Retired photo

[opus]

I have the Nikon D-200, and wonder if any of you have experience with the Nikon 12-24mm ED-IF AFS DX zoom or the comperable Tokina lens? Also, has anyone used the Nikon 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6 ED-IF AFS VR? I would think that the quality would be much better than the new 18-200 VR DX.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

I can't say anything about the 12-24's, but unless money is seriously an issue, I’d just assume go with the Nikkor.

As for the 24-120 VR, I have it and it's fast becoming my favorite lens over my f/2.8's for daylight walkaround use.

The zoom range fits perfectly for me. I chose the 24-120 over the 18-200 simply because it doesn't extend so much, it feels more solid, and I couldn't find any new 18-200's new in stock for a reasonable price.

I've found that f/5.6 at the long end is no problem because I always have the lens stopped down to f/9.5 (its sharpest aperture). The only time when the 24-120 is too slow is at night, or when you need to stop action which is where I use my f/2.8's.



The quality at f/3.5 is useable, but by no means stellar. same goes for f/16 and tighter.

 

[fmw]

The Nikkor 12-24 f4 zoom is a competent lens. I wouldn't call it spectacular but that is because I was used to using single focal length wide angles in the 35mm days. At the short end of the zoom range, it displays a strange perspective that is hard to describe. I call it lateral keystoning. If you want to shoot a building, as an example, you would expect the building to keystone from bottom to top as you tilt the lens from vertical. However, you would expect the sides of the building to remain perpendicular to the ground. This does not appear to happen at the short end of the zoom range with this lens. I am unable to get a right angle between the street and the side of the building and the angle becomes more acute as I tilt the lens from vertical. Just like a fisheye tends to bend these planes, the 12-24 tends to move them the same way without the curvilinear distortion. I hope that explains the phenomenon adequately. I'm bothered and disoriented by this perspective as I never encountered it in a wide angle lens before. I suppose one could call it "creative" but I just call it lateral keystoning.

Otherwise, the lens is fine. I don't see excessive corner stretching or softness at the edges. I don't see a change in image quality across the zoom range. I haven't tested any of the other lenses so I won't comment.

The 24-120 should be sharper than the 18-200 by a noticeable margin. I owned the lens in the pre-VR days and found it to be ok for a 5X zoom. I would venture to say it was better than most 5X zooms. It was cripplingly slow at the long end of the zoom range for someone like me who shot everything with ISO 100 transparency film, however, and I relegated it to use as an event lens to be used with portable flash.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

The Nikkor 12-24 f4 zoom is a competent lens. I wouldn't call it spectacular but that is because I was used to using single focal length wide angles in the 35mm days. At the short end of the zoom range, it displays a strange perspective that is hard to describe. I call it lateral keystoning. If you want to shoot a building, as an example, you would expect the building to keystone from bottom to top as you tilt the lens from vertical. However, you would expect the sides of the building to remain perpendicular to the ground. This does not appear to happen at the short end of the zoom range with this lens. I am unable to get a right angle between the street and the side of the building and the angle becomes more acute as I tilt the lens from vertical. Just like a fisheye tends to bend these planes, the 12-24 tends to move them the same way without the curvilinear distortion. I hope that explains the phenomenon adequately. I'm bothered and disoriented by this perspective as I never encountered it in a wide angle lens before. I suppose one could call it "creative" but I just call it lateral keystoning.

Otherwise, the lens is fine. I don't see excessive corner stretching or softness at the edges. I don't see a change in image quality across the zoom range. I haven't tested any of the other lenses so I won't comment.

The 24-120 should be sharper than the 18-200 by a noticeable margin. I owned the lens in the pre-VR days and found it to be ok for a 5X zoom. I would venture to say it was better than most 5X zooms. It was cripplingly slow at the long end of the zoom range for someone like me who shot everything with ISO 100 transparency film, however, and I relegated it to use as an event lens to be used with portable flash.

(For me) The distortion is why i'd use the 12-24, at 12mm, it's just so extreme.

As for the 24-120 being sharper than the 18-200, I'm not sure if it's sharper or not, but i've found it to have much less distorion than any 18-200 i've ever seen. It doesn't have the wonky distortion of the Tamron, Sigma's, Minolta's, or the Nikkor. Now the 24-120 does in fact have alot of barrel distortion at 24mm that is easily noticeable if you have verticals on the sides of the frame, however, it's correctable in photoshop.