Nikon D800......

I see your point, but things like edge sharpness, CA, vignetting and distortion are nothing to do with AF Adjust and will not be effected by using it.

The way this thread is going, it will end up advising that ALL evaluation of ALL lenses is pointless as they're all different anyway, so the only way you can evaluate, is to buy one, test it, and take it back if not satisfied.

Really? You really think manufacturing deviations are such a problem? Are we not just making a mountain out of a molehill here? Even if there are tiny deviations in quality control, I've never, ever had a two examples of lenses that are noticeably different. If you have, can I suggest that one of them was faulty? Getting a faulty lens does not mean there is a problem with consistency, it means you had a dodgy one. There's a difference.
 
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Pookeyhead said:
I've never, ever had a two examples of lenses that are noticeably different. If you have, can I suggest that one of them was faulty? Getting a faulty lens does not mean there is a problem with consistency, it means you had a dodgy one. There's a difference.
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Of course it does, it means theres no consistency with the quality checks manufacturers do.
 
Someone should probably just make a thread for that lens. Because, tbh, I have no interest in it, just kind of joined in ... ultra wide isn't my kind of thing at all. Back to the camera the thread is about ... eh? ...
 
How often do you actually get out and use a lens like that though? I'd have to force myself i think. I like doing a landscape with a 70-200, I like the compression. When I want the wider angle the 24 is enough for me. Especially on FX. I've rarely ever looked at an image and went, wow, good h=job they got all those random trees to the far left in!! or it would have been disaster!

I would say it probably works better for architecture. Which I also, rarely ever do.

Nikon also have a 12-24 btw.
 
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Gary Coyle said:
Of course it does, it means theres no consistency with the quality checks manufacturers do.
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Oh this is ridiculous!!! You can buy a faulty car too.. should people stop road testing them because it's pointless??

Besides, can a lens not be faulty because it damaged in transit?



You're being pedantic.

ok.....

The Nikkor 16-35mm f4 is a brilliant, brilliant lens, and it's not at all soft in the corners, nor does it suffer from huge amounts of barrel distortion, and anyone who owns one is a much better photographer as a result. They will be far more attractive to the opposite sex, and clearly demonstrate that their genitalia are larger and better proportioned than everyone else's.

There.. that should stroke your ego... you've not paid £900 for an average lens after all, you are in fact a hero for pointing out that all lens testing is pointless and if a lens test says your lens is not perfect, then it is of course absolute proof that their lens wasn't as good as yours.








.

To everyone else that doesn't treat cameras like high status jewellery.. you can look at the images this lens produces and make your own mind up as to whether it's worth £900 or not.

God help beginners when they come in here because they'll get told that Lens tests are pointless, all lenses of the same make and model are in fact totally different and more importantly... buy what we've bought because it's dead good.

Good to see logic and common sense have nothing to do with it... I mean, they just get in the way don't they.

(sigh)

Back to D800 I think.. sick of hearing about the stupid lens now. Start a new thread on it if you want to all circle **** over it.
 
Architecture and landscapes are the obvious subjects but some excellent effects/angles can be obtained on many other types of photography.
 
Pookeyhead said:
Oh this is ridiculous!!! You can buy a faulty car too.. should people stop road testing them because it's pointless??

Besides, can a lens not be faulty because it damaged in transit?



You're being pedantic.

ok.....

The Nikkor 16-35mm f4 is a brilliant, brilliant lens, and it's not at all soft in the corners, nor does it suffer from huge amounts of barrel distortion, and anyone who owns one is a much better photographer as a result. They will be far more attractive to the opposite sex, and clearly demonstrate that their genitalia are larger and better proportioned than everyone else's.

There.. that should stroke your ego... you've not paid £900 for an average lens after all, you are in fact a hero for pointing out that all lens testing is pointless and if a lens test says your lens is not perfect, then it is of course absolute proof that their lens wasn't as good as yours.








.

To everyone else that doesn't treat cameras like high status jewellery.. you can look at the images this lens produces and make your own mind up as to whether it's worth £900 or not.

God help beginners when they come in here because they'll get told that Lens tests are pointless, all lenses of the same make and model are in fact totally different and more importantly... buy what we've bought because it's dead good.

Good to see logic and common sense have nothing to do with it... I mean, they just get in the way don't they.

(sigh)

Back to D800 I think.. sick of hearing about the stupid lens now. Start a new thread on it if you want to all circle **** over it.
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Bye, bye.
 
Gary Coyle said:
Of course it does, it means theres no consistency with the quality checks manufacturers do.
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I think there is consistency within certain tolerances. Canon or Nikon's tolerances 'may' be smaller that Sigma, Tamron or whoever. :shrug:

There are still variations with them all though, which is what the micro AF adjustment is there for. (y)

If you can be bothered to do it of course. ;) :LOL:

And I know in a perfect world you shouldn't have to do it, but we don't live in a perfect world in case you haven't noticed. ;)
 
redhed17 said:
There are still variations with them all though, which is what the micro AF adjustment is there for. (y)
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That only adjusts AF accuracy.
 
Pookeyhead said:
That only adjusts AF accuracy.
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I know. I had read what you wrote earlier.
but things like edge sharpness, CA, vignetting and distortion are nothing to do with AF Adjust and will not be effected by using it.
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I was addressing the variations in AF in different lenses from different manufacturers, and lens variations of the same lens from one manufacturer. :shrug:
 
Pookeyhead said:
I've been reading up on DXO's testing methodology. For a start, resolution... most people's biggest desirable quality in a lens, seems to be a score arrived at by averaging the lowest and highest across the focal range, but they then weight it across the field, so it seems they arrive at scores from the maximum resolution resulted from each focal length which will be an average of the resolutions obtained across the frame. There is no discreet resolution data for each part of the frame like photozone. Also.. their data is weighted according to criteria that they set themselves...!!!

Essentially a lens with weak corner performance and good centre performance will do better on this test than a test that just reports centre, border, edge figures separately and let's the viewer decide if that's important for themselves.

Despite this, the overall DxO rating is between poor and good for this lens, and the Photozone is rated average in their scoring summary. They seem to be more in agreement than you think.

You see why reading tests can be misleading? Looking at the images a lens produces is fool-proof however: You look at the images it produces, and see if they're acceptable to you or not.
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The "overall score" of a test can be misleading I agree since its always going to be somewhat arbitary but surely the real point for any review is to look deeper and get the info that relates to your needs from the stats/samples?

In my case as I said stopped down(f5.6-f/8) resolution performance across the frame thoughout the range is really what I'm looking for first and in that reguard the reviews do seem to disagree.

The 16-35mm doesnt really look that impressive going by Photozone's stats, decent but not great center performance and only a decent board/corner performance in the middle of the range. The 17-35mm on the other hand scores very well, exellent center performance thoughout the range and decent boarder performance aswell, actually scores better than the Ziess 21mm and the 14-24mm at 21mm.

DxO mark shows pretty much the reverse with the 16-35mm having superior boarder performance thoughout the range(until 35mm where there much the same) than the 17-35mm.

The DxO mark results agree more with most of the general talk I'm hearing about the 16-35mm being sharper at the boarders but I'm often a bit wairy of these kinds of opinions likely coming from users who havent used one(espeically the 17-35mm which is getting on a bit) or maybe even both lenses. Generally I tend to trust Photozone first for reviews( easy methodology/stats to follow and all lenses I'v bought thus far have matched there options pretty well) and while they might have got a abnormally bad copy of the 16-35mm the 17-35mm results seem unlikely to be abnormally good.
 
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redhed17 said:
I know. I had read what you wrote earlier.

I was addressing the variations in AF in different lenses from different manufacturers, and lens variations of the same lens from one manufacturer. :shrug:
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I know... but we're talking about inconsistencies with edge sharpness, CA vignetting etc... and you wrote..

There are still variations with them all though, which is what the micro AF adjustment is there for.
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I was just confused because AF adjust will have zero effect on those.
 
Hi all,

I've always been a Sony user and still on APS-C which has been fine for most of my needs. However, I do keep thinking - is full frame worth it?

Given that when going full frame it allows you to think about changing systems if needs be. I was tempted to stay with Sony for the Zeiss glass but slightly disappointed that the A99 uses a 24mp sensor because they want to be able to give 60p video, something I really do not care about.

I've been giving thought then to the d800 and whether it would fit my needs.

I'm semi-pro, shoot only landscapes and I do shoot commercially. I do currently have a customer thats long term who blows my images up to wall size to display in store.

How are people finding it for landscapes? Given the D800's resolution, do you find you have to be ultra critical (always using the hyper focal distance for maximum sharpness etc?), do you find you have to be properly planted with the tripod (I mean come on, we landscape photographers do like to place the tripods in some precarious places) and basically do you find you have to be a master with the camera to get the results to deliver?

Does anyone think the D800E is worth the extra cash?

Is it worth considering the D600?

Thanks in advance,

Granty
 
Landscape only? you won't find a better Full frame camera than the D800/E. I'll be honest and say I only got the E version because I had the extra bit of cash on me, it was that or the grip - and I rarely ever use a grip.

On a sturdy tripod you really cannot go wrong with any camera. Don't worry about what people are saying on the camera being unforgiving. We're talking hand held, casual use - it will punish you for not being bang on. This is because the detail is so incredible.

I just took delivery of some prints this morning. Shots I took at a recent gig, both at ISO 5000. The prints are even cleaner than the images appeared on the monitor, and that was clean enough for me to decide on prints.

If you shoot 14 bit RAW, uncompressed, you could safely print billboard size.
 
I'll jump in here; the 16-35 is just alright.

To be fair I am coming at it from the perspective that anything in that range that isn't at least 2.8 is a bit of a waste of time but even so, I see it as a waste of £870
 
inkiboo said:
I'll jump in here; the 16-35 is just alright.

To be fair I am coming at it from the perspective that anything in that range that isn't at least 2.8 is a bit of a waste of time but even so, I see it as a waste of £870
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what do you use and what uwa's give more than 2.8? Anything under say 18mm id say is UWA, the 24mm primes arent. So what are they, they must exist as youve quite confidently stated you dont get out of bed for anything less and you dont talk complete BS do you?

Do you know what hyperfocal focusing is? Setting things up to get the greatest range of sharpness out of a lens? Do you know how often 2.8 is used in that method?
 
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Cagey75 said:
...............................

On a sturdy tripod you really cannot go wrong with any camera. Don't worry about what people are saying on the camera being unforgiving. We're talking hand held, casual use - it will punish you for not being bang on. This is because the detail is so incredible.


.
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It does - I have to learn to be more disciplined than I was before.
 
Same here, especially if you 100% view your own images, as most of us do I guess during processing. You think it's sharp, zoom in for a peek, nope - getting more used to it the more I use it though.
 
Cagey75 said:
Same here, especially if you 100% view your own images, as most of us do I guess during processing. You think it's sharp, zoom in for a peek, nope - getting more used to it the more I use it though.
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Yip, I reckon that lots of folk (me included) will need to up their game to get good results from that camera. However, it is nice to have the potential that it brings. Just need to get used to carrying suitable camera supports.
 
I dont think its bad as everyone makes out, yeah you do need to be a little bit more carefull but not so much that you need a tripod.

I have had slightly more out of focus shots but found that even though you may miss focus slightly its doesnt show as much as theres still so much detail and you would only notice at 100% crop. Meaning there still useable.
 
pmac said:
I dont think its bad as everyone makes out, yeah you do need to be a little bit more carefull but not so much that you need a tripod.
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For landscape, that was what I mentioned a tripod for. Of course you don't need one otherwise, I rarely use mine ;) For those narrow aperture/loger exposure landscapes though, I said all cameras are safe on there
 
Cagey75 said:
For landscape, that was what I mentioned a tripod for. Of course you don't need one otherwise, I rarely use mine ;) For those narrow aperture/loger exposure landscapes though, I said all cameras are safe on there
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My tripod is almost part of me so it shouldn't be any issue!

The Sony a77 can be just as unforgiving, pixel spread I bet is around the same as thats 24mp on APS-C. My Tokina 11-16mm which is the best UWA for Sony mount suddenly becomes soft at the edges where on a 16mp camera its great!
 
Granty_ said:
Does anyone think the D800E is worth the extra cash?

Is it worth considering the D600?

Thanks in advance,

Granty
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Either 600 or 800 will great for what you want, but wit Landscape... more is... well.. more :)

As for the 800/800E debate, again.... more is more.. but I got a loan of both when I was planning to buy and tested them side by side. The difference is noticeable if you put two identical images side by side, but it can be quite subtle. I decided no.

If you have a the cash to spare... yes, of course you should get the 800E as moiré is not really in issue with landscape. However, am I staying awake at night worrying about whether I should have got a D800E? Nah... both are brilliant and unless you are using the best possible lenses you may not even notice the difference. If you have cash to splash, go for it, but you're not really missing out on anything amazing by getting the D800 instead of the D800E.
 
essexash said:
what do you use and what uwa's give more than 2.8? Anything under say 18mm id say is UWA, the 24mm primes arent. So what are they, they must exist as youve quite confidently stated you dont get out of bed for anything less and you dont talk complete BS do you?

Do you know what hyperfocal focusing is? Setting things up to get the greatest range of sharpness out of a lens? Do you know how often 2.8 is used in that method?
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Well you seem a nice, well rounded chap and not at all agressive.

I said that I like lenses that are at least 2.8. So from Nikon in the 16-35 range that gives me (which I own)

14-24
17-35

And off the top of my head, a list of lenses that I don't own in the same range:

16, 20, 24 2.8
35 1.4
35 1.8

And yes, I know what hyperfocual focusing is.

Have you heard of shooting in low light? See, I can be condescending too!
 
no, you meant From 2.8, saying at least 2.8 suggests it goes wider. But hey, nitpicking. And as mentioned, we're talking uwa zooms, primes dont count in this.

Anyway, i actually found some examples of the tokina in my collection, the 12-24 f4, which im more than willing to stick up against my 16-35 as well. Off for eats now but will sort them later. Actually heres one :) (Remember i do love this lens to peices and was gutted to see it go when i flogged my DX gear) But im open minded enough to like several makes and recognise that theyre actually quite good.

People do seem to prefer close up subjects when testing their UWA's Ignore the vignette, that was a thick rimmed polariser which got caught out , not the lens's fault at all. I dont know about you but i can see a little bit of barrell distortion?

 
inkiboo said:
Well you seem a nice, well rounded chap and not at all agressive.

I said that I like lenses that are at least 2.8. So from Nikon in the 16-35 range that gives me (which I own)

14-24
17-35!
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Whats your opinion on the 17-35mm? thats really been the lens I'v had the hardest time getting good info on.
 
Anyone here using a third party grip on their beloved 800? I am pondering it. Watched a few tube videos, and the one that pops up most is made by Pixel, and people seem to be happy-ish with them. I would only use it very occasionally. Don't 'need' it, but it might be nice to have in the bag.
 
I'm going to have to seriously think about this one.

What I'd like to see is a full size image taken with the D800 by a landscape photographer used correctly. A lot of the sample images I'm seeing are obviously taken quite rushed and don't seem to offer a lot of what I'd expect....
 
I have yet to really push mine. Got a new tripod though, all I need is the motivation. I'm no landscape 'tog though, bit of everything really. I do like a good landscape, just not having a car is the biggest hindrance in that dept.

You could always rent one for a day or two, test it for yourself.
 
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essexash said:
no, you meant From 2.8, saying at least 2.8 suggests it goes wider. But hey, nitpicking. And as mentioned, we're talking uwa zooms, primes dont count in this.
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Were you dropped on your head as a child?

I said:

inkiboo said:
To be fair I am coming at it from the perspective that anything in that range that isn't at least 2.8 is a bit of a waste of time but even so, I see it as a waste of £870
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I didn't mean from, I meant at least. Something that is 2.8 fits the description of being "at least 2.8".

I really have no idea why are arguing this; it's quite strange.
 
Moreorless said:
Whats your opinion on the 17-35mm? thats really been the lens I'v had the hardest time getting good info on.
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According to Photozone, it's good stopped down, but has edge issues wide open.

http://www.photozone.de/nikon_ff/672-nikkorafs173528ff?start=1

Cagey75 said:
Anyone here using a third party grip on their beloved 800? I am pondering it. Watched a few tube videos, and the one that pops up most is made by Pixel, and people seem to be happy-ish with them. I would only use it very occasionally. Don't 'need' it, but it might be nice to have in the bag.
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I'm thinking of taking a punt on one of these. At that price it's worth it just to find out. I'll be damned if I'm [paying Nikon £300 for one!


Granty_ said:
I'm going to have to seriously think about this one.

What I'd like to see is a full size image taken with the D800 by a landscape photographer used correctly. A lot of the sample images I'm seeing are obviously taken quite rushed and don't seem to offer a lot of what I'd expect....
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I know what you mean, but rushed or not, you can still make side by side comparisons. I found I noticed on thinks like the edges of bricks in buildings, telegraph wires.

DPReviews tests are probably most consistent with what you'll discover yourself should you test them. Like I said, if you have the extra cash going spare, then I'd get the 800E. It's not worth the £400 extra in my opinion, but then again, since when have any of us only bought things we actually need? :)
 
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Moreorless said:
Whats your opinion on the 17-35mm? thats really been the lens I'v had the hardest time getting good info on.
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Was always one on my wanted list that eluded me, could never find one at the right price.

Thom Hogan's site is a good resource for info on Nikon stuff LINK
 
Got the 35mm f/1.4G today to start my prime collection. The 24G/35G/85G was what I was thinking of to start with. The 14-24mm I'll have to pick up at some point and something longer than 85mm, although what I don't know.
 
Im going to wait and see how the sigma 35mm compares then will probably shift my 24-70 and buy that or the nikon 35 1.4g and maybe the 28 1.8G as thats supposedly very good for the price.

Heres hoping they bring a new 135 f2 out soon, thats one canon lens I've lusted after,as the nikon seems to get mixed results and supposedly suffers from bad CA.
 
I owned the 135mm f/2 DC on the D700, it was and is still a very good lens. I had the Canon 85mm f/1.2 II when I shot a Canon and the 135 DC and 85L were two of my favourite portrait lenses. Using it wide open CA is going to be an issue for these types of lenses, but you can correct it. The Zeiss 135mm APO I quite fancy.
 
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