good for it's day. No way it compares to a modern 24mm lens across the full range of apertures and focus distances or with contrast and colour control.

Bear in mind that these lenses have strengths and weaknesses and you can't just point the camera and shoot as you can with modern lenses and they are capable of producing great images.

 

[gryffinwings]

@gryffinwings I'll reply here as I know how upload images better on the forum.

Also what was the lens used in the bottom pictures, the piano one doesn't look too bad, but you can definitely tell softness zoomed in to the sheet music, which is pretty zoomed in.

The images were shot with a 35mm f2.8 "K", the middle six group version. The piano image demonstrates the workings of these lenses quite well. If I show you the middle of the image and point out the problems:

View attachment 167044

Look at the keys and the sheet music, note that on the left there is distinctly less contrast between the keys and the gaps between, note how there is a distinct softness and blue cast to the whites. This is the centre of the projected image and is where the lens when used wide open is not controlling all the wavelengths equally, or doesn't have them all under control. The blue end of the spectrum is not focussed properly and is both softening the image and giving it a blue cast, (all that uncontrolled light at the blue end of the spectrum). You can also see it clearly on the name plate, a distinct cast and softness on the left. With B&W film and a yellow filter (or any filter) this becomes far less of a problem because most of the blue light gets filtered out so the lens is generally only being asked to focus one end of the spectrum.

However if you look at the right hand side where the lens is stopped well down you will find that it's remarkably good even on a 24MP digital sensor. More than that if we look at the far edge and the little window where it's stopped down:

View attachment 167046

Here you can see that although poor wide open, stopped down the edge performance is remarkably good and distortion is minimal.

The lens is corrected for closer focus/portrait group distance and is soft at infinity, but again this is not the drawback you may presume. It is natural in perspective for detail and contrast to diminish with distance and coupled with a WA lenses tendency to make the background look more distant is not as noticeable as you may think in a finished image.

So when used stopped down to at least f5.6, shielded with an effective lens hood with a well focussed foreground object it is a reasonable performer even on digital. With B&W film and a filter the lens works well enough for 10"x 8" prints at wider apertures.

This is typical for the legacy WA lenses, it's not that they are consistently poor but that they are just not as well corrected across the full range of apertures for all focus distances as a modern lens is. You just need to learn their strengths, where they perform well, and where they don't.

The 35mm f2 manual focus, (the design was fairly constant) is actually a better lens than the later AF version. It performs quite well across a much greater range, though is still slightly soft at infinity and will have a slightly lower contrast than a modern lens.

The 35mm f1.4 was designed primarily as a photojournalist lens and so at portrait to group distances works remarkably well between f2 and f8, but not that much better than the 35/2 to justify the price difference.

The 24/2.8 Ai is pretty much the same as the 24/2.8D bar coatings and AF. Expect significant coma and softness when used wide open but a fairly competent lens stopped down. It's a tough lens to design without a good computer and was pretty good for it's day. No way it compares to a modern 24mm lens across the full range of apertures and focus distances or with contrast and colour control.

Bear in mind that these lenses have strengths and weaknesses and you can't just point the camera and shoot as you can with modern lenses and they are capable of producing great images.

Thank you for imparting significant knowledge about these lenses, it is very helpful to understand how the older wide angle prime lenses worked and there limitations are and how that would look in an actual photo.