Nikon 24mm PC-E

New lens, PC-E NIKKOR 24mm f/3.5D ED N
http://www.flickr.com/photos/edgehil...7603231101723/
here's my impressions.
(PS it got long & I ran out of time to edit perfectly g)

Sharpness Panic
I snatched it up at $300 off ($1700) from J&R and was worried it might
be some kind of reject return so I tested it against a couple other
lenses at that focal length. Woah, I freaked out inspecting the first
couple rounds but it turns out infinity is given some room for heat
expansion or whatever, damn it didn't get sharp till f/16... whew, glad
that was resolved. Still I'm amazed how well my old beater Ai 24/2.8
performed. I got the Ai as bargain grade from KEH & it was in such
horrible physical & mechanical condition that I haven't used it much, I
just assumed the optics were shot too. Even after getting the focus
right, I'm amazed the old Ai is darn sharp. Anyways, it does have more
CA, bad vignetting, nasty barrel distortion and the corner sharpness
falls apart in the last bit compared to the new PC-E. The other lens
tested was a Sigma 12-24 which is not so great at 24mm though it does
have an uncanny ability to remain sharp in the far corners and minimize
distortion for architectural work. It's only f/5.6 at 24mm.

The 24 PC-E does some CA in the worst situations but corner sharpness is
excellent. It's quite close focusing, much more than the 24mm f/2.8
prime with CRC. Geometry is great until you get to close focus shots
where there is quite a bit of barrel distortion but that's
understandable. It isn't a $5,000 lens g. Ah, actually that's on sale
for $2500 now:
http://www.calumetphoto.com/item/CB0...ELAID=36792862
$2,599.99 Sale Price—You save $2,100.00
($4,000 for the bellows to mount it)

Closeup
While not billed as a macro, the PC-E focuses super close, to a couple
inches away, and you can tilt that to infinity. It fills the frame with
a 90mm wide subject, about 2.5:1. If you shift, barrel distortion
becomes severe but is not bad centered and the other 2 lenses come
nowhere near this close. At ordinary distances the distortion is very
minimal. I think this closeup ability will be a lot of fun to play with!
My closeup lens attachment is nearly worthless, it's designed for long
lenses and has a very small effect on close focusing. A 12mm extension
tube has a noticeable but fairly minor effect and it becomes very hard
to get light on the subject with the front bumping into things. The tilt
feature at these close distances makes some very interesting and unusual
scenes possible; I can almost fill the frame with a glass of water and
tilt to keep infinity in focus at the horizon with the aperture wide
open at f/3.5. Wow.

Bokeh
The out-of-focus spots can be pretty bad/interesting or very nice,
depending on the situation. The cause of this is revealed when you play
with shifting against a bright point source. There are several nested
bokeh circles that make a layered onion effect and shifting brings them
out of alignment producing a grouping of different-sized oof circles for
each point. Tilt that and they become oblong with variously clipped
edges. That said, if you keep things thoroughly out of focus, the soft
edges blur the weird ring patterns and create ideal creamy soft tapered
blobs with gradually brighter centers. The Ai Nikkor produces the
typical Nikon hard-edged, evenly illuminated discs. The Sigma has the
most horrible bokeh I've ever seen. It's similar to the PC-E's onion but
laced with irregularities so each circle looks like a freaky patterned
mandala painted by a 5-year-old. I would never intentionally show blur
with that lens but there are many beautiful possibilities for the PC-E.
The rounded 9 aperture blades help too, the old Ai goes heptagonal if
you stop down with it's 7 angular blades.

Compatibility
There are very few movements restricted on a D700, it's only fully
compatible with the D3 but the exceptions are trivial. It does interfere
with the hand grip when shifted to the right, you have to pull your
fingers back to make room (after getting your fingers crimped, you pull
the shift back, extract your fingers & proceed. Normally shifting is
done vertically for tilted perspective so it hardly matters. From the
same link above:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/edgehil...7603231101723/

Tilt/Shift
Wow. This is more versatile than I expected. A number of reviews
complain that the movements don't go far enough but I'm amazed how much
can be done. The plane of focus can be tilted to about 45 degrees from
normal and the shift goes for roughly 30 degrees worth of correction.
I've tinkered with a bunch of extreme home made setups and know what a
really ridiculous tilt or shift can do, this comes close and holds up
the quality very nicely. I expected I would only be interested in shift
for perspective correction but the tilt is also useful. Anyone
complaining for more movement doesn't know how bad that looks if you do
it with a bag bellows on a medium format lens and doesn't appreciate how
well this holds up. I have an older generation 85mm T/S nikkor also and
I do not use shift with it at all; there is almost no impact for
perspective correction at that focal length. Theoretically you could
devise a mount to hold it by the front of the lens barrel and shift for
seamless panorama stitches. Even without that kind of mount, it makes
pretty nice 2-image panos, I haven't tried with the 24mm but it probably
doesn't work well without a special mount.

Build
Very nice as you would expect. Different from most lenses though as the
body is square to accommodate the movements, there is no way to weather
seal this kind of design. It's a metal box with a cover plate & gears
inside. The lens does not extend when focusing like the 85 and of course
does not rotate. It's a little smaller than the 85 and the front element
is a lot more exposed. I think a lot of what makes the 85 produce such
rich contrasty images is the deeply recessed front element which is
lined in grooved flat black metal. The 24 has that too though it's
shallower & wider & it comes with a narrow sprawling plastic lens shade.
I'd rather just hold something above the lens when light falls on it. It
comes with a soft suede pouch, which is more useful than the round
canister for the 85 that sits on my shelf.

Electronic Aperture
(the E in PC-E)
I guess is nice but screws up any possibility of extension tubes other
than wide open. Not that you'd really want to use it this way but the
e-aperture isn't much of an improvement on the plunger the 85 has. It
takes the same finger press on the lens to stop down. The plunger is
long & vulnerable to trip ups when released. You have to open up when
focusing and shoot manual when shifted or tilted. You could also just
twist the aperture ring instead, I work both ways. Tilt makes less
difference to the exposure and I often just shoot the 85 on A mode with
some EC as needed but the 24 needs to be in manual when shifted or the
exposure will be way off. That's mostly because I didn't use shift on
the 85, just tilt. The regular DOF preview button works on the D700, not
on the D200 but there's easy workarounds.

Here's some shots I did with it:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=2009...21068427%40N08
tinkering to show extreme effects:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=2009...21068427%40N08
some of these are other lenses but all the wide ones:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/edgehil...7621726676536/


--
Paul Furman
www.edgehill.net
www.baynatives.com

all google groups messages filtered due to spam

Paul Furman wrote:
It's a little smaller than the 85 and the front element is a lot more exposed. I think a lot of what makes the 85 produce such rich contrasty images is the deeply recessed front element which is lined in grooved flat black metal. The 24 has that too though it's shallower

Oh and it has the new Nano-crystal coating for internal reflections.
Flare & ghosting seem reasonable, I got no more than a row of a few pale
green smallish ghosts in the worst scenario. I didn't try side-by side
into the sun for ghosts, flare & contrast.

Oh, and Canon sucks!

just checking ;-)

Paul Furman wrote:
It's a little smaller than the 85 and the front element is a lot more exposed. I think a lot of what makes the 85 produce such rich contrasty images is the deeply recessed front element which is lined in grooved flat black metal. The 24 has that too though it's shallower

Oh and it has the new Nano-crystal coating for internal reflections.
Flare & ghosting seem reasonable, I got no more than a row of a few pale
green smallish ghosts in the worst scenario. I didn't try side-by side
into the sun for ghosts, flare & contrast.

Oh, and Canon sucks!

just checking ;-)