24mm/2.8D Nikkor and sperical aberrations?

[alvinyap]

<p>Hey all!<br>

I'm looking to get a 35-40mm 35mm equiv FOV and the 24mm 2.8D Nikkor is my top choice. Sigma's 24/1.8 is very tempting, but every single one of my sigmas has had repairs/fixes done to 'em so... no thanks.</p>

<p>I read the review at photozone.de about sperical aberrations... I'm not sure if I've encountered this focus shift thing in my other lenses (16-85,70-300,70-200,300/4, 55/2.8 AIS). What does it really mean? I'm intending to shoot in low light, probably wide open, at music venues - hi1 will take care of shutter speeds I'm sure :)</p>

<p>Thoughts? Will get a 50mm Nikkor soonish for tighter shots, but the wide-normal is my main concern.</p>

<p>Thanks!<br>

<br /> Alvin</p>

[oskar_ojala]

<p>The photozone review mentions a focus shift when stopping down, i.e. the plane of sharp focus does not remain at the same distance at different apertures. In practice, I owned that lens for many years an never really cared. More troublesome is the lack of sharpness and bite on the edges when focused at longer distances. This lens works best at close distances or when the subject is in the dead center.<br>

In all fairness though, there aren't really good universal choice for this focal length for Nikon right now, since lenses such as the 24/3.5 PC are not suited for action photography.</p>

[walterh]

<p>"In all fairness though, there aren't really good universal choice for this focal length for Nikon right now.. "<br>

Oskar very true, certainly not in that price range. There are three outstanding Nikon zoom lenses available but at a high price and these are large and scary beasts.<br>

Zeiss got some nice manual focus WA lenses but at a high price. Not to worry about aberrations though :-)</p>

[mihai_ciuca]

<p>Sigma has different qualities for it's products... so Nikon does too. I have the 24mm/1.8 and really I am very pleased how's functioning on my D700. I'm shooting events in available light and this Sigma is in my basic kit in line with Nikkon 50mm/f1.2, Voigtlander Nokton (Cosina) 58mm/f1.4, Nikon 85mm/f1.4 and Nikon 180mm/f2.8. I also have a friend that owns Sigma 28mm/f1.8 and I played a little bit with it - it is the same BQ like mine and performs very well too. </p>

<p>It seems that Sigma 20/1.8; 24/1.8; 28/1.8; 30/1.4 and 50/1.4 have a good reputation both in BQ and IQ. Of course that are in the market samples that needs corrections... but the chance to get a good copy is enough high to deserve a try.</p>

<p>Honestly before that Sigma I've bought a Nikon 20mm/f2.8 and despite the fact that I am a NAM (Nikon Addicted Man...) it shows poor qualities in compariosn with Sigma. </p>

[alvinyap]

<p>Cheers mates, that aberation thing sounds like little to worry about.</p>

<p>Mihai: Had a 28/1.8 once, returned to B&H, thank goodness for their awesome return policy. Lost a little on shipping though. Lens was horribly front focusing, IIRC. I'll give sigma another think, if I can find a retailer here in UK that won't mind me doing some tests and/or returns. Cheers!</p>

<p>Alvin</p>

[mihai_ciuca]

<p>Yes, I think they have quite frequent problems with front/back focusing... because many people reports... but as you said, you can give a try if the retailer accepts returns. Here in Romania the retailer does not accept returns, but I know someone who had this problem with a Sigma and he sent it to the warranty service... and they did a great job recalibrating the lens. Since we do not have so many options in the market, I believe we can work around this issue to still secure a good lens.</p>

[john_hinkey]

<p>Check out the review of the 24/2.8 over at slrgear.com - without CA removal the lens was not very good at all. But as I found out with my 20/2.8 AFD - if you use NX (or in-camera .jpg with CA removal) to remove the CA the lens is re-born and is very sharp and quite good/excellent in the corners stopped down.<br>

John</p>

[john_morris4]

<p>I've noticed that Nikon Capture NX2 seems to do a much better job at correcting the color alignment problems from the 24/2.8 the the Camera Raw processor in Lightroom. Perhaps the Capture NX2 raw processor makes its corrections to the raw data before forming the image, which lets it get better image definition than trying to fix the colors after the demosaic operation. That's just a guess, though.</p>

<p>I have not noticed this difference with longer lenses. Also, my 24/2.8 is pre-AI, but I don't expect that's important.</p>