Quality of prime vs zoom lenses?

[seth_prince1]

<p>Thanks for all your responses. lots of other information popping up that i didn't even consider. </p>

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<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=2398268">Carl Becker</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"></a>, May 24, 2011; 06:49 a.m.</p>

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<p>You might want to read want Bjorn has to say about Nikkors. ...</p>

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<p>Who is Bjorn, and where can i read what he has to say?</p>

 

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>"Those lenses have older type glass, older design, and most important older coatings that weren't designed with shiney digital sensors in mind."</p>

<p>More "made for digital" nonsense. Nikon's lens coatings have always been at the forefront of technology, and have actually changed very little in the last 35 years. Today's multicoatings, (apart from the nano-crystal coating applied sparingly to only one or two of Nikon's latest and most expensive lenses) are pretty much the same as they were when the C suffix was first added to Nikkor lenses back in the 1970s. Glass technology has also made only slow progress - witness the glass catalogues of Schott, Hoya etc from today and 25 years ago - but manufacturing techniques have made aspheric elements cheaper to produce. However it's in zoom designs where aspherics have had their greatest impact, and have recently managed to drag the optical quality of zooms up to where primes were about 30 years ago.</p>

<p>As a matter of fact I actually see a noticeable decrease in the quality of recent AF primes when compared to their AiS MF predecessors - "designed for digital" or not. The old Ai and AiS lenses were mounted in precision metal barrels that didn't warp and often had more elements than the most recent versions. Plastic barrels and a built-down-to-a-price philosophy is what has tarnished the image of primes, not their older designs, glass or coatings.</p>

<p>I'm attaching a comparison of pictures taken with the AF G Nikkor-zoom 14-24mm f/2.8 and the same scene taken with an old Ai (not even AiS) f/3.5 20mm Nikkor. I'm not going to even tell you which is which; you can guess. And you'll probably guess wrong. I'll admit that the 14-24mm zoom is the best super wideangle I've ever seen, and if you pixel peep the corner definition is definitely better than the prime lens, BUT across about 90% of the frame there is no difference in definition and the prime cost less than 1/10th of what the zoom did. The prime is also about 1/10th of the weight and size of the zoom lens and can take a polarizing filter.</p><div></div>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>Oh, BTW, the above was taken using a full-frame D700. I imagine that on a DX camera the difference in corner definition would be almost non-existent.</p>

[carl_becker2]

<p>Sorry Seth, here is the link which I forgot:<br>

<a href="http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html">http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html</a></p>