|
Articles and Reviews
|
Home >> Photography >> Film Equipment Nikkor 24mm f/2.8D AF I bought this lens after reading that Galen Rowell’s favorite lens was the 24mm. Given that prior to buying this lens, all I had was 35mm for a wide-angle perspective, I thought I should have a real wide-angle lens. Galen’s influence on me made it easy to choose how wide I should go. When I first bought it, I had little idea of how to use the lens effectively given its wide angle of view. It took me quite some time and a few books to understand what the writers and photographers were talking about. I started using it as a "catch-all" lens that would fill my frame up with everything but that of course is the least of a wide angle’s uses. I’ve learned to get closer to my subjects and take advantage of the greater depth of field afforded by this lens. I’m not technical about such things but the lens certainly seems sharp and up to the Nikon tradition of great color and contrast. I did learn that wide angles can sometimes be difficult to use with polarizers, not only for vignetting but also due to the greater coverage of the sky for example, the polarizer can only cover so many degrees of the scene. I did a very non-technical type of test of shooting a few frames of the clear blue sky with this lens at various apertures. The frame shot at 2.8 had noticeable light fall around the edges in a circular fashion. The fall off diminished at f/4 and by f/5.6, the fall off was gone. You have to be careful when using filters and lens hoods with this lens (as is the case with all wide-angle lenses). One shoot that I did on the Beach Ave walkway towards Stanley Park in Vancouver got me a few frames with slight vignetting. I was using a polarizer on top of a UV filter that I normally have on all my lenses as protection against bumps and falls. Unfortunately, the use of two filters stacked on top of each other on a wide-angle lens caused small little triangles to form in the corners of my prints. Newbie mistake but I still should have known better because I had already read about such problems in John Shaw's Landscape Photography book. In that book he dismissed a fellow photographer who complained of un-sharp results with his images. Upon further examination of how the person was taking photos, Shaw discovered the person had been stacking filters. Lesson learned and I don’t stack filter myself anymore. I think the lens hood for this lens, the HN-1, also adds to the vignetting problems. As there are no provisions for a bayonet-mounting hood, the HN-1 is a screw on type like a filter. With one filter, the hood presents no problems but with two, the hood will just exacerbate the problem. Another aspect of wide angles is the way the lateral edges of a scene get spread out and distort whatever or whoever is at those edges. I noticed this phenomenon whenever I took group shots with this lens. I didn’t have the technical know-how back then to understand why the lens did that. Then I bought the Medium Format Advantage by Ernst Wildi of Hasselblad. In this great and highly recommended book, Mr. Wildi explained why lenses do the things they do and put my mind at ease about the distortion I saw in my prints with the 24mm lens. In fact all lenses exhibit this tendency to distort laterally but as you go wider, the distortion is more obvious. I don’t know about the 28mm but I don’t see any of this distortion (or at least it’s not there in any significant amount) with my 35-70mm. I wonder if I shouldn’t just use my 35-70mm for all my shots and just forego the use of the 24mm for formal shots in order to avoid the lateral distortion. The 24mm lens a good lens but I want to eventually buy either the older 20-35mm 2.8 or the just introduced 17-35mm 2.8 AF-S lens in the future due to its greater versatility. I could pick up 20mm and 28mm prime lenses to round out my wide-angle coverage but since I’m a lazy person and loathe packing so many things in the bush, I like the idea of one high quality zoom to cover my needs. Even so, I think I’ll keep this lens along with my 50mm 1.8 for my son to use when he’s old enough to shoot. I’m sure he’ll have fun with this lens as he learns to use it effectively. I have one B&W photo of my wife napping in a reclining chair with her feet up on the ottoman. I sneaked up to her and snapped a shot of her feet-first and the ensuing distortion made her feet loom quite large in the foreground. Needless to say she was not impressed and the photo has now been banished to the outtakes envelope. When you learn to get close to your subject, this lens is a lot of fun. *July 1, 2000 - I no longer have this lens in my kit.
|
|
Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
|
 |
|
