anton_de_flon

I had an N6006 back in the day (1990's). The shutter button cracked, possibly from screwing in cable releases into the threaded socket in the middle of the shutter button. I have always been careful with my equipment, and never had this issue on any other Nikon camera body in 30 years of using the brand, so I felt there was something inherently defective in the design.

I took the 24-120 f/4 and D810 on a 10 day trip to Japan last October and never found myself wanting another lens the entire trip. Yes, it's a little heavy, but I took a number of my favorite photos in the 86-120mm range which would have been missed with a 24-85mm. In terms of image quality, the 24-120 provides better image quality out towards the edges of the frame than the 24-85 VR, especially towards the wide end. My 24-120 produces decent corners at 24mm whereas the 24-85mm smeared detail. I really wanted to like the 24-85, but ended up selling it recently as it really doesn't do justice to the 36mp sensor. This was after several tripod-mounted tests to ensure that I wasn't being sloppy. For pure landscape work, I still prefer the Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 (original version) as it has slightly more contrast in fine details but if you stop down to F/11 or smaller then there's little difference and I often carry the 24-120 on mountain hikes.

<p>The Central Adirondacks are good for this. Lewey Lake Campground or Lake Durant Campground. Those are state campgrounds with showers (always nice to have). The skies are very far from major cities and there is the possibility to frame a lake and mountains as a foreground. The campgrounds close for the season around Oct. 11.</p>

<p>I use the 24-70 on a D800, and it is capable of pretty sharp results to the edges at all focal lengths when used at around f/9 in my experience, as a previous poster also mentioned. However, for distance scenes like the one you posted where large depth of field is not that important, I always focus manually, and sometimes bracket focus to get the best results. This lens DOES have field curvature, and any slight mis-focus can result in either the sharp center with blurry edges, or blurry center with sharp edges. I use the viewfinder in-focus lights as a rough guide, but prefer to trust my own eyes. I definitely can't get flat field with this lens at f/7.1 or wider, but sometimes sacrifice a bit of edge sharpness to get the greater definition towards the center that the wider apertures can provide. If after manually bracketing focus at f/9 you still can't get the edges sharp, then you should have the lens adjusted. If you like to use AF and can get sharp shots with manual focus bracketing, then perhaps a slight front or back focus AF adjustment will get your lens focusing at a point where the field curvature is eliminated.</p>