Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF-S – In the Field Review

When this lens was released a few years ago, I was a Canon shooter, with a full range of lenses including Sigma 12-24 – Canon 24-70/2.8, 70-200/2.8 all the way up to a 600/4. All this on the front of a 1Ds Mark II. In other words, I was committed. For wildlife, I had few issues, generally content with the gear. It was at the wide end I had my problems. The Sigma 12-24 doing a better job than any of the wide offerings from Canon. The 24/1.4 I used however, was amazing, but 24mm isn’t really that wide.

Reviews began to emerge of the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF-S, and the word on the street was – For wide lenses, this is the current top lens available. I also read a few reviews from other Canon users who were using an adapter allowing them to use the Nikon lens on their Canon bodies, and I investigated that option also. But, ultimately felt that sacrificing the full aperture range was not ideal either.

Nikon D3x 14-24/2.8
14mm @ f4 – 15 x 120s Frames @ ISO 640
Stacked in Photoshop CS5

At the same time, my night photography was also moving into new ground, as we spend many months up in the Himalaya of Tibet and SW China. The more I read about the low-light capabilities of the Nikon D700, I was rapidly considering a full-switch.

So, that is what I did. Living in China, it was not difficult for Juanli to sell off all my Canon gear, and with a small cash injection I sent off to an online vendor for my new gear – It really was like the best Christmas ever, the courier delivering in one box – D700, 24-70/2.8 – 70-300/4.5-5.6 – SB900 Flash and of course the 14-24/2.8

I was immediately struck by the shear size of this lens, its big, weighty and the gross bulbous front element just looks like it means business. Test shots at the time in my office showed that on the full frame sensor I had plenty of compositional capabilities, but at the same time it was sharp right across the frame, from f2.8 all the way through to f22.

This was 2 years ago, and since then, the D700 was upgraded to a D3x, Nikons 25MP full frame flagship. This body, in my opinion also holds the top postion in 35mm DSLR technology, and is very unforgiving when it comes to what lens one chooses to put in front of it.

It wasn’t until we moved to Spain in the New Year of 2011 that the wide-angle lens really came into its own.

Main Strengths -

Aperture – f2.8 – In low light, especially at night, the large minimum aperture works great. The lens is just as sharp at f2.8 as it is at its minimum of f22. At f2.8 the Hyperfocal Distance is around 2.3m, allowing everything from 1.1m to Infinity to be sharp. That’s under 4 feet!

By the time the lens is stopped down to f22 the hyperfocal distance is 0.3m allowing sharp images from 0.1m to infinity. That’s less than 4 inches!

And this, for a landscape photographer, is where this lens really shines. Finding that intriguing foreground subject and getting the lens right on top of it, allowing perspective to wander off into infinity.

Nikon D3x 14-24/2.8
15mm - 2 Frames – 1.3s, 1/13s @ f22 ISO 50
Blended Manually in Photoshop CS5

The Shortcomings -

So. nothing is perfect is it? The huge bulbous front element and insane field of view mean that using any form of traditional filters is problematic, and expensive. Recently, both Lee and Cokin have released over-sized filter holders to work especially with this lens. They are both expensive, and Lee has a huge back-order problem. The Lee system uses filters that are 150x170mm in size and about $128 each.

My current best solution is to use multi-frame manual exposure blending. Taking a number of manually bracketed exposures to deal with the dynamic range problems. Photoshop CS5 is so capable of handling these blends with Channel masking, that the need for grads is seriously questionable. However, I will be adding the SW150 shortly, and see it’s primary use as a holder for ND’s rather than Grads. At some stage a polarizer would be handy too, especially for woodland and water scenes/ But there are some inherent problems using a polarizer at such wide angles.

The large front element has to be cleaned with care, as any dust or moisture creates some serious flare.

The Verdict -

In my years of shooting landscapes, I have never used a better lens, it is my tool of choice for architecture and landscape work. It’s sharp as you would ever want, sufers minimally from chromatic aberration or distortion (other than wild perspectives!)

Highly Recommended *****