Nikon D300 & 24-120mm F/4

<p>Good morning All,<br>

I am currently using the 24-120 F/4 on my D300 and really like it but since I also plan on switching to a D700 in the coming months, What improvement will I see from this lens with a D700?<br>

I also have the 12-24mm F/4 and once I have the D700, I plan on keeping the 24-120 on it and the 12-24 mm on the D300.<br>

(No I do not care to wait for the new D??? which will replace the D700 because it more than likely will have video and I do not want to mix taking pix and video in one machine.) <br>

Tx 4 ur time...</p>

<p>The only improvement really will be the field of view. Your 24-120 will actually be just that! </p>

<p>You will likely see more distortion since you will now see the entire frame provided by the lens. Unfortunately the D700 will not actually resolve much better (in fact may be worse) than the D300. That is why the D??? is hopefully going to be an 18-24 MP camera, and for this, definitely worth waiting for.</p>

<p>I would not be surprised if an image from the D300/12-24 at 24mm would be very similar to an image from the D700/24-120 at 36mm. Same scene, same number of pixels. The larger pixels from the D700 <em>may</em> give slightly superior results when both images are printed to the same large size.</p>

<p>Larger FOV, more distortion, more vignetting, less corner sharpness, reduced DOF (under most circumstances).</p>

<p>When you get an FX body I would frankly recommend replacing the 24-120/4 with the 24-70/2.8 and getting perhaps a 105 VR or 70-200II for the longer reach shots. If you intended to use the 24-120/4 as main lens on FX you might as well give the money to charity and stay with the D300. While it is not a bad lens it isn't good enough to make the camera shine, either.</p>

<p>You don't have to use the video feature of a new DSLR. Just enjoy the other advancements in the camera, which may be substantial.</p>

<p>as with most superzooms, the 24-120 may be slightly worse on the d700, as others have suggested. unfortunately, as Ilkka hints, making the FX move also often requires overhauling one's glass $election. the 24-120 is intended as a walkaround lens, but its not going to be as good as the 24-70 or a bag of primes.</p>

<p>* OK, I am ready to take a beating on these comments...</p>

<p>I have the older version of the lens which just about everyone says doesn't perform well, period - mine does (a select few others have admitted the same). I have never used the lens, so this is only a guess... I think you will really enjoy it on your D700 for both its wonderfully useful zoom range and IQ, and may and find that because of the D700's sensor, you will actually get superior results with it on your D700 than with the D300. (I just purchased and have been testing the 70-200 VII on the D7000 and D3, and while I have no explanation for the results, the IQ seems to be noticeably better on the D3. Go figure.)</p>

<p>After you get your D700, please do some testing and let us know your results.</p>

<p>And perhaps some photographers that own and use the f4 version of the lens can comment (I don't know if the comments above are from those that own and use the lens.)</p>

<p>FWIW, the DXO Mark site gives the lens a good rating when paired with the D700. In fact, their results indicate that IQ is almost the same as the 24-70mm on the D700. And interestingly, they give it a better performance rating on the D700 than on the D300s.</p>

<p>For anyone interested:</p>

<p><a href="http://dxomark.com/index.php/en/Lens-with-Camera/Compare-lenses/(lens1)/321/(lens2)/321/(onglet)/0/(brand)/Nikkor/(brand2)/Nikkor/(camera1)/441"><a href="http://dxomark.com/index.php/en/Lens-with-Camera/Compare-lenses/(lens1)/321/(lens2)/321/(onglet)/0/(brand)/Nikkor/(brand2)/Nikkor/(camera1)/441/(camera2)/614">http://dxomark.com/index.php/en/Lens-with-Camera/Compare-lenses/(lens1)/321/(lens2)/321/(onglet)/0/(brand)/Nikkor/(brand2)/Nikkor/(camera1)/441/(camera2)/614</a></a></p>

<p>I use my 24-120mm/f4 AF-S VR precisely as a "walk around" lens. While I have used many copies of the 24-70mm/f2.8 AF-S, I never bought one and instead use my older 28-70mm/f2.8 AF-S instead in the last few years.</p>

<p>Personally, I really like the 24-120mm/f4's extended range over the 28-70 and 24-70. The longer reach makes it easier to capture children. My main issue with it is the fact that it is f4. Indoors it has more difficulty to AF under dim light.</p>

<p>As far as critical sharpness and distortion, for the purpose of this lens: casual photography, grap shots, and children, I simply don't care at all. It is more than good enough for me. When I need a really sharp 100mm lens, I have other choices and I use that on a tirpod.</p>

<p><em>(I don't know if the comments above are from those that own and use the lens.)</em></p>

<p>For my part, I owned the lens for two months, shot about 1500 pictures with it and finally decided that it didn't do it for me. I had two applications in mind for this lens; one is shooting office portraits with the ability to switch from environmental shot to tight portrait (something that I have been using a 24-70 and 85 to do), and the other is general travel photography where bag weight is an important consideration. For office portraits, the problem was mostly the white walls which showed the vignetting of the lens in a pronounced way; even though it can be partially corrected in software, I was not happy with the outcome. Corners never quite became whit and there were residual variations in tone across the image which could not have been explained with the lighting. Vignetting correction works better when applied to images with more moderate variations in tone, or when the correction that is needed is limited to the very corners of the image. Since I normally combine window light and flash, I need to be able to shoot at or near f/4 (leading to ISO 800-3200 depending on the day; winter daylight can be quite dim in Nordic countries). The sharpness and image clarity of this lens is good from f/5.6 to f/8, which would have meant shooting with flash only; I prefer not to do that and keep as much of the atmosphere of the workplace as possible. Also, blasting with flash at f/8 is distracting to the subjects. For landscape work, the quality of this lens is pretty good, but again the center of the image seemed to be better defined and more "alive" than the corners, though the difference at f/8 is subtle. The f/2.8 zooms in similar situations led to more crisp results with a more even distribution of tone and definition. For architecture, the pronounced distortion of the 24-120/4 finally tipped me over into selling it. I did get a few good images with it but there were too many issues with other images.</p>

<p>The f/2.8 zooms, on the other hand, are optically great but the weight can be a problem when traveling long distances on foot, packing a tripod, macro equipment, and T/S lenses in a snowy forest. I do think the image quality of the f/2.8 zooms is outstanding and given my experience with the 24-120/4 I think ever more highly of them. To find something lighter when a zoom is required, I am currently testing the older 28-105/3.5-4.5D, which sells at about 200€ used. I find it has very low distortion, but I will need to do more testing to assess other aspects of image quality on FX. Without VR, it may be less attractive as a travel lens, but on the other hand it was designed in a time where corrections in post were more difficult, so there is less to correct. I'll have more to say on this lens after a few days.</p>

<p>I don't mean to be overly critical of the lens though I may sound like it. If you really, really need the 5x range and don't shoot in situations like I do, where it is often either white walls or white snow in the background, and for whom f/4 is a small aperture, and if you don't mind working on the images in post, then you may well find the lens to be nice. When the background was very heterogeneous, such as a busy marketplace, I found I liked the images a lot more. It's just that one needs to assess the quality of the results in typical applications that one has, in order to make the right decisions. I do believe this lens has applications where it excels but as a main lens, it won't really allow you to get a proper return of investment for the money spent on the FX camera. I was much happier with the 17-55/2.8 on a DX camera than I was with the 24-120/4 on FX, and the cost was about the same (I do realize the 17-55 has gone up in price).</p>

<p><em>FWIW, the DXO Mark site gives the lens a good rating when paired with the D700. </em></p>

<p>To be frank, I am at a loss when looking at DXO's lens evaluations; they seem like random numbers to me. For useful lens tests, see e.g. www.photozone.de (freely available) and www.diglloyd.com (these require a subscription to view, but are very meticulous).</p>

<p>Ilkka, I am afraid that you have totally unrealisitc expections. Speaking of vignetting, the 24-70mm/f2.8 AF-S has terrible vigentting at 24mm/f2.8. When I got my first test sample from Nikon, I actually thought it was defective. Later on I realized that it is simply a characteristic for that lens; I have tried about 6 different samples so far and they are all the same: <a href="00OF78">http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00OF78</a></p>

<p>Below is a sample image I captured with the 24-120mm/f4 AF-S VR on a D700. It was my wife's birthday and we went to a restaurant called Henihana. Two kids in our party were playing a game on the i-Phone, and I took this picture from across the table. This is the entire frame scaled down and I am also showing a pixel-level crop of the gril's forehead. To me, her hair looks very sharp. Typically we don't necessarily want super sharpness for people photography anyway, but for these kids, we don't need to worry about wrinkles for many years to come.</p>

<p>Since there are two subjects, I stopped down a little to f5.6 to gain some depth of field, and I captured this at 105mm as I couldn't get closer because the table was in the middle. That is precisely why I prefer the longer range in the 24-120mm.</p><div></div>

<p><em>Speaking of vignetting, the 24-70mm/f2.8 AF-S has terrible vigentting at 24mm/f2.8</em></p>

<p>Photozone reports the following vignetting measurements (using the D3X camera body):</p>

<p>Aperture used : f/2.8 f/4 f/5.6 f/8 f/11<br /> 14-24 at 24mm : 1.16 <strong>0.67 0.50 </strong> 0.48 0.48<br /> 16-35/4 at21mm: N/A 0.78 0.61 0.59 0.61<br /> 24-70 at 24mm: <strong> 1.55 </strong> 0.89 0.55 <strong>0.41 0.39</strong><br /> 24/1.4 at 24mm: <strong>0.91 </strong> 0.72 0.61 0.46 0.43<br /> 24-120 at 24mm: N/A <strong><em> 1.92 1.40 1.12 0.99</em></strong><br /> <em><br /></em><br /> I emphasized the lens giving the least and the most vignetting at each aperture with <strong>bold</strong>.<br /> <br />While the 24-70 has marked vignetting in the corners wide open at 24mm, by f/4 it has cleaned up nicely and already it is better than the 24-120/4 is at any practical aperture. At apertures typically used for landscape photography (f/8, f/11), the 24-70 appears to match or have even a bit less vignetting than any of the other lenses. I think that's pretty good performance.</p>

<p>Back to my comments on the 28-105D. Testing I carried out in two days suggests that it indeed has less pronounced distortion than the 24-120, and sharpness is very good at wide angle settings. However, at the long end it gives very poor results. At 85mm it was practically impossible to focus it accurately using either AF or MF. I got considerable focusing errors when testing it at long focal lengths. The sharpness was also poor at 85mm when shooting architectural details (at distances of 20-30m). The results were better at short distances (2m) but the pronounced focusing errors remained a problem for tele shots. The 24-120/4 is certainly much more useful for short tele work than the 28-105. So I'll concede that considerable progress has been made over previous standard extended range zooms that Nikon has made in the past, but some new issues have been introduced.</p>

<p>Shun, I'm aware that the 24-120/4 works well for situations when one can stop down to f/5.6 or f/8. I tried it for that very application with the children of a friend of mine. However, the flash was very distracting to the subject and this is why I prefer to use high ISO, large apertures and only a little bit of flash to control the depth of shadows. While you have a valid point about depth of field, I prefer to select a main subject to focus on and include more atmospheric lighting that exists in every home. This is a trade-off and I'm not in any way suggesting that everyone should make the same decisions that I do. If you compare the 24-120/4 at 120mm for tripod-based landscape photography with the 70-200II I am sure you will come to the same conclusion with regards to how useful the 24-120/4 is as a sole/main lens on the D700. The issue here is that the OP should be made aware of the very obvious limitations of the 24-120/4 when used as a general-purpose lens. </p>

<p>Personally, I'm no great shakes at equipment when it comes to Nikon, but the Canon counterpart to the 24-70 works like a charm in almost every case. There are some limitations to every lens, but I thought that the 24-70 was the most versitile. Seeing the comments above, it doesn't seem that way for the Nikon series (was recently gifted one and I put up an ad for it). Could anyone care to elaborate on the defectives about this particular lens?<br>

Thanks,<br>

John</p>