Don't stuff the lens into a tiny niche too quickly.
Certainly not just "static subjects". So many choices... city/urban shots in low light, interior architecture or other issues where tripods are not allowed, etc. Heck, there's been lots of times when I sorely wished I could get some people to blur in order to emphasize the place more.
Luminosity .... I had the v1 of the 24L. Same reputation, holy until a new one comes along - as usual. This happens in Nikon land the same, so it is hard to do but buy and try. Apparently canons microlenses are in part to blame for the CA's. Whichever both the 24 and the 35 were not to my liking enough. Don't get me wrong, the lenses are great in some ways but not magical as the price and fanboyism would suggest. I had no problem focusing the 24 but the 35L was off and I could only decide if I wanted focus at near, mid or far distances with the mkii callibration. Sad, don't you think? Do I have to go try four copies? By F2.8 it was much improved, but if one can't get great results without post processing tricks and unreliable results where it is like flipping a coin - you can't be dead certain - well, it made me cool to extreme lenses ( I've had all the fast canon lenses at one time or another and only the 135 was, to me, astounding and worthy of it's reputation) and a big fan now of F 2.0 primes as a much cheaper and smaller, less conspicuous, alternative.
I hope that the Nikon 24 f1.4 is worth its steep price. I'm sure it will be worshiped irregardless. Until version 2 comes out in fourteen years?
Well done Nikon, these lenses look great, about time on the 24 particularly. Sold my Nikkor 28mm f1.4 last autumn, for once I got out in time! Now that the 28 has been replaced, and not merely discontinued, it its time to bury it and leave it to the collectors. I would therefore like to thank Nikon for that excellent and much underrated 28mm, long live the new Nikkor 24!
As a Canon user now I look forward to seeing comparative reviews on the Nikon and Canon 24mm f1.4 lenses. As someone who loves fast wides its really great to see the Canon lens have some competition at last.
You know, I look at the results of my 24-70 and can't but continually be surprised by how marvelous todays zooms are compared to yesterdays models. But the thing is HUGE and I hate carrying it. In fact ... I don't take it except to events. Wouldn't be caught dead lugging it around town. with iso 2,500 being acceptable I can live with 2.8. Dof is narrow enough in most cases and I find tight framing (which I normally don't like) makes up a stop or so of dof.
But my point is that (for me), while the regular speed lenses are not so glamorous the F 2.0 versions, of primes have a lot to recommend them. I hope that nikon sees fit to update them. Get them to the modern state and upgrade the build a bit (a lot please)
I don't think that they will bother, as the extreme lenses get all the love and the hype and I guess Nikon makes a pretty per unit profit. But I'd love to see it!
And trying to articulate what the graphs represent.
Thnx
ss
Compared to the 14-24, the graph of the new lens shows an astonishing amount of fall-off in the corners at the short end. And that is only f4 and 16mm, as compared to f2.8 and 14mm. That is a disappointing performance, IMO.
Unfortunately there are no lines for f8, so we don't know how good the lens may be stopped down. But, sadly, it seems to be clear that it is not playing in the same league as the 14-24.
I have been waiting for a lens like the 24mm for a while now, and when the rumors started to spread I was looking forward to a release. I did expect it to be expensive, but when I read $2200, I feared what it would cost here in Norway. I just checked with a norwegian site, and it states a list price of 19.590,- norwegian kroner, converted to USD, that is $3300!!!
I think ill buy a 24mm in 7 years from now...used.
I have a hard time figuring out whos the market for a 24mm besides wedding photographers. Its a perfect focal length for dx users, but the majority of them are amateurs and i dont think many of them will spend this kind of money on a lens. Im afraid this lens wont sell much, especially not in the Danish market.
The 85mm 1.4 is a more useful/versatile lenght and still is quite rare on the danish market, and i guess it will take years before i will see a 24mm on the used market.
Nikon is simple betting that there will be so many people (professional photographers first) that want the 24mm f1.4 that they can charge a serious premium.
If there are 5000 lenses made (for example) and there are 5100 people willing to pay $2200, then what I picked up in economics at school is actually true.
But can you really compare these MTF charts since one is at f2.8 and the other is at f4? I could be mistaken, but I didn't think there were MTF charts for the 17-35 2.8 lens @f4. If that is the case, the new f4 isn't even very good at f4 @ 16mm and is even bigger than the 17-35.
Man, i can see how a lot of you are let down by the 16-35, but this is my reasoning:
1) it's smaller, lighter, and cheaper than the 14-24
2) it's smaller, lighter, and similar pricing to the (old, non-sealed, prob inferior optically) 17-35
3) it's more flexible, and prob optically better than all of nikon's UWA primes (15's, 14, 18's)
I already have two 18mm f2.8 AF-D's, which i think is Nikon's best UWA prime... but one of them has a ding on the rear element which starts to show up as a big dark spot at smaller apertures than F8... so i want to replace it with a more usable lens for this small aperture stuff. I was planning on finding a mint copy of the 18, but that would be $700+... this new 16-35 will not be much more, and for what i want out of it, it should be terrific.
I have little doubt that this is exactly what they had in mind.
? the camera for this should be interesting.