Introduction
Nikon AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED is one of the more recent additions to Nikon's FX, or full frame, lens lineup. The lens was first announced in mid 2007 and currently sells for ~US$1,600 (as of February 2009). The hefty price tag obviously reflects the fact that this is the widest and fastest full frame lens in Nikon's arsenal. Still, at US$1,600, this lens is clearly targeted at professional users rather then amateurs.
The optical construction of the lens consists of 14 elements in 11 groups, including 2 ED (Extra low Dispersion) glass elements. The build quality of the lens is superb, as can be expected from a lens with a Pro grading and such a hefty price tag. The barrel is made of lightweight metal and is dust and moisture protected The zoom and focusing rings are rubberized and rotate very smoothly. Nikon designates the lens as IF (Internal Focusing), meaning that the lens barrel does not extend during zooming/docusing, mainteining its constant length. However, the inner cams of the lens move during zooming - if you observe the front glass elementof the lens, you will notice that it extends back and forth during zooming. Speaking of the front element - its humongous, protruding out of the barrel. The lens has a built-in lens shade, which provides some protection to the front element, but skips on a front filter threading, and does not even provide a drop in slot for gelatin filters.
Nikon AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED is quite a monstrous, for a wide angle zoom, lens - it weighs 1kg (35.3oz) and measures 98 x 131.5mm (3.8 x 5.2in). Obviously dragging such a brick around on field trips would be somewhat of a hassle, and many photographers seem to complain about this issue. The lens implements a Silent Wave AF Motor (AF-S) for fast and silent auto focusing, but also supports full time manual focusing, which can be controlled by an A/M switch found on the side of the barrel. The lens carries a G designation, which in Nikon terms means that the lens has an electronic aperture control and does not incorporate a dedicated aperture ring. The minimum aperture is f/22. The lens focuses down to 28cm (0.9ft) at 24mm end.
The factory box include Nikon AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED lens, front and rear caps, CL-M3 lens case, manual and registration card. As mentioned earlier, Nikon AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED is a full frame lens, meaning that when used on an APS-C type cameras with 1.5x crop factor, the field of view of the lens will resemble that of a 21-36mm zoom on a full frame body. Since the lens does not have a dedicated aperture ring, adapting it to alternative mount cameras like Canon or Olympus 4/3 is going to be rather a hassle and currently only 16-9.net offers an 'out-of-the-box' Nikon G to Canon EOS adapter.
| Summary | |
| Lens Composition | 14 elements in 11 groups |
| Angular Field | 84-114 degrees |
| Minimum Focus | 28cm/0.9ft |
| Focusing Action | AF/MF |
| f-stop Scale | f/2.8-f/22, electronic |
| Filter Size | N/A |
| Lens Hood | Built-in |
| Weight | 1000g/35.3oz |
| Dimensions | 98x131.5mm/3.8x5.2" |
| Lens Case | CL-M3 (included) |
Field Tests
Nikon AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED is simply huge - this is by far the largest and heaviest piece of wide-angle zoom glass tested to date. The front element is bulging out of the barrel, giving the lens the looks of a fisheye lens and also leaving the glass completely unprotected - there is no front filter thread and there is no rear gelatin filter slot, so basically there is no way to use any screw-in or drop-in filter with this lens. 'No problem' - you might think, 'I'll just use Cokin system with a barrel adapter!'. Wishful thinking. The front element protrudes quite far, almost to the level of the shallow built-in lens hood, so even if you manage to attach a Cokin barrel holder to the front of the hood, you will get pretty severe vignetting at 14mm and a nasty light leak (through the shallow parts of the petal-shaped lens hood) at 24mm. So the bottom line is that you would have to live without filters if you plan to use this lens.
There is really no DOF scale on the barrel, so you only get a focus metering scale behind a clear plastic window on the side of the barrel. But frankly speaking, it's really doubtful you will really need a DOF scale with such a wide lens - the focusing ring rotates from the closeup to the infinity in about 90 degrees, with the scale going from 28cm to 1m in more or less even intervals, but then jumping straight to infinity. With such coarse focusing distance it would be rather difficult to focus the lens manually very precisely. Plus the lens has a huge depth of field - you will get everything from the tips of your shoes to the clouds in the sky at 14mm. Most focusing errors will be mased anyway. And besides, the AF system is pretty fast and accurate...
Considering that the lens has a simply enormous depth of field at the wide end of the zoom range, it is doubtful you will use this lens for any portrait work. Maybe at the 24mm end. Maybe... But basically, ultra wide angle lenses do not typically produce creamy, eye-pleasing out of focus areas (see lens design properties section if you're wondering why) and AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED is not an exception. The shot above, as well as shots of tulips and a lamp in the sample image gallery show what you can expect from this lens at 24mm (wide open aperture, close to the minimum focusing distance). The OOF highlights are pretty round and uniformly lit, but sometimes show harsh edging. Fore/back-ground transitions are pretty neutral, but this is actually quite OK for a wide angle, and there does not seem to be any double-eding around OOF objects.
Nikon claims a drastic improvement in flare control with lenses that carry its new Nano Crystal Coating (lenses with this new coating are marked with an upper case letter N on the body). Most lenses will flare in one condition or another, and this Nikon lens is not an exception to the rule, despite the whole hoopla about the new coating. The two shots below showcase such a situation. The images were captured with the sun positioned very close to the picture frame - sun rays were grazing the front element of the lens at ~40 degrees in the shot at 14mm and ~60 degrees in the shot at 24mm. Both images showcase ghosting and glare, but in a relatively mild manner, and that's actually the best news!
ISO 200, 1/2500, f/2.8, 14mm (Nikon D3)
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ISO 200, 1/2500, f/2.8, 24mm (Nikon D3)
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The bigeest surprise with the lens, however, was its resolving capabilities. Images remained sharp throughout the aperture range both in the center as well as around borders! Yes, that's right - there is no visible image quality degradation across the entire frame, even at 14mm. Zoom in, zoom out, change apertures, do whatever - the lens delivers very consistent results that should pass the eye of the toughest critic out there.
As expected from a super wide zoom, light falloff is quite noticeable on a full frame body at the widest end of the zoom range. Vignetting goes down with stopped down apertures and becomes quite negligible after f/4. Also, as you zoom towards the 24mm end, vignetting levels are reduced as well. Cameras with APS-C sized sensors generally deal with light falloff somewhat better, simply because of the smaller coverage the APS-C sensors provide. This is also the case with AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED, and generally speaking, vignetting is certainly lower on an APS-C camera, but is not gone completely - at f/2.9 vignetting is visible throughout the zoom range and practically gone by f/4.
When it comes down to super wide angle lenses, barrel distortion is one artifact that photographers should be on a lookout for, especially if you plan to use your wide angle to photograph architecture. Nikon AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED is not without a flaw here, and at 14mm you can notice barrel distortion around corners (especially if you're shooting scenery that has straight objects lined up towards the edges of the frame). However, distortion seemed to almost disappear towards 24mm, which is quite surprising (in a positive sense) for a wide angle and double surprising for a wide angle zoom.
Color rendition was quite decent - the lens seemed to pick up color gradients with ease, showing good amount of contrast and saturation throughout the various aperture settings and the zoom range. Interestingly, the lens showed pretty minimal color fringing - you could notice minor sagittal CA here and there, but the effect was not very pronounced to cause an alarm, which is a major accomplishment for any super wide angle zoom lens.
Lab Tests
Please note that MTF50 results for APS-C and Full-Frame cameras as well as cameras from different manufacturers are not cross-comparable despite the same normalized [0:1] range used to report results for all types of cameras.
Nikon APS-C: Coming soon...
Nikon FF: Nikon AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED showcased superb performance in the lab. The lens remained tack sharp throughout the zoom range with basically pretty uniform resolution across the frame, as both center as well as border image quality remained on consistently high levels. As you can see from the charts below, there is practically no weaknesses in performance throughout the tested aperture ranges and the lens is as sharp at f/2.8 as it is at f/11. Moreover, the difference is resolving capabilities of the lens in center vs the borders is pretty insignificant throughout the most apertures - only at f/2.8 and to a much lesser degree at f/4 you see some meaningful difference in MTF50 numbers. Conclusion? This is by far the best performing ultra wide zoom lens tested so far. AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED can actually easily give the run for the money to even the best ultra wide primes out there!
Distortion, which is typical for most ultra wide angles, was surprisingly moderate with this lens. At 14mm the lens shows a 1.02% barrel distortion, which would be visible in general type photography (particularly around corners), but should not ruin your experience. Things actually turn for the better, and distortion gradually decreases towards the longer end of the zoom range - at 20mm distortion is ~0.85% and at 24mm distortion is only ~0.31%.
The lens showed pretty minimal amounts of chromatic aberration on a full frame body. Center CA as well as border CA is pretty minimal throughout the zoom range as well as across all tested aperture settings, never exceeding ~0.7px, which can be considered quite good for an ultra wide zoom.
Here are 100% image crops taken with a full frame Nikon D3, comparing image borders at f/2.8 and f/8.
Alternatives
Regretfully, there are not that many alternatives to Nikon's AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED. Majority of lenses are either not that wide are much slower. Nikon offers AF-S DX Zoom Nikkor 12-24mm f/4G IF ED, however this lens is suitable only for APS-C cameras. Then there's Nikon AF-S Zoom Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8D IF ED, which exhibits outstanding image characteristics, but obviously is not as wide. Still, for many this is going to be a lens of choice since only special type work like architectural photography would require a 14-17mm range. Outside of Nikon's camp, there is Sigma 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6 EX DG ASPH HSM, whichc offers an even wider angle of view, but at the cost of being significantly slower. Tokina's AT-X PRO DX 12-24mm f/4 and its revised version AT-X PRO DX II 12-24mm f/4, as well as recently released AT-X PRO DX 11-16mm f/2.8 could be an interesting choice for those using an APS-C type camera. As could Tamron's SP AF 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 Di II LD ASPH and SP AF 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5 Di II LD ASPH (which was announced only days ago at PMA 2009). Finally, Tamron SP AF 17-35mm f/2.8-4 Di LD ASPH might appeal as a slightly slower but cheaper alternative.
Recommendation
Nikon AF-S Zoom Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED is simply one of the best ultra wide angle zooms you can find on the market these days. The lens shines all throughout, with excellent image resolution throughout the zoom range, excellent color rendition and relatively (for a wide angle) low level of artifacts such as distortion and chromatic aberration. The lens vignettes on a full frame camera quite a lot, but this should not be considered to be a major issue - if you own one of the modern digital SLRs, simply set your camera's vignetting correction to medium, otherwise deal with it in post-processing. One issue many users would complain about is the sheer size of the lens - it's bulky and heavy, making it rather hard to haul around. Another drawback with the lens is the inability to use any filters, not even gelatin ones.