Nikkor AF 20mm f/2.8 D : Review

Introduction

After a very long hiatus here’s my newest lens review, of the Nikkor AF 20mm f/2.8 D!
Many things have happened in my life recently, both personally and professionally, and because of the lack of time for “geeky” things such as testing and writing lens reviews, I have been spending most of my free time with my family – and obviously – taking photos of them. My favorite subjects have been my son and my wife 🙂

This was a big change in my “photography life”. Suddenly I wasn’t getting up early and spending an entire day outside taking landscape photos anymore, or simply walking around doing street photography or shooting insects… Now my priorities were two: portraits of my family and losing weight, well, not me but my photography gear.
I started the slimming program by dropping the heavy f/2.8 zooms and slowly substituting them with primes. At that time I also had a zoom lens which I liked a lot, the Nikkor AF-S 16-35mm f/4 G ED VR, which I regret not having the time to write a review of, and that had to go too. It wasn’t as heavy as the others, but it was nevertheless a long lens (and a speciality one which I used exclusively for landscapes). The slimming process went far: I still had the Nikon D700, one cheap zoom and two primes, but I added one new system to my kit: Micro Four Thirds, in my case an Olympus E-M10, two primes and the wonderful Olympus M.Zuiko 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO zoom lens. I spent several months shooting and filming with the Olympus, and the Nikon was sitting at home unused most of the time.
But everytime I decided to shoot with the D700, mostly portraits, it was magic. I simply could not abandon the full-frame format. Then I thought that it didn’t make much sense to keep shooting with the 12-40mm, since it was a lens that wasn’t very well balanced with the E-M10, and sold it for a new Olympus M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8. Great lens, loved the rendering and AF speed, very compact and well built.

But I loved the look of full-frame… After some time I took the radical decision of selling all the Olympus gear and spent the money on the mighty Nikkor AF-S 58mm f/1.4 G lens. And what a treat is was! This is another lens I regret not writing a review of. It’s magic. I made so many beautiful portraits of my family with this lens, that I’m certainly we’ll admire them in the years to come. And now I don’t have this lens anymore, and why? Because I have migrated to a Sony A7s full-frame mirrorless camera, that’s why, and unfortunately there wasn’t any adapters that could AF with the 58mm, at least reliably. What a shame, I had to replace it somehow…

… but enough with the story and let’s get back to the Nikkor 20mm review!

This is a lens I never thought of buying when I had my D700, but now that I had a very small camera I needed small lenses, either native or adapted. Due to the lack of cheap ultra wide angle lenses for the Sony system, I had to look elsewhere for an adapted lens, and I saw the 20mm as a lens I was curious to try. So there it was at home, and even with the adapter it makes a nice combo with the Sony A7s:

This lens was announced in 1994 and is still being produced today, despite the release of the new Nikkor AF-S 20mm f/1.8 G and the now “ancient” aperture ring. It’s still the smallest ultra wide lens for the Nikon mount an can be bought cheaply today on the used market for about 300€.

Technical Specifications

Focal length	20mm
Maximum aperture	f/2.8
Minimum aperture	f/22
Field of view	94 degrees (on FX)
Weight	270g
Dimensions	43 x 69mm (46 x 69mm at minimum focus distance)
Optical construction	12 elements in 9 groups
Aperture blades	7, straight
Filter diameter	62mm
Minimum focus distance	25cm
Hood	HB-4, optional
Mount	F

Mechanical Characteristics

Zoom ring	n/a
Focus ring	Plastic with rubber finish, with infinity stop
Focus throw	93 degrees
Focus motor	No
Optical stabilizer	No
Front element rotation while zooming	n/a
Front element rotation while focusing	No
Internal focusing	No
Lens extension while focusing	Yes, 3mm
Lens extension while zooming	n/a
Maximum magnification	1:8.3

Handling

The lens is very well built, and despite being all plastic on the outside it gives a very solid, dense feeling due to its weight and compactness. Since it’s so small even with the adapter, handling it with the Sony A7s is very easy and manual focus is nice for an AF lens. There’s a generous focus throw and, being an ultra wide lens, focusing is very easy. A nice bonus is the hard stop at infinity, just like the old AI lenses!
The front element doesn’t rotate while focusing, so using polarizers is not a problem.

Resolution

For the resolution test I shot two different targets, one sitting around 1 meter from the lens, and the other at “infinity”.
In both results, the first column shows a crop of the image center, and the second column shows a crop of the extreme corner. Each row represents an aperture setting, from maximum to f/22 in full stops.
Here are the results, first at the close target:

The center resolution is already on its maximum value, which I was kind of expecting from my experience with other old lenses, and only drops at f/22 due to diffraction. The corners, though, are a completely different matter; they start rather bad at f/2.8 and aggravated with huge vignetting, and resolution doesn’t improve much at f/4. Only at f/5.6 one starts to see sharp corners on full frame, but the very best apertures are f/8 and f/11 for homogeneous resolution corner to corner. Once again this is in line with the resolution characteristics with other old wide angle lenses, such as the 24mm and 28mm f/2.8 lenses.
When the target is located far away, the result is a little different:

The main difference is what happens at f/2.8 in the center. It’s very soft, and the corners are equally bad. But by f/4 there’s a big jump in quality in the center, despite the corners still being a little soft. Afterwards the behavior resembles what happened with the close target, but resolution in the corners is still rather soft even at f/5.6. Then, from f/8 and until f/16 the corners become very sharp and overall resolution only drops at f/22 because of diffraction.
Overall, this is still a great performance for an ultra wide angle lens and the resolution results are great for landscape photography when stopping down the aperture is the norm.

Distortion

Not a brick wall, but this image allows to see the distortion characteristics of the lens:

The lens has very visible barrel distortion along with a mustache type characteristic, producing a very wavy shape to horizontal lines, and because of that should be used with care in architecture photography, especially regarding horizontal lines. For landscapes this is not very important unless there are things like horizon line on seascapes, and in this case the distortion characteristic might be hard to fix, but using the appropriate profile for this lens in post-processing does the trick with one click.

Vignetting

Vignetting is very strong at f/2.8 and affects the entire frame, making the center lose about 1/3 stops of light, but the corners get really dark. At f/4, falloff improves drastically but the corners are still very dark. Vignetting never goes away afterwards until f/16, and only at f/22 there’s finally an improvement. However, vignetting is very easy to correct in post-processing and shouldn’t present a real issue in most circumstances.

Chromatic aberrations

I couldn’t force the appearance of CAs whatever I did. Even at f/2.8 I could not see any traces of fringing, it’s really great.

Coma

Coma was tested using a LED source, at home in a dark room.
The three columns in the following image show the result at the center, APS-C corner and full-frame corner, respectivelly:

As expected for a relatively fast ultra wide angle lens, coma is very high in the corners at full aperture. This is normal and difficult to correct during manufacturing, and is impossible to fix in post-processing. In this matter, the lens disappoints for applications like astrophotography where negligible coma distortion is crucial.

Flare

For the flare test, I started shooting directly against the sun, then placed the sun at the corner and finally made shot with the sun just outside the frame.

Shot directly against the sun.

Shot with the sun placed at one corner of the frame.

Shot with the sun just outside the frame.

The lens has a very good resistance to veiling flare which is important to keep contrast high. The problem is that if the sun is in the frame or in the proximity, the internal reflections of light will be easily visible in the pictures, as tiny as those reflections may be. This characteristic is normal for old wide angle lenses, and the more the angle the worse ghosting becomes.
In conclusion, the best thing to do is leaving the sun at a safe distance from the frame.

Bokeh

This is a wide focal lens with 7 straight blades, thus bokeh has to be the last thing you think about when buying this lens.
This test is based on a defocused picture of the city lights and getting crops from the center and corner at three different apertures.

The lens produces a reasonable bokeh wide open, not in this test because of the very visible accentuated edges, but when the background has lower contrast areas. In real life shots, bokeh is not very distracting, though. Stopping down immediately shows polygonal shapes which are the result of the straight type diafragm blades. However, this is in line with every ordinary wide angle lenses I tested.

Macro/Close-up

This lens employs CRC (Close-Range Correction) technology by means of floating elements that help correcting optical problems when focusing very close. As a result, this lens has a very sharp center wide open at the minimum focus distance. This allows to focus as close as 25 centimeters from the front plane, resulting in a maximum magnification ratio of 1:8.3. It’s not bad, but I’ve seen much better from other (modern) wide angle lenses.
I shot a Sony battery and this is the entire frame at the minimum focus distance:

Summary

Build quality	7	All-plastic on the outside but very solid, dense feeling
Handling	7	Easy manual focusing and aperture selection with the ring
Resolution	8	Very good resolution for an ultra wide angle lens, but wide open good only at short distances
Distortion	5	Complex barrel and mustache distortion, not suitable for architecture
Vignetting	4	Very strong wide-open, and always there afterwards
Chromatic aberrations	10	Perfect, no issues here
Coma	7	Very noticeable in the borders wide open, well controlled afterwards
Flare	7	Contrast is always high but ghosts are too easy to catch with the sun nearby
Bokeh	4	Just acceptable wide-open
Overall	65%	A sharp and very compact ultra wide angle prime lens, still a great buy today especially on the used market for mirrorless cameras

Samples

Here are some samples of pictures I made with this lens. Settings: native JPEG, picture control set to Standard mode, no post-processing applied except reducing to 600 pixel width.

20mm, f/8.0, 1/125s, ISO 100 – Click here for original

20mm, f/8.0, 1/200s, ISO 100 – Click here for original

20mm, f/5.6, 1/640s, ISO 200 – Click here for original

20mm, f/11, 1/60s, ISO 1600 – Click here for original

20mm, f/2.8, 1/60s, ISO 200 – Click here for original

20mm, f/2.8, 1/60s, ISO 320 – Click here for original

Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 G II ED VR N : Review

Introduction

The 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto lenses have long been a first choice for social events and fashion photographers. The combination of versatile focal lengths, fast aperture, good target isolation, very fast autofocusing and high build quality, are qualities that few lenses can afford to have and absolutely needed for the professional who cannot go through the risk of getting less than acceptable results.
In this review I will describe my own experience, as a pure amateur, with the wonderful Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 G II ED VR, also known as “VR II” (which incidentally has Nikon’s Vibration Reduction implementation version II). Having previously reviewed the also professional level Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 G ED lens of the “holy trinity” of zoom lenses from the current Nikon lineup, I can say that the 70-200mm feels even more rugged, perhaps due to having thicker metal in its construction, and the number of optical elements inside contribute to a lot of weight, 1540 g. By the way, I’ll be reviewing it with the D700 full-frame DSLR, which even if it’s a big camera with a nice round grip, it still benefits a lot with the addition of the battery grip for better balance with the lens for long periods of time. Now here’s how the D700 combines with the 70-200mm, without the battery grip:

This was a very welcome addition to Nikon’s lineup, especially in the forum communities, since the previous version of the 70-200mm was known for producing high amounts of vignetting and lack of sharpness in the corners, especially at the long end. When this lens was released, the alternatives on the market were the Sigma AF 70-200mm f/2.8 DG EX HSM II and the Tamron SP AF 70-200mm f/2.8 Di LD Macro. These lenses were good, had their own strengths but had a lot of weaknesses too, but of course they cost much less than the Nikkor. The Sigma was a fast focusing lens but had problems with chromatic aberrations and obvious lack of sharpness at the long end; the Tamron was the opposite, having great optical qualities but a very weak AF motor which was far from great for action, although it was known to be great for portraiture and could do very good closeups. But the best option was to opt for a used “VR I”, or even Nikon’s old AF-S 80-200mm f/2.8 D. Nowadays, the third-party makers put a lot of effort in their designs and the Sigma released a new version with OS (Optical Stabilization) and many improvements that contribute to better results, especially at the long end; Tamron, on another hand, produced an excellent lens with VC (Vibration Compensation) and USD (Ultra-Sonic Drive) motor. Both lenses finally seem to be good alternatives to the Nikkor.
The Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 G II ED VR is a complex design with no less than 7 ED elements to correct optical aberrations, and 1 Nano Crystal Coat to deal with flare and ghosting. The lens front element doesn’t rotate while focusing, so using a polarizer filter is not a problem. Typical for these kind of lenses, zooming is internal and therefore the length of the lens remains constant through the entire range. As said before, this lens introduces Vibration Reduction version II which is 4-stop effective, according to Nikon. The VR has two working modes – Normal and Active – Normal mode is best for static subjects and compensates for small low frequency movements, and Active mode is best for action where the lens tries to correct high frequency shakings in addition.
At about 1899€ today, this is a very expensive lens and still everybody have been raving about it. We’ll try to find out why.

Technical Specifications

Focal length	70 – 200mm
Maximum aperture	f/2.8
Minimum aperture	f/22
Field of vision	34 – 12 degrees (on FX)
Weight	1540 g
Dimensions	206 x 87mm
Optical construction	21 elements in 16 groups (7 ED elements, 1 Nano Crystal Coat element)
Aperture blades	9
Filter diameter	77mm
Minimal focus distance	140cm (104cm from the front element)
Hood	HB-48, petal-shaped
Mount	Nikon F

Mechanical Characteristics

Zoom ring	Metal with rubber finish
Focus ring	Metal with rubber finish, no infinity stop
Focus throw	? degrees
Focus motor	Silent Wave Motor, allows full-time manual focus override
Optical stabilizer	Vibration Reduction (version II), up to 4 stops capability
Front element rotation while zooming	No
Front element rotation while focusing	No
Internal focusing	Yes
Lens extension while focusing	No
Lens extension while zooming	No

Handling

The Nikkor is a chunky piece of metal and it’s front-heavy with the D700, which is a heavy camera by itself, but balance can be restored by adding a battery grip, and shooting with this lens result in being very pleasant that way – I got only a bit of back pain after shooting and carrying the combo for about 8 hours at the races (the longest I shot with it so far). The zoom ring is thin and lightweight, isn’t damped and feels like rubbing metal against metal, but turns around very fast which is excellent for action photography where framing and getting the shot at the right moment is crucial. The focus ring feels a little heavier but allows for quick adjustments on-the-fly, since the lens supports manual focus override after auto-focusing. Speaking about focusing, the lens employs two different modes which are selectable via a switch on the side of the lens barrel – A/M and M/A. These namings may sound weird at first, and still sound strange after – A/M is a new mode that takes longer to recognize that the lens entered manual focus override mode (it takes a little more focus ring turning around by the user), which is useful for protection from accidental hits on the focus ring; M/A, in its turn, is the conventional auto-focus mode with manual override (it instantly enters manual mode at the slightest hit on the focus ring). The lens has a focus limiter for 5 meters which is nice to have when shooting outdoors for even faster AF. Speaking about speed, this lens is even faster focusing than the Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 G ED, especially indoors in low light, and is also the most accurate of all lenses I have used until today. As long there exist the slightest contrast to grab on, the lens nails it, and low light AF performance is really impressive. According to other tests, this is probably the most eye-catching characteristic compared to the other current third-party offers. Another eye-catching characteristic, but on the negative side, is the well known focus “breathing” when shooting close distance objects, which result in less-than-expected magnification. This can be disappointing, for instance, to the wedding photographer who needs to take that close shot of the wedding rings and other small details. Personally I prefer to use a macro lens for that kind of work, since probably the magnification without the “breathing” issue would not be acceptable anyway.
The lens includes a non-removable collar and a removable tripod foot adaptor. The collar can be turned around with ease after loosening the knob, and the tripod foot can be removed also from loosening its knob and sliding it out. The tripod foot is all metal and doesn’t flex. The Nikkor has a short petal-shaped hood which protects the lens but not so much from the Sun rays and should be more effective.

Resolution

For the resolution test I shot the 5 Euro bill in the studio. Focus was achieved using Live View to avoid auto-focus imprecisions and to compensate for an hypothetical field curvature. They are followed by a long distance test shot of a target placed at around 100 meters.
The first column shows a crop of the image center, the corner crop is on the second column and the third column shows a crop of the extreme corner. Each row represents an aperture setting, from maximum to f/22 in full stops. Here are the results:

70mm

At 70mm the center resolution is already excellent right from f/2.8 and only deteriorates at f/16 due to diffraction, and the DX corner resolution follows the same behavior. The FX corners are much less sharp at f/2.8 but reach very good levels already at f/4, and by f/5.6 they reach excellent levels.

At long distances, the results are much better and reach already excellent levels at f/2.8 in the FX corners. Stopping down does nothing to improve resolution and only clears the vignetting.
The lens is excellent at 70mm, especially at medium to long distance shots where every bit of the images reach impressive resolution levels.

105mm

Just like at 70mm, by 105mm the resolution at the center and DX corners is excellent already wide-open and only drops a little at f/16. But now the FX corners are already very good wide-open at reach excellent figures by f/4.

There’s really nothing to say here in this test. The lens performs brilliantly at 105mm like in the previous test.
This is probably the lens sweetest spot, but let’s see what happens at 200mm below.

200mm

Surprisingly, where this is typically the weakest spot of all 70-200mm lenses, here at 200mm and on the short distance test the FX corner sharpness is even closer to the center level than on the previous test, and reach top quality levels. The FX corner is only a hair less sharp and is affected by some vignetting, but nonetheless this is an impressive performance. The resolution figures only lose a bit of “bite” by f/22.

The results from the long distance test reflect those at short distance – the FX corner is only marginally less sharp at f/2.8 and there’s some vignetting as well.

I didn’t expect this level of performance from a 70-200mm f/2.8. Usually the FX corners lack a bit of sharpness, have vignetting, and have a weak spot at 200mm where normally only the center portion of the frame is on a good level. This is not a problem most of the time because the subjects tend to be centered in the frame. But the Nikkor performs so well that it is now clear why it’s often compared with primes by users in forum communities. I may go a step further and say that few primes perform as good as this zoom lens, unless you’re comparing it to a 1899€ prime lens (but you’d lose the versatility of the zoom).

Distortion

For the distortion test I shot a brick wall, again:

70mm

105mm

200mm

The lens produces a bit of barrel distortion at 70mm which is negligible in real-world photos, and changes to pincushion at 105mm but also on a small amount and hardly visible. At 200mm the pincushion distortion level increases but now by much.

Vignetting

In this test I shot a white wall at home using tungsten white balance and setting exposure manually.

70mm

At 70mm, vignetting is very strong wide-open and much less so at f/4, before disappearing at f/5.6.

105mm

At 105mm, vignetting is strong at f/2.8 and decreases a lot at f/4. At f/5.6 it’s non existent.

200mm

At 200mm, vignetting reaches the weakest spot and is at a very strong level by f/2.8 which darkens the entire frame. At f/4 it’s still very strong but affects only the corners, and by f/5.6 it decreases a lot and practically disappears at f/8.

Chromatic aberrations

For this test I shot a car roof from above, on a very sunny day early in the afternoon.

70mm

200mm

The Nikkor employs no less than 7 ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements to reduce chromatic aberrations and the lens performs remarkably in this department. Aberrations are negligible at all apertures on every tests I did, including the always challenging shot of foliage against the sun. This is an excellent performance for any fast zoom lens.

Coma

Coma is an important requirement in astrophotography and usually affects the corners of most lenses. Lenses that are affected by coma produce comas (hence the name) instead of bright light points in dark backgrounds. One way to test coma is using a LED source of light at home in a dark room.
I put the light source at the center (first column), corner and extreme corner of the frame (second and third columns, respectively), at maximum aperture and stopped down.

70mm

200mm

Like most telephoto zooms, the Nikkor isn’t much affected by coma and the only distortions visible are in the halos around the center, where they stretch the more the points are closed to the borders, but the points themselves remain perfectly circular. Curiously, those halos seem to stretch a little more at f/4 than at f/2.8 on the FX corner.

Flare

In this test I shot the top of a small building against the sun, to see if I could get any flare vestiges. I started shooting directly against the sun, then placed the sun at the corner and finally made a shot with the sun just outside the frame.

Shot directly against the sun.

Shot with the sun placed at one corner of the frame.

Shot with the sun just outside the frame.

Typical for any telephoto zoom lens, the Nikkor is affected by flare in every situation with the sun nearby. Despite having one Nano Crystal Coat element to reduce flare and ghosting, flare affects negatively the images when the sun is at the center of the frame, reducing the overall contrast. When the sun is at one corner, the multiple internal reflections of the sun rays are clearly visible towards the opposite corner, and the overall contrast of the image is still affected badly. Finally, when the sun is just outside the frame, the overall contrast returns to normal levels but there’s still few internal reflections visible in photos.
Notice that this test was made without the supplied hood, but even with the hood there’s still few reflections visible in pictures but the overall contrast certainly benefits with its use. Perhaps performance with the hood on could be better if it were a bit longer, just like the one of the “VR I” version lens.

Bokeh

Thanks to the 9 aperture blades, we can expect circular out of focus highlights from this lens. I took a defocused picture at the widest aperture of the city lights and got crops of the center, corner and extreme corners. The test was repeated for the subsequent two stops.

70mm

200mm

Bokeh from this lens is perfectly circular at the center and suffers from the cats eye distortion in the extreme corners, and the out of focus highlights are a bit nervous on the inside at 70mm but get perfectly smooth at 200mm, at f/2.8. By f/4, we start to see some polygonization which is more visible at 200mm, but still the edges aren’t accentuated and produce smooth transitions and backgrounds that are soft and not distracting at the longest focal length. This characteristic doesn’t change much at f/5.6.
All in all, the lens has superb bokeh characteristics (for a zoom lens) which are surely amongst the best in class.

Macro/Close-up

The Nikkor was capable to focus as close as 140 centimeters from the sensor plane, or 104 centimeters from the front element. I shot an 1 Euro coin and this is what to expect at the minimum focus distance:

70mm

200mm

This shows clearly that the lens maximum magnification is too small for closeup work, due to the well known issue of focus “breathing” in this very lens.

Image stabilization

This lens introduced Nikon’s new version of VR (Vibration Reduction), which is advertised as giving an advantage of 4 stops. This means that at 200mm, one can shoot at speeds as slow as 1/13 seconds.
To test it, I shot the back of a street lamp from my window. The first column shows crops of the subject shot with VR off, and the second column shows them with VR on for comparison. Here are the results at 200mm starting at 1/200 s:

The results shows clearly that the VR II works as advertised and better, resulting in sharp images at 1/13 seconds with ease, and adding a battery grip I managed to shoot sharp pictures at 1/6 seconds, benefiting with the improved balance, though the percentage of keepers suddenly decreased. Of course, one has to build some technique to hold the camera and lens steady, so that the benefits of this technology can be applied. The image taken at 1/6 s is softer but that’s the result of shooting at f/20 which is greatly affected with diffraction. Surely VR version II works as advertised, and this versatility is amazing as long as your subject remains perfectly static.

Summary

Build quality	10	Built like a tank with tight precision
Handling	10	It’s obviously heavy but has perfect ring placement, and AF is extremely fast and accurate in every situation even in sports and very low light, catching the least amount of contrast to lock on
Resolution	9	Almost perfect, the only drawback is not so good FX corners wide-open at 70mm
Distortion	9	Very small amounts of barrel distortion at the wide end and pincushion thereafter, but not noticeable in most pictures
Vignetting	8	Very strong at widest apertures especially at 200mm
Chromatic aberrations	10	Never encountered issues, even on most challenging situations
Coma	9	Halos can be found on FX corners but they don’t affect negatively applications like astrophotography
Flare	3	Very weak resistance against flare and ghosting, the supplied hood isn’t very effective and should be longer
Bokeh	8	Very smooth at widest apertures, but gets polygonal early by stopping down
Overall	84%	A fantastic lens and a truly reliable workhorse that delivers beautiful results, and the only disappointing features are weak flare resistance and the focus breathing issue

Samples

Here are some samples of pictures I made with this lens. Settings: simple RAW convertion with Nikon View NX2 at default settings (unless noticed), picture control set in-camera to Landscape mode, no post-processing applied except reducing to 600 pixel width.

125mm, f/4.0, 1/1600s, ISO 200

170mm, f/4.0, 1/2500s, ISO 200

155mm, f/4.0, 1/1250s, ISO 200

150mm, f/3.5, 1/2500s, ISO 200, out of camera JPEG

165mm, f/2.8, 1/4000s, ISO 200, out of camera JPEG

70mm, f/2.8, 1/640s, ISO 200, out of camera JPEG

Voigtländer Color-Skopar 28mm f/2.8 SL II Aspherical : Review

Introduction

I’m back again with my newest lens review, this time of the Voigtländer Color-Skopar 28mm f/2.8 SL II Aspherical lens for the Nikon mount, tested as usual on a Nikon D700 full-frame DSLR. Just like its twin sister lens, the Voigtländer Color-Skopar 20mm f/3.5 SL II Aspherical, this is a pancake lens with a slim, elegant design, and makes a very portable and lightweight combo with the D700 as shown below:

Just like its twin, the retail price of €449 doesn’t seem cheap at first, but besides being an all-metal lens it has a relatively fast maximum aperture, especially for a pancake design. Pancake lenses are particulary rare in Nikon mount, and this lens may be like a God’s send for those who appreciate shooting with this type of lenses. This lens looks so similar to the 20mm f/3.5 that I will base my description of the 28mm on that review I wrote some time ago.
The lens includes an aspherical element to reduce aberrations and distortions. Being a manual focus lens, it can be a bit limiting for you depending on your shooting style, but that’s also true for every manual focus lens such as Nikkor AI or Zeiss ZF lenses. The fact that the lens has a wide focal length reduces this limitation a bit, being very easy to focus anywhere you want.
I’ve been shooting with this lens for some months now and I have better feelings with it than those I had with the 20mm which performed badly on the full-frame sensor, and now I trust this lens for every occasion where I need to travel light. The 20mm was a sweet lens on DX, it had the perfect focal length to cover a great range of scenarios, and I used it mainly to shoot street scenes, landscapes, monuments, inside museums and churches, cafés, pretty much everything I wanted. But when I migrated to FX I wasn’t that enthusiastic with the focal length, and worse, it performed badly in the corners. So I looked forward to Cosina to release a new pancake lens with a equivalent focal length on FX, and voilà, it seemed that Cosina was listening to me and didn’t took much time for this 28mm to arrive. I was also thrilled that they increased the maximum aperture to f/2.8.
Last time I used this lens was on my summer vacations in southern Spain and I loved it, it performed so much better than the 20mm, that I was shooting at f/4 all the time in churches and museums with no regrets. The maximum aperture was also excellent when I needed to do a close up or a quick portrait, since the quality at the center of the frame is very high. It looked like I was shooting again with the 20mm on my old D300, but seemed even better! This lens was also good to shoot unnoticed among the multitude of tourists that visited the region at that time of the year, but also got a few smiles from other photographers that were curious about its diminute size. But I will describe its performance in detail below.

Technical Specifications

Focal length	28 mm
Biggest aperture	f/2.8
Smallest aperture	f/22
Field of vision	74.8 degrees (on FX)
Weight	180 g
Dimensions	25 x 62 mm
Optical construction	7 elements in 6 groups, 1 aspherical element
Aperture blades	9, straight
Filter diameter	52 mm
Minimal focus distance	22 cm
Hood	LH-28N (optional)
Mount	AI-S, CPU integrated

Mechanical Characteristics

Zoom ring	n/a
Focus ring	All-metal, with infinity stop
Focus throw	160 degrees
Focus motor	n/a
Optical stabilizer	n/a
Front element rotation while zooming	n/a
Front element rotation while focusing	No
Lens extension while zooming	n/a
Lens extension while focusing	Yes, 6 mm
Internal focusing	No

Handling

Handling this lens is every bit the same as handling the 20mm, so I will basically copy-paste the same description.
The Voigtländer is a very compact lens as you can see above in the pictures, and being all-metal it’s very well built and surprisingly heavy for such size. Being a manual focus lens, probably the most important aspect is how the focus ring feels on your fingers, and it does indeed feel great. The focus ring is perfectly damped and focusing is very smooth. I have been shooting with some manual focus lenses (AI-S and Samyang) but focusing with this lens feels even better than those. It feels smooth and has a long throw of about 160 degrees for precise focusing. This is mostly useful in near distance, of course, because from about 10 meters to infinity there’s almost no need to move the focus ring again. The lens stops focusing on infinity which is great news for astrophotographers.
The less positive things about this lens is that it doesn’t have a lock on the aperture ring, therefore watch out and keep the aperture ring at f/22, otherwise you’ll get a fEE error on your LCD display. Because the lens is so tiny and there’s almost no space between the focus and aperture rings, attaching and dettaching the lens from the camera can be a bit difficult, but with a firm grip on both focus and aperture ring, along with the fixed 3mm spacer in between, it can be done but be warned that the lens gets almost glued to the camera.
Anyway, my only thumbs down goes (once again) to the front cap which gets off so easily with just a small touch. I instantly replaced that cap with a (heresy!) Canon one.

Resolution

For the resolution test I shot a near distance object and a far away building to find out if there were any visible differences in image quality between those distances. As usual, I focused with Live View and re-focused when moving the target to the corners.
The first column shows a crop of the image center, the corner crop is on the second column and the third column shows a crop of the extreme corner. Each row represents an aperture setting, from maximum to minimum in full stops. Here are the results:

The resolution at the center is already excellent straight from the maximum aperture, showing high contrast and clarity. This is always true until f/16, from which diffraction starts affecting the image and there’s a loss of contrast. The DX corner resolution is not so good wide open but is more than acceptable at f/4 and peaks at f/5.6, and keeps on high values until f/16. The extreme corners are a bit weaker at f/2.8 and appear affected greatly by vignetting, but after quick correction in post-processing it is visible that the problem is not that much the lack of sharpness. If DX corner sharpness improves greatly at f/4, the extreme corners will take one more stop to reach similar levels. But still, for very good sharpness across the frame it’s better to stop down to f/8, or f/11 if critical sharpness is needed on the extreme corners of FX.
This is great performance on very close targets, but what about “real world” where most of the time the target is at at least several meters away?

Although this target seems a bit flat in contrast, careful examination shows that there are no meaningful differences in resolution, being already excellent at f/2.8 in the center and very good in the DX corner, but not so good in the FX corner and still affected by heavy vignetting. The aperture of f/8 delivers very good resolution across the frame, just like we saw in the previous test.
In conclusion, this is a much more versatile lens than the 20mm with a broader range of useful apertures, which was to be expected from the start since 20mm is more difficult to produce than a 28mm lens, especially when we’re talking about pancake lenses, and also because the maximum aperture is higher.

Distortion

For the distortion test I shot some tiles:

The lens distortion is well controlled. There’s a mild amount of barrel distortion but generally it’s not noticeable on most shots, and it’s easy to correct in post on architecture photos if needed.

Vignetting

In this test I shot a white wall at home using tungsten white balance.

Just like it was detected previously on the resolution test, vignetting is very heavy wide open and improves significantly by f/4. From f/8 and down it generally doesn’t show up in images. Notice that this is mostly visible on shots of white walls like this. As a matter of fact, f/5.6 is already pretty much free from vignetting.

Chromatic aberrations

It was a clear bright sunny day with the sunlight reflecting on my car, and I took pictures of a area of high contrast:

The use of an aspherical element is an important feature in this lens for taking care of distortions and aberrations, and once again Cosina made an excellent job to keep aberration levels at negligible levels. From all the shots I made with this lens there wasn’t a single day I noticed any fringing issues. The lens deserves the maximum score here.

Coma

Coma is an important requirement in astrophotography and usually affects the corners of most lenses, especially wide-angle lenses and particularly old designs. I tested coma using a LED source of light in a dark room.
I put the light source at the center (first column), corner and extreme corner of the frame (second and third columns, respectively), at f/2.8 and f/4 (one stop down).

At f/2.8 the lens produces high amounts of coma even in the DX corner and much more so at the extreme corners, and doesn’t really get much better by stopping down. This is very unnattractive for astrophotographers, and if you are thinking of going out shoot the stars wide open, you better think twice or you might not like the results. This lens is awful in this regard, just like the 20mm was.

Flare

I shot several pictures on my backyard trying to get flare vestiges, and the result is as follows. I started to shoot directly against the sun, then placed the sun at one corner and then shot with the sun just outside the frame.

Shot directly against the sun

Shot with the sun placed at one corner of the frame

Shot with the sun just outside the frame

The Voigtländer has very good quality coatings inside and the results put it along with the best lenses I’ve used, with great flare resistance and keeping the overall contrast on high levels. There’s just a bit of veiling flare around the sun but no ghosting was detected on other parts of the frame. You just need to be a little cautious when shooting with the sun just outside the frame, and for this it might be a good idea to use the LH-28N lens hood available separately. Overall this is a very good result.

Bokeh

This is a wide angle lens and therefore the quality of the out of focus area of an image is not a primary aspect to consider, but still, since the lens has a relatively fast maximum aperture and 9 diafragm blades, one might expect acceptable renderings of out of focus highlighs. So lets see how the lens fares in this matter.
For this test I took a defocused picture at f/2.8 of the city lights and got crops of the center, corner and extreme corners. The test was repeated for f/4 and f/5.6.

The out of focus highlights are pretty circular at f/2.8 thanks to the 9 aperture blades, as expected, although the corners reveal the cats-eye distortion due to vignetting. Although circular, the highlights show pronounced edges and nervous interiors, but nevertheless it’s not distracting at this aperture when looking at the entire picture on my monitor. Closing down to f/4 reveals the outcome of the straight aperture blades and stays like this when closing down further. Generally, with this lens it’s better to shoot close-up subjects with the maximum aperture, where the center sharpness is already very good, to get the best out of focus renderings.

Macro/Close-up

The Voigtländer was capable to focus as close as 22 centimeters from the sensor plane, or about 15 centimeters from the front element. I shot an 1 Euro coin and this is what to expect at the minimum focus distance:

Summary

Build quality	9	A beautifully well crafted lens, but the front cap is rubbish
Handling	10	Buttery smooth focus ring and very solid, compact lens, with CPU contacts for the automated exposure modes
Resolution	8	Excellent center sharpness, very good corners and fairly good extreme corners at moderate apertures
Distortion	8	Well controlled barrel distortion for a wide-angle lens and easily correctable if needed
Vignetting	7	Very strong wide open but improves greatly stopped down
Chromatic aberrations	10	A winner just like its 20mm sister lens
Coma	6	Very strong in the corners wide open, gets just a little better by stopping down
Flare	9	Great performance, but be most careful when the sun is just outside the frame
Bokeh	5	Circular only at f/2.8 but very nervous and pronounced edges, and gets polygonal at smaller apertures
Overall	79%	A good pancake lens with very much expanded range of useful apertures for FX

Samples

Here are a few pictures I took during my past holidays and in my backyard. Settings: native JPEG, picture control set to Landscape mode, no post-processing applied except reducing to 600 pixel width.

f/4, 1/25s, ISO 800

f/8, 1/400s, ISO 200

f/5.6, 1/160s, ISO 200

f/8, 1/80s, ISO 400

f/4, 1/640s, ISO 200

f/8, 1/320s, ISO 200

Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 G ED N : Review

Introduction

I’ve been shooting with the Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 G ED standard zoom lens on full-frame for several months now, and since I already know this lens pretty well I decided to write yet another review of this lens. This is a widely known lens and has been very well regarded as a reliable workhorse of many professional photographers out there, being particularly popular amongst photojournalists and event photographers. These last words are easily associated with the focal range of this lens, which allows to take a variety of shots from groups of people to full body portraits and even head shots.
The camera used in this review is a Nikon D700 full-frame DSLR. Here’s a couple of images of lens and body:

This lens was introduced in 2007 and has been untouched since then, both in performance and price, basically because the third-party alternatives failed to deliver in crucial aspects for professional photographers: AF speed, toughness and optical characteristics such as sharpness wide-open and bokeh, except for, maybe, the previous professional zoom lens Nikkor AF-S 28-70mm f/2.8 D ED that was a very good lens already and only needed an update. Only very recently has emerged a new contender from a third-party maker, the Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 Di VC USD, which I had with me for less than a week – I was ready to buy the Tamron but exchanged it for the Nikkor – and couldn’t review for such short period of time, but it was a very nice lens and throws image stabilization as a bonus. Maybe Nikon is planning an update with VR? Since this lens was mainly designed to shoot moving subjects and the latest Canon addition doesn’t have IS as well, I’m not sure if VR is such welcome feature for pros.
The Nikkor employs 15 elements in 11 groups, with 3 of these elements being of ED type to reduce color aberrations and another element equipped with Nano Crystal Coat to take care of internal reflections. On the outside, the lens is a looker; such well crafted piece of metal gives you confidence for the roughest scenarios and it’s a pleasure to use in the field. The downside is that it is very heavy even on a body like the D700, but according to other users it seems to balance very well with a battery grip. Personally I don’t use a battery grip because I’m not a heavy shooter and don’t use the combo in portrait orientation very frequently, but I might add a grip in the future for the sake of the experience.
At a steep price of about 1600€, it’s about one third more expensive than the Tamron offer, but does the performance of the Nikkor gives the price any justice?

Technical Specifications

Focal length	24 – 70mm
Maximum aperture	f/2.8
Minimum aperture	f/22
Field of view	84 – 34 degrees (on FX)
Weight	900g
Dimensions	133 x 83mm (155 x 83mm extended)
Optical construction	15 elements in 11 groups (3 ED elements, 1 element with Nano Crystal Coat)
Aperture blades	9, rounded
Filter diameter	77mm
Minimal focus distance	38cm (19.8cm from the front element)
Hood	HB-40, petal-shaped
Mount	Nikon F

Mechanical Characteristics

Zoom ring	Metal with rubber finish
Focus ring	Metal with rubber finish, no infinity stop
Focus throw	74 degrees
Focus motor	Yes, Silent Wave Motor
Optical stabilizer	No
Front element rotation while zooming	No
Front element rotation while focusing	No
Internal focusing	Yes
Lens extension while focusing	No
Lens extension while zooming	Yes, up to 21mm
Maximum magnification	1:3.7, at 70mm

Handling

The Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8 G ED is a huge lens for walking around on the streets and screams pro and expensive anywhere. It wasn’t designed for the amateur shooter, the tourist or the hiking afficionados, but instead, was developed for the event and photojournalism photographer with speed and optical performance in mind. I’m speaking about this because it seems that I did the wrong choice: I’m not a pro, I rarely shoot events or other “high responsability” services, and I’m basically a walk around shooter that loves to travel and doesn’t love carrying heavy weights very much. That said, I had sold many of my cheap lenses and had funds, so I wanted the best possible lens for my most used focal lengths in the last years – from about 28mm to 70mm. So that’s when the Tamron offer arrived; I tried it for less than a week but I ended finding it not very ergonomic because it’s a big fat lens, always felt that I had paid too much for the plastic build, and didn’t like the 82mm filter size. The VC was a nice feature for an amateur like me but I lived well until then without image stabilization, so it wasn’t crucial to me. In the performance area I found that it was something better than the zoom lenses I had before, but things like AF speed and bokeh left some buyers regret in my mind; for the money I guess I was expecting more. So I decided to take the plunge and ended paying 500€ more on the Nikkor and returned the Tamron back to the store.
The Nikkor felt more comfortable on my left hand due to its compact size and that way I seemed to have better shooting technique, because I could have a firm hold on the lens that never did with the Tamron. The Nikkor is very long for a standard zoom lens but the real problem is its weight. At 900g the lens alone, it’s not anymore the friendliest travel lens that I had before with the Nikkor AF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 D, but now it’s a complicated beast to carry around and I quickly had to forget walking around with a wrist strap, or I might end injured. Now I carry the combo with a nice leather strap put diagonally around my body and support it with my right hand just in case if something goes wrong. As I said, the length of the lens is not a problem but the weight is. If you’re thinking of getting this lens for your new D600, you could be in for an unpleasant surprise of severe front-heaviness. Anyway, whenever I come home after a day shooting out there and watch the results on my monitor, I quickly forget all the sacrifice because the output is so fine looking.
When using the Nikkor with the supplied lens hood, the overall length remains constant because the lens hood is attached to the fixed part of the lens. The moving part of the lens extends when zooming towards 24mm and towards 70mm. The length is lowest at 50mm. Nikon were clever about the way they designed the zoom mechanism, because since the lens extends much more towards 24mm that towards 70mm, in the end it is the right thing to do because that way it minimizes the risk of adding vignetting at 24mm due to the lens hood. By the way, the hood is a sturdy piece of quality plastic that is very hard and doesn’t bend. The Tamron design is the regular one: the length is lowest at 24mm and highest at 70mm, and the hood is attached to the moving part of the lens; hence, its total length varies with the zoom setting.
The Nikkor is a very fast lens regarding AF speed and never hesitates even in low light. It will focus on the subject in the lowest light available until there’s nothing to focus on, and only then the lens begins to hunt. It’s a joy to use it in continuous focus tracking when following people on the streets or other moving objects. Therefore, if you absolutely need a fast standard zoom lens (and I don’t mean the aperture), this is the lens you need.
So now let’s find out below more in deep what this lens is about.

Resolution

For the resolution test I shot the 5 Euro bill as usual. Focus was achieved using Live View to avoid auto-focus imprecisions and to compensate for possible field curvature issues.
The first column shows a crop of the image center, the corner crop is on the second column and the third column shows a crop of the extreme corner. Each row represents an aperture setting, from f/2.8 to f/22 in full stops. Here are the results:

24mm

At 24mm the center resolution is already excellent at f/2.8 and only starts to get worse at f/16 due to diffraction. The corner and border resolution never reach the same level and sharpness is even slightly disappointing at this focal length at the corners. The edge-to-edge resolution is acceptable but nothing to rave about, and stopping down doesn’t improve things much around here.

I was curious and thought that usually my real world photos are better than this, so maybe it could be an issue related to the focus distance. So I decided to test the resolution on long distance shots. I will follow up the short distance test with a new long distance test shot to check for any differences.

It seems that after all the resolution at the corners is really lower than at the center, even when stopping down to f/8, but the good thing is that it’s slightly better than in the short distance shot. From f/8 and down, the sharpness is acceptable for landscape photography but the resolution levels are far from any prime lens especially in the corners. Another thing is that long distance shots never have so much vignetting.

35mm

At 35mm the lens delivers excellent sharpness in the center and borders, but never reach the same level at the extreme corners in the short distance shot.

It can be seen that in the long distance shot the resolution across the board is excellent but suffers a little only at f/2.8 in the extreme corners. Overall it’s still better than at short distances.
The resolution in this focal length increased very much compared to the resolution at 24mm and it’s very good already at f/4 across the board.

70mm

At 70mm the sharpness at f/2.8 is excellent in the center but there’s a penalty in the borders that only recovers at f/8. The extreme borders are very good from f/11 and beyond.

Once again, the sharpness difference from center to extreme corners is not so noticeable in the long distance shot and the main differences from f/2.8 to f/8 are mainly in the amount of vignetting.

In summary, the resolution characteristic of this lens clearly indicates that this lens is clearly geared towards events and photojournalism professionals with excellent rendition from medium to telephoto ranges and less so at the widest focal lengths. There’s also much more vignetting problems on very short distance shots even using moderate apertures, but in real world photos, which most of the time mean medium to high distance targets, both resolution and vignetting are very well controlled.
The Nikkor is widely known to be a lesser performer, or even described as being quite bad from some users, at 24mm. That is my experience too. If find that the sharpness across the board improves a lot from about 28mm and peaks at 50mm. In my real world shots I’m always pleased with sharpness at the center at every focal length and I just make sure I stop down to at least f/8 on general landscape photography.
If I need to shoot at f/2.8 at 24mm I do it without thinking twice. Here’s an example at 24mm and f/2.8 that I took recently inside a church:

The photo was taken at ISO 640 and has been resized only.
Personally, I which that this lens were better at 24mm than at 70mm because I shoot wide most of the time. In the few days I had the Tamron, it seemed to perform better at 24mm than at 70mm, so watch out the focal lengths you use more and what are most important to you.
If you absolutely need superb sharpness at 24mm, any prime will do it even the oldies. It’s up to you to decide if you need the convenience of the zoom lens.

Distortion

Here are the brick wall shots:

24mm

35m

70mm

The Nikkor produces a considerable amount of barrel distortion at 24mm that evens out at about 28-30mm. Above that, the distortion characteristic switches to pincushion type and remains constant up to 70mm.
Beware when shooting architecture at 24mm, especially horizontal lines. Above that there’s not much to complain about.

Vignetting

In this test, I shot a white wall at home using tungsten white balance and set exposure manually:

24mm

At 24mm, vignetting is very strong wide-open and down to f/4. By f/5.6 the light loss is acceptable and improves greatly afterwards.

35mm

At 35m there’s still an hefty amount of vignetting wide-open but almost vanishes at f/4.

70mm

At 70mm, the lens vignettes badly wide-open but quickly improves already at f/4. From f/5.6 and later there’s nothing to worry about.

The lens suffers from heavy vignetting at f/2.8 on both focal ends but the amount is very acceptable stopping down to f/4. This is particularly visible in short distance shots, but everywhere else it’s a lesser problem and some photographers like to add a touch of vignetting in post-processing, thus in the end it might be a non issue. For landscape photography be prepared to remove it in post or in camera.

Chromatic aberrations

For this test I shot a car from above on a bright sunny day early in the afternoon:

24mm

70mm

This lens employs three ED elements in its optical construction to reduce chromatic aberrations, and as expected it doesn’t disappoint in this matter. Sometimes there’s a small glimpse of purple fringing in the extreme corners at f/2.8, mainly at 24mm, but only if you’re shooting foliage against the sun or other extreme situations. This lens is amazing in this regard.

Coma

Coma was tested using a LED source, at home in a dark room.
I put the light source at the center (first column), corner and extreme corner of the frame (second and third columns, respectively), at maximum aperture and stopped down.

24mm

70mm

The lens suffers from a small amount of coma distortion wide-open at 24mm but it’s almost perfect at any other setting. This is perfect for astrophotography, you just have to remeber to stop down at 24mm.

Flare

My usual building shot for evaluating flare is no longer in construction, so this time I shoot foliage against the sun to see if I could get any flare vestiges. I started to shoot directly against the sun, then placed the sun at the corner and finally made some shots with the sun just outside the frame.

Shot directly against the sun.

Shot with the sun placed at one corner of the frame.

Shot with the sun just outside the frame.

This lens has one element with Nano Crystal Coat to reduce flare and ghosting and, contrary to what I found on the Micro-Nikkor AF-S 105mm f/2.8 G ED lens I reviewed, flare is well controlled to a minimum and contrast is always kept in high values. When shooting against the sun there’s a halo around it but it doesn’t occupy the entire image as happens with the Micro-Nikkor, and contrast is high in the rest of the image. Placing the sun in the corner of the frame makes the worst case possible revealing the internal reflections, but the worst thing is that blue tinted ray that ruins the shot. Mind you that I did this test without the lens hood, and in fact I can confirm that the hood is very efficient eliminating flare and ghosting. When the sun is just outside the frame there are vestiges of ghosting but there’s no veiling flare at all.
I can judge this lens based on using it with hood or not. Without the hood, flare can easily ruin a shot if you attempt to put it in a corner, and with the hood on the lens is simply superb.

Bokeh

The lens has 9 rounded aperture blades, thus it’s expected to get circular out of focus highlights. I took a defocused picture at the widest aperture of the city lights and got crops of the center, corner and extreme corners. The test was repeated for the subsequent two stops.

24mm

70mm

The bokeh produced with this lens is already quite good at 24mm in the center of the frame even stopping down, although can be a little distracting due to the edges at f/2.8. Another problem is that the corners may reveal some polygonal shapes. This level of performance is already amazing for a zoom lens and incredible for such low focal lengths. Zooming in to 70mm makes perfect out of focus highlights with only a slight amount of nervousness, and once again might produce some polygonization in the corners.
Overall, this is a superb performance for a standard zoom lens and leaves any other current contenders to dust.

Macro/Close-up

The Nikkor was capable to focus as close as 38 centimeters from the sensor plane, or 19 centimeters from the front element, resulting in a maximum magnification ratio of 1:3.7 at 70mm.
I shot an 1 Euro coin and this is what to expect at the minimum focus distance:

24mm

70mm

Summary

Build quality	10	A bulky piece of metal that gives you confidence wherever you are
Handling	9	Except for the weight, it’s a compact lens with all rings in the right place and has lightning fast AF
Resolution	8	Great resolution overall, but its Achilles heal is the wide end
Distortion	7	Noticeable barrel distortion at 24mm and a little pincushion then
Vignetting	8	Strong at f/2.8 at any focal length but well controlled otherwise
Chromatic aberrations	9	Occasionally visible a glimpse in the extreme corners
Coma	9	Some distortion at 24mm and f/2.8, and that’s about it
Flare	5	Use the hood and the score becomes a 10
Bokeh	9	Stunning for a standard zoom lens, even at 24mm versus some primes
Overall	81%	A sharp and reliable standard zoom lens for the professional that just delivers the goods, anywhere and anytime

Samples

Here are some samples of pictures I made with this lens. Settings: native JPEG, picture control set to Landscape mode, no post-processing applied except reducing to 600 pixel width.

24mm, f/8.0, 1/500s, ISO 200

70mm, f/2.8, 1/160s, ISO 200

70mm, f/11, 1/160s, ISO 200

70mm, f/5.6, 1/80s, ISO 400

36mm, f/8.0, 1/400s, ISO 200

35mm, f/11, 1/125s, ISO 200

Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 AI-S : Review

Introduction

This is one of my favourite lenses ever, the Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 AI-S, and here will be tested with the Nikon D700 full-frame DSLR. It’s one of those lenses that may last forever and it’s a joy to shoot with. It has CRC (close-range correction) for great performance shooting at close distances. It’s very compact for a wide lens, I can put it in my jacket’s pocket and use it in a pinch everytime I need to shoot wide.
So let’s start with the size comparison with the D700:

The lens is older than me, it was introduced in 1977 and became a very popular lens then. I had been searching for a nice wide prime to use on the D700 and this was a blessing. It is relatively cheap in the used market today, but some stores are still selling them brand new for more than 500€. The AF-D version has the same optical formula and sells for about 430€, but it’s plastic.
This prime lens has 9 elements in 9 groups, with a floating element for CRC. The AF-D version has the same optical construction, but it’s may not be easy to find a good copy – opinions from other users with this AF-D version are everywhere from stellar to unusable. This lens is a masterpiece of construction like the other Nikkors back in the old days, when everything was metal with engraved markings for aperture and focus distance.
Used lens prices are everywhere in the range of 180€ to 400€, and that shows how well this lens keeps its value over the years. This is an eternal lens, as long as it’s free from fungus and doesn’t fall of a cliff, of course.

Technical Specifications

Focal length	24mm
Maximum aperture	f/2.8
Minimum aperture	f/22
Field of view	84 degrees (on FX)
Weight	250g
Dimensions	46 x 60mm (48 x 60mm at minimum focus distance)
Optical construction	9 elements in 9 groups
Aperture blades	7, straight
Filter diameter	52mm
Minimum focus distance	29cm (20cm from the front element)
Hood	HN-1, optional
Mount	AI-S, no CPU

Mechanical Characteristics

Zoom ring	n/a
Focus ring	Metal with rubber finish, with infinity stop
Focus throw	85 degrees
Focus motor	No
Optical stabilizer	No
Front element rotation while zooming	n/a
Front element rotation while focusing	No
Internal focusing	No
Lens extension while focusing	Yes, 2mm
Lens extension while zooming	n/a
Maximum magnification	1:8.8

Handling

The lens is dwarfed by the D700, but with a weight of 250g the lens is much heavier than it looks, but that’s the result of using metal everywhere in its construction. Handling the lens is a breeze – the focus ring is very large and buttery smooth (it still is, for a lens with this age), and it’s a joy to use. I don’t mind using manual focus with wide lenses since focusing is so easy with them, and with the help of the D700’s viewfinder it’s even easier. The focus ring is finished with a very rough rubber that feels so great on my fingers, and with a throw of 85 degrees there’s a lot of room for precise focus. A great thing this lens has, is that there’s a hard stop at infinity; when I shoot astrophotography I just turn the focus ring around to this hard stop and that’s it, perfect focus on the stars!
The front element doesn’t rotate while focusing, so using polarizers is no problem.
As a non-CPU lens, one has to configure the lens on the D700 as “non-CPU” so it could read whatever aperture value is choosen. The aperture is selected using the aperture ring on the lens instead of in-camera, and it doesn’t allow to select half-stops or thirds-stops. These are not issues in practice, but the aperture value must be checked from time to time since the aperture ring is not lockable.

Resolution

For the resolution test I shot the 5 Euro bill as usual. Focus was achieved using Live View to avoid auto-focus imprecisions and to compensate for possible field curvature issues.
The first column shows a crop of the image center, the corner crop is on the second column (the expected DX border) and the third column shows a crop of the extreme FX corner. Each row represents an aperture setting, from maximum to f/22 in full stops. Here are the results:

The center resolution is already on its maximum value, which I honestly wasn’t expecting from such old design, and only drops a little bit at f/16 due to diffraction and more so at f/22. As expected, the corner resolution is much softer overall at f/2.8, but DX shooters would probably be happy here (look at the second column); FX users will get much worse corners, though. By f/4 the center resolution seems to improve a bit, but what’s happened here is that at f/4 there’s more light transmission to the sensor, which does make seem that images are a little sharper, but they’re only clearer. Here, the corners improved a lot, which will please DX users, and the FX corners were greatly improved as well.
From f/5.6 to f/11 the lens deliverz stunning sharp images both at the center and corners. The sweet spot for FX is from f/8 to f/11, the values I typically choose for landscape shots.
Overall, this is very high performance for such old wide angle lens, the results are very pleasing and this makes me understand why the lens was so popular back in the days. And today it still rocks.

Distortion

Here is the brick wall shot:

The lens has a high level of barrel distortion, and FX users will also have to deal with mustache, giving a wavy shape to horizontal lines, and not only on the top and bottom of the frame, as you can see in sample 5 at the bottom of the page. The barrel distortion is also quite visible in real world shots on vertical lines – just watch the vertical columns on sample 3.
In conclusion, the lens should be used with caution in architecture photography, especially regarding horizontal lines. For landscapes I usually don’t worry about it, but I always pay attention to the horizon line in seascapes.

Vignetting

In this test, I shot a white wall at home using tungsten white balance and set exposure manually:

Vignetting is very strong at f/2.8, that’s why the resolution test was a bit darker at this setting even in the center. At f/4 there’s still considerable vignetting, but it isn’t noticeable stopping down once more. With this lens I’d only worry about vignetting at f/2.8, but personally I rarely use that setting – only for closeups, and vignetting usually gives a nice touch.

Chromatic aberrations

For this test I shot a car from above on a bright sunny day early in the afternoon:

I am amazed at how great this lens is controlling CAs. Even at f/2.8 I could not see any traces of fringing whatever tests I did. It’s perfect.

Coma

Coma was tested using a LED source, at home in a dark room.
I put the light source at the center (first column), corner and extreme corner of the frame (second and third columns, respectively), at maximum aperture and stopped down.

In this matter, the lens disappoints. That’s typical for old designs, and still is for the majority of wide angle lenses, and unfortunately this distortion is very noticeable in astrophotography. Forget it if you were considering this lens for that application and you’re a pixel-peeper. I’ve been using it for that purpose and I try to abstract myself from viewing the borders at 100%.

Flare

I shot a building in construction with the sun sneaking from a window, to see if I could see any flare traces. I started to shoot directly against the sun, then placed the sun at the corner and finally made some shots with the sun just outside the frame.

Shot directly against the sun.

Shot with the sun placed at one corner of the frame.

Shot with the sun just outside the frame.

The lens has a good resistance to flare and ghosting which keeps contrast intact. The problem is that if the sun is in the frame or in the proximity, the internal reflections of light will be easily visible in the pictures, as tiny as those reflections may be. It can be annoying; there were times I thought that the sun was already at a safe distance from the frame, and the lens still catched a small group of reflections. That can be easily solved in post-processing if those reflections are over a homogen background, but may be distracting and impossible to eliminate in textures. Just take a look at the last test image – these are the reflections I’m talking about (look at the second window hole at the left).
In conclusion, it is necessary to frame at a safe distance from the sun, and I advise to get the optional HN-1 or use another device to block reflections definitely.

Bokeh

This is a wide focal lens with 7 straight blades, thus bokeh has to be the last thing you think about when buying this lens.
I took a defocused picture at the widest aperture of the city lights and got crops of the center, corner and extreme corners. The test was repeated for the subsequent two stops.

The lens produces a fairly acceptable bokeh after all at f/2.8, although it has onion artifacts and accentuated edges. In real world shots they’re not very distracting, though. Stopping down soon reveals polygonal shapes as a result of a small number of aperture blades of straight type. That’s in line with every ordinary wide angle lenses. For good bokeh there are better choices such as the 24mm f/1.4 options (Samyang comes to mind).

Macro/Close-up

Although the lens is an old design, it has CRC which allows it to focus as close as 20 centimeters from the front element, resulting in a maximum magnification ratio of 1:8.8. It’s not bad, but I’ve seen much better from other wide angle lenses – the Voigländer Color-Skopar 20mm f/3.5 SL II Aspherical, which I also tested, is just one example, but it’s a modern design and a very different one.
I shot an 1 Euro coin and this is what to expect at the minimum focus distance:

Summary

Build quality	10	All-metal and very professional, there’s nothing to complain about
Handling	8	Fantastic manual focus lens with very rough focus ring, the only downside is having to select aperture on the lens in full stops
Resolution	9	Superb resolution for a wide angle lens, only soft in the corners wide-open and a little at f/4
Distortion	5	Complex barrel and mustache distortion, not suitable for architecture
Vignetting	8	Very strong wide-open, but not noticeable afterwards
Chromatic aberrations	10	This lens reaches perfection here, as did the Voigtländer
Coma	5	Poor, very noticeable in the borders in astrophotography
Flare	8	Doesn’t suffer much and contrast is always on top, but easy to catch a few tiny reflections of light if you’re not careful
Bokeh	4	Acceptable wide-open, but that’s about it
Overall	74%	A very sharp wide angle prime lens that is very small and very tough, still one of the best ever that money can buy

Samples

Here are some samples of pictures I made with this lens. Settings: native JPEG, picture control set to Landscape mode, no post-processing applied except reducing to 600 pixel width.

24mm, f/2.8, 1/2500s, ISO 200

24mm, f/8.0, 1/250s, ISO 200

24mm, f/4.0, 1/320s, ISO 200

24mm, f/11, 1/200s, ISO 200

24mm, f/8.0, 1/250s, ISO 200

24mm, f/4.0, 1/1000s, ISO 200

Nikkor AF-S 50mm f/1.8 G : Review

Introduction

This time I’m bringing to you my review of the Nikkor AF 50mm f/1.8 G lens for the Nikon mount, tested with the Nikon D700 full-frame DSLR. A 50mm lens is always a useful lens on full-frame for many purposes, from candid shots in low light to street photography, closeups and portraits. It is also a popular choice for the novice DX shooter as a first buy, since normal primes are usually cheap, not only for portraiture but also to get something more from their photos than those taken with the kit lenses.
The old 50mm f/1.8 D was a very good lens, and very cheap, but users with entry-level DSLRs could not auto-focus with this lens, meaning that this update was overdue.
After having enjoyed shooting for a couple years with the Nikkor AF-S 35mm f/1.8 G when I had a DX camera, I expected at least the same performance from this new 50mm on FX. This review will show what this lens is capable of in its native format.
For starters, see how the lens looks with a D700:

The lens was introduced in 2011 as a long overdue update for users with entry-level cameras that don’t have an AF drive, giving these users a much cheaper alternative to the f/1.4 G version. It was also about time to finally put an AF-S motor in the lens, since the entire lens lineup had been updated since many years ago. This normal prime lens includes 7 elements in 6 groups, of which one is of aspherical type to take care of optical distortions. It’s an all-plastic lens, including the filter thread, except the mount which is metal, but the plastic has a good quality and is rugged like the other G lenses. Being a G lens means that it doesn’t have an aperture ring anymore.
Having a street price of about 199€, it costs, looks and feels as the 35mm f/1.8 G, which for me it was a very good lens.

Technical Specifications

Focal length	50mm
Maximum aperture	f/1.8
Minimum aperture	f/16
Field of view	47 degrees (on FX)
Weight	185g
Dimensions	54 x 70mm
Optical construction	7 elements in 6 groups (1 aspherical element)
Aperture blades	7, rounded
Filter diameter	58mm
Minimal focus distance	91cm (37cm from the front element)
Hood	HB-47, rounded
Mount	Nikon F

Mechanical Characteristics

Zoom ring	n/a
Focus ring	Plastic with rubber finish, no infinity stop
Focus throw	110 degrees
Focus motor	Yes
Optical stabilizer	No
Front element rotation while zooming	n/a
Front element rotation while focusing	No
Internal focusing	Yes
Lens extension while focusing	No
Lens extension while zooming	n/a
Maximum magnification	1:6.5

Handling

The Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 G lens is larger than the previous D version due to the inclusion of an AF motor, although it’s only 30 grams heavier, but looks big on a D3100. It balances and handles nicely on any camera, though, fitting everyone’s hands better than the D version.
The Nikkor is all-plastic made, but the mount is metal. The focus ring is plastic with a rubber finish for more grip but it’s not damped, it’s not smooth and feels like it’s not continuous, but instead feels like there are many tiny bumps while turning it. It doesn’t have an hard infinity stop, therefore one has to focus manually using Live View if we’re taking the lens out for astrophotography. Contrary to other motorized lenses, the focus ring stops turning around a little past infinity, while in those other lenses the focus ring never stops turning around. Thus, the focus ring must not be forced beyond infinity or below minimum focus distance, with the risk of breaking the AF mechanism. Fortunately, I rarely use the focus ring – only in Live View in the dark. The M/A-M switch on the lens means that at the M/A setting the lens allows manual focus override, which can be very useful at times, especially when working with large apertures, to make sure than the lens is focused on the exact spot we want. The throw of about 110 degrees is good for manual focusing.
The front element doesn’t rotate while focusing, so using polarizers is fine.
Speaking about focus speed, the lens focuses fast even in low light and never hesitates. The SWM motor is silent but it’s not amongst the best AF-S motors, there are much faster versions and more silent than this one. It has a problem, though: although the lens seems to focus faster than the f/1.4 G version, the f/1.8 G misses the target like once in every 10 shots when I use apertures greater than f/2.8. And I’m talking about long distance shots. This problem happens even at noon with contrasty subjects. When I use smaller apertures I don’t get any problems. My older trusty 50mm f/1.8 D always focused fast and with precision, but noisier of course. I just played with the f/1.4 G lens for several minutes and don’t know if the misfocusing issue was there too, but the few pictures I took with it were all in focus.
I use the lens mainly on the streets, it’s a snappy shooter and my only complain is the occasional misfocus.

Resolution

For the resolution test I shot the 5 Euro bill as usual. Focus was achieved using Live View to avoid auto-focus imprecisions and to compensate for possible field curvature issues.
The first column shows a crop of the image center, the corner crop is on the second column (the expected DX border) and the third column shows a crop of the extreme FX corner. Each row represents an aperture setting, from maximum to f/16 in full stops. Here are the results:

The center resolution is already great right from the maximum aperture and only drops a little at f/16 due to diffraction. From f/1.8 to f/2, the corner and border resolution is too soft, but there is a tremendous jump in edge-to-edge quality when closing the aperture to f/2.8. By f/4 the resolution is almost on its maximum, which happens at f/5.6, and then it stays on a top level until f/16, where it drops again due to diffraction. Overall, for corner-to-corner sharpness f/2.8 can be used without any problems. This performance is pretty much in line with the Nikkor AF-S 35mm f/1.8 G that I happily owned in the past. Regarding resolution, it’s like one stop better than the previous D version. The sharpness I get with the G lens at f/2.8 is about the same I had at f/4 with the D.

Distortion

Here is the brick wall shot:

There is a small amount of barrel distortion, but less than I got with the 35mm f/1.8 G. Fortunately this small distortion has a simple characteristic and can be easily corrected in post-processing. Of course, I always expect 50mm lenses to have no distortion and this may be worrying for some. In this regard, the 50mm f/1.8 D was perfect.

Vignetting

In this test, I shot a white wall at home using tungsten white balance and set exposure manually:

Vignetting is very strong from f/1.8 to f/2 but is hardly visible by f/2.8. Using the lens wide-open will bring vignetting but the effect might be desireable after all. It can be corrected in post-processing without much effort.

Chromatic aberrations

For this test I shot a car from above on a bright sunny day early in the afternoon:

There is some blue fringing at the edges of the windows until f/2, but only a couple pixels wide. In real shooting I never worry about this, even if I’m shooting metallic objects in bright light. If the reader had played with the 35mm f/1.8 G before, I can tell you that this 50mm is worlds better. This is top performance from any lens. I can’t compare it to the 50mm f/1.8 D because I don’t remember shooting with it wide-open, as it was too soft.

Coma

Coma was tested using a LED source, at home in a dark room.
I put the light source at the center (first column), corner and extreme corner of the frame (second and third columns, respectively), at maximum aperture and stopped down.

The lens has some coma, but it isn’t worrying. I use this lens on astrophotography shots and coma is hardly noticeable. I rate the lens as simply OK regarding coma.

Flare

I shot a building in construction with the sun sneaking from a window, to see if I could see any flare traces. I started to shoot directly against the sun, then placed the sun at the corner and finally made some shots with the sun just outside the frame.

Shot directly against the sun.

Shot with the sun placed at one corner of the frame.

Shot with the sun just outside the frame.

The lens has a good resistance to flare and ghosting, keeping contrast on a high level. The worst case is when the sun is placed at one corner, where multiple reflections of light might be seen towards the other. Shooting against the sun doesn’t produce halos and don’t degrade contrast. When placing the sun just outside the frame is always a good idea to use the supplied lens hood; in this case, the flare visible on the example could easily be avoided with the hood.
In conclusion, this is a good performance which was expected for a normal prime lens.

Bokeh

The lens has 7 blades, which means that it’s almost impossible to render perfect circles. They’re rounded, so it can’t be worse than the awful bokeh that the 50mm f/1.8 D renders.
I took a defocused picture at the widest aperture of the city lights and got crops of the center, corner and extreme corners. The test was repeated for the subsequent two stops.

The lens produces a surprisingly pleasing bokeh, with out of focus highlights that are smooth on the inside and nice edges that hardly can be called distracting. The only downsides are the fact that there are only 7 blades, and the cats-eye distortion on the corners of the frame due to vignetting. This is a quantum leap compared to the bokeh of the 50mm f/1.8 D!

Macro/Close-up

The Nikkor was able to focus as close as 37 centimeters from the front element, resulting in a maximum magnification ratio of only 1:6.5. It’s exactly the same minimum distance as I had when I used the previous D version lens.
I shot an 1 Euro coin and this is what to expect at the minimum focus distance:

Summary

Build quality	5	Almost entirely plastic-made but doesn’t feel too cheap
Handling	6	Fast lens that feels nice in your hand, may misfocus for no reason, manual focusing should be much better
Resolution	9	Amazing resolution, although soft in the corners wide-open
Distortion	7	Unexpected barrel distortion for a 50mm lens, but manageable
Vignetting	8	Strong wide-open, but almost disappears stopped down
Chromatic aberrations	9	Almost invisible in most conditions
Coma	8	Far from perfect, but not problematic in practice
Flare	6	Keeps good contrast, and the hood can help in some situations
Bokeh	7	Always very smooth without accentuated edges, but gets polygonal stopped down
Overall	74%	A very sharp prime lens with nice handling and a welcome update for novice users

Samples

Here are some samples of pictures I made with this lens. Settings: native JPEG, picture control set to Landscape mode, no post-processing applied except reducing to 600 pixel width.

50mm, f/1.8, 1/4000s, ISO 200

50mm, f/5.6, 1/640s, ISO 200

50mm, f/4.0, 1/1250s, ISO 200

50mm, f/5.6, 1/200s, ISO 200

50mm, f/2.0, 1/2500s, ISO 200

50mm, f/1.8, 1/4000s, ISO 200

Nikkor AF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 D : Review

Introduction

Here is my review of the Nikkor AF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 D zoom lens for the Nikon mount, tested with the Nikon D700 full-frame DSLR. This is a practical zoom lens for walking around that has a useful wide to mid telephoto coverage, which is great for street shooting, from wide scenes to portraits.
Take a look at how the lens combines with the D700:

This lens was introduced in 1999 and was sold as a kit lens or as upgrade to the kit lens supplied with the Nikon F100. The lens includes 16 elements in 12 groups, one of those elements being of aspherical type to reduce optical distortions. It’s an all-plastic made lens, at least on the outside (including the filter thread), except for the mount which is metal, but the plastic is high quality although is not rugged as the newer G lenses, being very smooth (too much) instead. The lens features an aperture ring with a lock at the f/22 position, making it compatible with the older manual SLRs.
It can be found today in the used market as a bargain; the prices range from about 90€ to 175€. I got mine as a temporary solution when I got into FX while I was waiting for other cheap lightweight options, and since then I’m having trouble finding a better affordable alternative. It has been worth every penny and much more! I’m looking forward to see how the upcoming Nikkor AF-S 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 G does and how much it costs, because maybe this could be a good replacement.

Technical Specifications

Focal length	28 – 105mm
Maximum aperture	f/3.5 – f/4.5
Minimum aperture	f/22 – f/29
Field of view	74 – 23 degrees (on FX)
Weight	455g
Dimensions	84 x 72mm (120 x 72mm extended)
Optical construction	16 elements in 12 groups (1 aspherical element)
Aperture blades	9
Filter diameter	62mm
Minimal focus distance	124.5cm (4.5cm from the front element)
Hood	HB-18, rounded and very enlarged up front
Mount	Nikon F

Mechanical Characteristics

Zoom ring	Plastic with rubber finish
Focus ring	Plastic with rubber finish, with infinity stop
Focus throw	30 degrees (with focus limiter), 74 degress (without)
Focus motor	No
Optical stabilizer	No
Front element rotation while zooming	Yes, 185 degrees
Front element rotation while focusing	No
Internal focusing	Yes
Lens extension while focusing	No
Lens extension while zooming	Yes, up to 37mm
Maximum magnification	1:2, at 105mm

Handling

The Nikkor is a small and lightweight lens for FX standards, particularly when compared with modern G lenses with internal focus motor, like the Nikkor AF-S 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6 G zoom lens. The lens looks nice, except when the ugly hood is attached – it’s an absurdly huge hood, rounded and very enlarged up front, like a funnel. I never use the hood, but if I needed one I’d look for other third-party alternatives.
Using the lens may be disappointing at times, especially when trying to frame the subject with precision. The Nikkor is all-plastic made at least on the outside, including the filter thread (except the mount which is metal), and both the zoom and focus rings have a rubber finish for enhanced grip. The problem is that the zoom ring isn’t damped, in fact it’s the worst zoom lens I ever used (I thought the Nikkor AF 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 G was the worst). Zooming is all but smooth and feels like rubbing plastic on plastic, and the ring gets stuck all the time, making precise framing very hard. Also, zooming is very non-linear; the change in magnification seen in the viewfinder doesn’t act linearly as the zoom ring is turned around. To make things even worse, the front element rotates a lot while zooming, being an absolute nightmare when shooting with a polarizer.
On the other hand, the focus ring is much smoother and never gets stuck, but it’s pretty much useless for manual focusing due to the very short throw. There’s a switch on the lens that limits the minimal focus distance to 0.5 meters, which makes focusing quick (but not lightning quick) on the D700 when the limiter is activated. To turn off the limiter, one has to zoom in at least to 50mm, but once the switch is moved there’s no way back to wider focal lengths, unless the user focuses some object between 0.5 meters and infinity. It’s a bit cumbersome at first but one gets used to it.
The 28-105mm has a very good close focus capability, reaching a maximum magnification ratio of 1:2 at 105mm. Mind you, this feature isn’t perfect though; the center resolution is very good, but the corners never reach the same level because of the huge field curvature at that setting.
So, regarding handling, this lens feels very cheap but it’s not that bad for a walkaround lens. I prefer to use a lightweight lens like this on the streets instead of a 24-120mm f/4 VR, for example. Besides, you may be positively surprised with the image quality if you manage to find a good copy.

Resolution

For the resolution test I shot the 5 Euro bill as usual. Focus was achieved using Live View to avoid auto-focus imprecisions and to compensate for possible field curvature issues.
The first column shows a crop of the image center, the corner crop is on the second column and the third column shows a crop of the extreme corner. Each row represents an aperture setting, from maximum to f/22 in full stops. Here are the results:

28mm

At 28mm the center resolution is already excellent right from f/3.5 and only starts to get worse at f/16 due to diffraction. The corner and border resolution never reach the same level, but is more than acceptable and stays constant until f/22 where resolution drops significantly. The edge-to-edge resolution is good but could be better especially when stopped down, as happens with most lenses, but instead remains constant trough the aperture range.

70mm

By 70mm the resolution in the center remains on an excellent level and corners follow very closely. Only the extreme corner performance is noticeably worse, being a little soft until f/8, but at f/11 there’s a sudden jump in quality. This isn’t very noticeable outside the studio, but if you need excellent resolution in the entire frame then f/11 is the aperture to choose here.

105mm

At 105mm the lens continues to deliver great resolution figures straight from the maximum aperture of f/4.5, and only the extreme corners are visibly softer. The resolution characteristic here is identical to the one at 70mm. Some owners of this lens say that the lens is very good at all focal lengths except at 105mm. Au contraire, my copy is worse at the wider end; for my type of shooting I wish it had better resolution here than at 105mm.
Like I said before, at the macro setting at 105mm, the center resolution is great (like as seen above at 105mm), but the corners are always much worse and don’t improve much, even when closing the diafragm to the minimum of f/29. But it’s nice when your subject fills the center of the frame, anyway.

Regarding resolution, this Nikkor is a solid performer and produces stunning pictures on the D700. It could be a little better at 28mm at the edges, of course, but that’s about it.

Distortion

Here are the brick wall shots:

28mm

70mm

105mm

At the widest focal length, the lens produces a considerable amount of barrel distortion. This can be almost entirely corrected in post-processing, and I say “almost” because even then the pictures still have a residual mustache distortion. It’s not problematic though, unless you need perfectly distortion-free images. At the other focal lengths there’s nothing to complain about because distortion disappears completely.

Vignetting

In this test, I shot a white wall at home using tungsten white balance and set exposure manually:

28mm

At 28mm, vignetting is strong wide-open and down to f/4. By f/5.6 the light losses are average but improve greatly afterwards.

70mm

At 70mm, there is just a bit of vignetting at f/4.5 but vanishes stopping down, resulting in very uniform light distribution across the frame.

105mm

At 105mm, the lens vignettes wide-open down to f/5.6, but from f/8 there aren’t traces of it anymore.

The lens suffers from vignetting more at 28mm, at the f/3.5 and f/4 settings. Nothing that can’t be solved in post-processing, though. At other apertures and focal lengths this isn’t an issue.

Chromatic aberrations

For this test I shot a car from above on a bright sunny day early in the afternoon:

28mm

105mm

As happens with older lenses without special low dispersion elements, there’s a noticeable amount of purple friging in high contrast areas at the maximum aperture at all focal lengths. It’s not visible when looking at the entire image on my monitor, but viewing at 100% may reveal fringing reaching several pixels wide. Stopping down brings the problem to a negligible effect, which may still be noticeable in careful pixel-peeping. Overall it’s still a good performance from any lens.

Coma

Coma was tested using a LED source, at home in a dark room.
I put the light source at the center (first column), corner and extreme corner of the frame (second and third columns, respectively), at maximum aperture and stopped down.

28mm

105mm

The lens suffers from heavy coma, putting it on par with other old lenses, especially at the wider end. Obviously it’s not a good candidate to take out for astrophotography.

Flare

I shot a building in construction with the sun sneaking from a window, to see if I could see any flare vestiges. I started to shoot directly against the sun, then placed the sun at the corner and finally made some shots with the sun just outside the frame.

Shot directly against the sun.

Shot with the sun placed at one corner of the frame.

Shot with the sun just outside the frame.

The lens has a weak resistance to flare and ghosting that interferes on the overall image contrast. When shooting against the sun there’s a huge halo around it that occupies almost the entire image. Placing the sun at one corner reveals the multiple internal reflections, which are very visible in the entire frame towards the opposite corner. Even when the sun is already outside the frame, there’s almost a 100% probability of still having problems. Unfortunately, since the supplied lens hood is so large at the front, it only reduces the problem a bit when the sun is just outside the frame, and that’s another reason I don’t use it at all (besides the ugly look).
In conclusion, this is the worst case I’ve dealed with so far. But since normally people never shoot against the sun or at the proximity, in practice this isn’t an issue.

Bokeh

The lens has 9 aperture blades, thus it’s expected to get circular out of focus highlights. I took a defocused picture at the widest aperture of the city lights and got crops of the center, corner and extreme corners. The test was repeated for the subsequent two stops.

28mm

105mm

The bokeh from this lens is almost perfectly circular in the entire frame, in fact so far it’s the most constant characteristic I’ve seen. There’s only a little distortion in the extreme corners, but there’s no cats-eye distortion or any worse drastic effects. On the down side, the bokeh is never smooth on the inside and the edges are very pronuntiated, especially at the widest focus length.
Overall, the lens has a better than average bokeh characteristic, and produces very nice out of focus renderings in all situations without interfering negatively with the subject.

Macro/Close-up

With the focus limiter activated, the Nikkor was capable to focus as close as 44 centimeters from the sensor plane, or 32 centimeters from the front element, resulting in a maximum magnification ratio of 1:5.2 at 105mm. When the focus limiter is switched off, the focus distance drops down to 16.5 centimeters from the sensor plane or 4.5 centimeters from the front element, to a maximum magnification ratio of 1:2 at 105mm.
I shot an 1 Euro coin and this is what to expect at the minimum focus distance:

28mm

105mm

105mm, focus limiter off

Summary

Build quality	4	Almost entirely plastic-made and feels cheap
Handling	5	An useful zoom lens with decent AF speed and features, but zooming is disappointing in many aspects
Resolution	8	Great resolution overall, but could be improved a little at 28mm
Distortion	8	Noticeable barrel distortion at 28mm, but disappears afterwards
Vignetting	8	A little strong at biggest apertures, but good looking otherwise
Chromatic aberrations	8	Only visible at maximum aperture at all focal lengths while pixel-peeping
Coma	5	A lot of coma especially at 28mm, but always present at other focal lengths
Flare	3	Very weak resistance against flare, and the hood doesn’t help here
Bokeh	7	Circular but very nervous with accentuated edges at 28mm, but improves at 105mm
Overall	67%	A very sharp and handy lens in FX that bears other good optical characteristics, but there’s an equal number of downsides too

A final remark

On a very subjective opinion, the final score doesn’t reflect how great and handy this lens can be on the street if one takes some basic precautions. As long as you shoot with the lens stopped down on sunny days and never shoot against the sun, the lens can produce fantastic images with good color (a bit on the conservative way), good bokeh and relatively low distortion.
Thus, for anyone starting with FX with limited funds, this lens is the one to start with. There are many other alternatives with similar focal range, but the 28-105mm is hard to beat in resolution, regardless of price. In fact, I’ve seen much worse from third-party lenses with constant f/2.8 aperture.
In few words, this is a cheap lens that produces fantastic results, as long as you take the precautions refered above and can live with the many mechanical limitations.

Samples

Here are some samples of pictures I made with this lens. Settings: native JPEG, picture control set to Landscape mode, no post-processing applied except reducing to 600 pixel width.

105mm, f/4.5, 1/160s, ISO 200

105mm, f/4.5, 1/125s, ISO 200

28mm, f/5.6, 1/1000s, ISO 200

38mm, f/8.0, 1/500s, ISO 200

28mm, f/11, 1/320s, ISO 200

90mm, f/8.0, 1/500s, ISO 200

Tamron SP 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di VC USD : Review

Introduction

This is a review of the Tamron SP 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di VC USD telephoto lens for the Nikon mount. The test was once again made using a D700 full-frame DSLR. This is a well-built lens, very solid without any wobbling parts, and competes directly with the Nikkor AF-S 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR lens which has been very successful among amateurs and enthusiasts. Here’s how the D700 combines with the Tamron lens:

This has been a very welcome addition to the market, because the Nikkor had been alone price-wise, and third-party options were not up to the standards. Fortunately, the Tamron is a very viable alternative and it even has some characteristics that surpass its direct rival, as we will see. The Tamron belongs to the SP (Super Performance) line, the same line that has, among others, the highly praised 17-50mm f/2.8 (DX) and 28-75mm f/2.8 (FX) lenses. This 70-300mm is the first Tamron lens having the new USD (Ultrasonic Silent Drive) auto-focus motor for fast and silent focusing, and also the first including their innovative optical stabilizer mechanism, VC (Vibration Compensation). Indeed, the lens is very silent and rather quick focusing, but may hunt at times in areas with low contrast, the same happening in low light situations, otherwise the lens focuses quickly. The lens also has special glass elements, LD (Low Dispersion) and XLD (Extra Low Dispersion), which are employed to take care of chromatic aberrations. One thing that’s always good to have is IF (Internal Focusing) and this lens got it, and because of that the front element never rotates when focusing, therefore using a polarizer is no problem.
At a retail price of €389 right now, at a first sight and looking at the specifications, the lens seems to have a great price/perfomance ratio, but that’s the thing we’ll find out later in this review. On the D300 I had before, this lens was stellar for the price, having very good sharpness corner to corner at every aperture and only with a slight drop at 300mm, being a terrific combination for quick operation speed and optical performance in all focal lengths for users who don’t normally shoot in low light situations.

Technical Specifications

Focal length	70 – 300mm
Maximum aperture	f/4 – f/5.6
Minimum aperture	f/32 – f/45
Field of vision	34 – 8 degrees (on FX)
Weight	765 g
Dimensions	144 x 80mm (194 x 80mm extended)
Optical construction	17 elements in 12 groups (1 LD element, 1 XLD element)
Aperture blades	9
Filter diameter	62mm
Minimal focus distance	144cm (125cm from the front element)
Hood	HA005, petal-shaped
Mount	Nikon F

Mechanical Characteristics

Zoom ring	Plastic with rubber finish
Focus ring	Plastic with rubber finish, no infinity stop
Focus throw	160 degrees
Focus motor	Ultrasonic Silent Drive, allows full-time manual focus override
Optical stabilizer	Vibration Compensation, up to 4 stops capability
Front element rotation while zooming	No
Front element rotation while focusing	No
Internal focusing	Yes
Lens extension while focusing	No
Lens extension while zooming	Yes, up to 51mm

Handling

The Tamron is a big fat lens and even with the D700 is a little front-heavy, but not overly so. Playing with the zoom ring feels like plastic against plastic, but nevertheless it’s not only smooth enough for quick operation, but also acceptable enough for the times when you need precise framing. Some people complain that the zoom ring is a little stuck on their copy, but that might be true when the lens is brand new; I don’t remember mine having a stuck zoom ring. The focus ring feel is similar, but since it’s lighter it’s easier to turn around.
The lens allows full-time manual focusing without the need to turn the lens or camera to manual focus. Common with other built-in auto-focus motor lenses, the focus ring never stops rotating and is capable to focus past infinity. The Tamron focuses as near as 144cm from the focus plane (125cm from the front element) at 300mm, resulting in a maximum magnification ratio of 1:4, which is less magnification than the previous Tamron 70-300mm was capable of (1:2).
The lens has a long petal-shaped hood and the caps are of good quality. The front cap is similar to Nikon’s, allowing you to take it off and put it on without the need to take the hood off. The lens has a metal mount, which is a must-have for such weight, but doesn’t have a tripod collar, so be sure to have the camera well attached to the tripod socket when using the combo for long exposures.

Resolution

For the resolution test I shot the 5 Euro bill in the studio. Focus whas achieved using Live View to avoid auto-focus imprecisions and to compensate for an hypothetical field curvature.
The first column shows a crop of the image center, the corner crop is on the second column and the third column shows a crop of the extreme corner. Each row represents an aperture setting, from maximum to f/22 in full stops. Here are the results:

70mm

At 70mm the center resolution is already excellent right from f/4 and only deteriorates at f/22 due to diffraction. The corner resolution is on a very good level until f/11 and drops noticeably at f/16. The borders are on a much lower level; by f/4 the sharpness is only acceptable and improves slightly at f/5.6, but reaches a good level from f/8 to f/11 before dropping again at smaller apertures. All in all, a very good performance at this focal length (not that, from now on, if you’re considering using this lens on DX, use the first and second columns only as reference, since the second column shows crops of the same area as the extreme corners on DX).
Moving on to other focus lengths now…

100mm

At 100mm the resolution at the center and corners is excellent already wide-open and only drops by f/22. The extreme corners are good wide-open at reach very good figures by f/5.6 and the resolution drops a bit at f/16. From 100mm to 135mm seems to be the lens’ sweet spot.

200mm

At 200mm the center resolution is always on an excellent level but the corners start to show some limitations. Wide-open and until f/8 the resolution figures are only on an acceptable level and the extreme corners follow closely. At f/11 there’s a sudden increase in quality in the entire frame and that continues at f/16. By f/22 the resolution drops a little but not by much as in previous focal lengths.

300mm

At 300mm, resolution drops noticeably in the entire frame but remains good to very good at the center. On the downside, the corners are never on the same level, and for good edge-to-edge sharpness one has to stop down to f/16 or even f/22. This is not noticeable in the real world, trust me, because at 300mm you tend to put the subject at the center anyway.

Overall, the Tamron shows a strong performance, producing sharp and contrasty images at all focal lengths, and its strongest selling point is the resolution and contrast at 300mm. This is much better than the Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO Macro I had before and better than its direct rival, the Nikkor AF-S 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G ED VR I had played with.

The only thing that changed my opinion about the Tamron now, compared to the performance delivered with my previous D300, is the noticeable variation in exposure. It is very visible, at all focal lengths, that the lens underexposes a lot at the maximum aperture and less so stopped down, exposes well at f/8 and overexposes at f/11, before underexposing again by f/16. The weird thing is that it wasn’t noticeable at all with the D300, when only I had some minor overexposures in bright sunny days which were corrected simply dialing to -0.3 or -0.7 EV, independently of the aperture I was using. Now I can’t say that my lens doesn’t underexpose or overexposes, but instead a combination of the two that is dependent on the aperture. I can’t really say if this is because of heavy vignetting, but if so it affects the entire pictures and not only the borders, but also there’s a bit of overexposure at f/11 that is visible in the camera histogram. This will be more visibly explained below in the vignetting test.

Distortion

For the distortion test I shot a brick wall, again:

70mm

135mm

300mm

The lens distortion is practically absent at 70mm but starts producing a certain amount of pincushion at 135mm which stays constant until 300mm. On the field this is practically invisible and can be easily corrected in post-processing if needed.

Vignetting

In this test I shot a white wall at home using tungsten white balance and setting exposure manually. The exposures were judged by the camera histogram and are considered to be spot on when it’s centered.

70mm

At 70mm, vignetting is strong wide-open and less so at f/5.6, before improving considerably at f/8. At smaller apertures it disappears completely.

135mm

At 135mm, the same behaviour happens exactly as before.

300mm

At 300mm, only the widest aperture is affected by vignetting but in a very strong way. At other apertures there isn’t any noticeable light losses towards the edges.
As said above, the lens is affected by exposure differences that affect the entire image, as opposed by vignetting which only affects the borders of an image by any degree. I also could not find an explanation for the overexposure seen at f/11 from 70mm to 135mm. This is the first time I had a problem like this one and I’m not sure if the problem is related to this particular copy or any other sample. There are many people who complained about their copy producing under- or overexposed pictures, but mine gives exposures that were unpredictable at first, but can be corrected dialing exposure compensation accordingly depending on the aperture used. This phenomenon is more visible in Matrix metering mode and less so in Center-Weighted mode. I found no differences between aperture and shutter priority, or manual exposure modes. I will try to repeat the test if I have the chance of getting another copy.

Chromatic aberrations

For this test I shot a car roof from above, on a very sunny day early in the afternoon.

70mm

300mm

The Tamron employs low dispersion glass elements to reduce chromatic aberrations and it’s clearly visible that the lens performs as advertised. Aberrations are negligible at almost every aperture, except at its maximum where minor vestiges can be found on extremely high contrast situations, but only at the widest focal length. That’s a very good performance for a lens in this price point.

Coma

Coma is an important requirement in astrophotography and usually affects the corners of most lenses. Lenses that are affected by coma produce comas (hence the name) instead of bright light points in dark backgrounds. One way to test coma is using a LED source of light at home in a dark room.
I put the light source at the center (first column), corner and extreme corner of the frame (second and third columns, respectively), at maximum aperture and stopped down.

70mm

300mm

The lens isn’t much affected by coma and the only distortions visible are in the halos around the center, where they stretch the more the points are closed to the borders, but the points themselves remain perfectly circular. This is not uncommon for lenses with such moderate maximum apertures.

Flare

I shot a building in construction in front of me, with the sun sneaking from a window, to see if I could see any flare vestiges. I started to shoot directly against the sun, then placed the sun at the corner and finally made some shots with the sun just outside the frame.

Shot directly against the sun.

Shot with the sun placed at one corner of the frame.

Shot with the sun just outside the frame.

The images are not much affected in all situations, which shows that the lens has good resistance to flare keeping contrast on a high level. The worst case is when the sun is placed at one corner, where the multiple internal reflections of light may be noticeable in the opposite corner.

Bokeh

Thanks to the 9 aperture blades, we can expect circular out of focus highlights from this lens. I took a defocused picture at the widest aperture of the city lights and got crops of the center, corner and extreme corners. The test was repeated for the subsequent two stops.

70mm

300mm

The bokeh from this lens is perfectly circular at the center and suffers from the cats eye distortion due to vignetting in the corners and more so in the extremes. The out of focus highlights are rather nervous on the inside at 70mm but get perfectly smooth at 300mm, and the edges aren’t much accentuated, resulting in smooth transitions and backgrounds that are soft and not distracting at the longest focal length. All in all, the lens has good bokeh characteristics which are amongst the best in its class, especially when we take the moderate apertures involved into account.

Macro/Close-up

The Tamron was capable to focus as close as 144 centimeters from the sensor plane, which means 125 centimeters from the front element, resulting in a maximum magnification raio of only 1:4 at 300mm. I shot an 1 Euro coin and this is what to expect at the minimum focus distance:

70mm

300mm

Image stabilization

This lens introduced Tamron’s new image stabilization technology, VC (Vibration Compensation), to compensate for unwanted small movements, and it’s advertised as giving an advantage of 4 stops. This means that at 300mm, one can shoot with speeds as slow as 1/20 seconds.
To test it, I shot the back of a street lamp from my window. The first column shows crops of the subject shot with VC off, and the second column shows them with VC on for comparison. Here are the results at 300mm:

It shows to me clearly that the VC works as advertised, resulting in sharp images at 1/20 seconds. Of course, one has to build some technique to hold the camera and lens steady, so that the benefits of this technology can be applied. The image taken at 1/20 is a little softer but due to diffraction (an aperture of f/32 was used).
Contrary to Nikon’s VR mechanism where 2 axis (up and down) are used, VC used 3 axis: up, down and yaw (up-left, down-right) to compensate for diagonal shakes. One more difference to VR is that VC appears to work with full power right from the moment you press the shutter button halfway, and stays there moments after the picture is taken. VR works with less power and only commutes to full power when you press the shutter button down to take the picture. This is the reason why the images in the viewfinder are almost static with VC, when compared to what is visible with VR. This doesn’t mean that VR is much worse, because it’s not, but I found VC to give me more keepers. And it works as advertised, which is amazing.

Summary

Build quality	7	Mostly high quality plastic but all parts are tight together
Handling	7	Nice feel overall with silent and fast AF in most situations, the zoom ring could be damped for smoother operation
Resolution	7	Very good center sharpness, good corners and acceptable extreme corners in most apertures, amongst the best in class
Distortion	9	A little pincushion distortion but not noticeable in everyday shots
Vignetting	8	Strong at biggest apertures, negligible afterwards (not considering the variations in exposure)
Chromatic aberrations	9	Rarely visible, if any only at 70mm at the widest apertures
Coma	9	Not perfect, but the lens almost doesn’t have issues here
Flare	8	May produce some flare in harsh conditions, but contrast stays always on a high level
Bokeh	7	Circular but very nervous with accentuated edges at 70mm, but gets pleasantly smooth at 300mm
Overall	79%	Very good lens on DX and FX, a valuable lens if you need stabilization and can’t afford any of the 70-200mm offerings

Samples

Here are some samples of pictures I made with this lens. Settings: native JPEG, picture control set to Landscape mode, no post-processing applied except reducing to 600 pixel width.

300mm, f/5.6, 1/125s, ISO 200

300mm, f/11, 1/160s, ISO 200

70mm, f/4.0, 1/1600s, ISO 200

70mm, f/4.0, 1/2000s, ISO 200, -0.7 EV

270mm, f/5.6, 1/1250s, ISO 200

70mm, f/11, 1/320s, ISO 200

100mm, f/4.2, 1/1250s, ISO 200

Voigtländer Color-Skopar 20mm f/3.5 SL II Aspherical : Review

Introduction

I present you my first review, of the Voigtländer Color-Skopar 20mm f/3.5 SL II Aspherical lens for the Nikon mount. The test was made on a D700 full-frame DSLR. The lens has a very compact design, which is commonly referred as “pancake”, and if you’re like me you’ll appreciate the size and weight of this lens, making a relatively lightweight kit with the D700 for walking around the streets. Watch the funny combo below:

Its retail price of €449 seems fair for a pancake lens. Having a maximum aperture of only f/3.5 it’s not the fastest prime lens out there, but this aperture limitation is common for such design. In fact, there are not many pancake lenses as cheap as this one, and particularly on Nikon land these pancake lenses are a rarity. The lens includes an aspherical element to reduce aberrations and distortions. As a manual focus lens, it can be a bit limiting for you depending on your shooting style, but that’s also true for every manual focus lens such as Nikkor AI or Zeiss ZF lenses. The fact that the lens has a wide focal length eases this limitation a bit, being very easy to focus anywhere you want.
I didn’t write a review of this lens when I had my previous D300, but from the tests I did and all the real world shootings I made, I found this lens to be a very good performer on DX stopped down. I even went on a trip to Holland only with this lens and didn’t need anything else on the streets. On DX, the focal length is just perfect and it was very handy for taking pictures of churches and other tall buildings, street scenes and urban landscapes. This time I’m showing you the results of a much more demanding test (on FX), so let’s find out if the Voigtländer is worth your consideration if you’re searching for a wide angle lens.

Technical Specifications

Focal length	20 mm
Biggest aperture	f/3.5
Smallest aperture	f/22
Field of vision	94 degrees (on FX)
Weight	205 g
Dimensions	29 x 63 mm
Optical construction	9 elements in 6 groups, 1 aspherical element
Aperture blades	9
Filter diameter	52 mm
Minimal focus distance	20 cm
Hood	LH-20N (optional)
Mount	AI-S, CPU integrated

Mechanical Characteristics

Zoom ring	n/a
Focus ring	All-metal with rubber finish, no infinity stop
Focus throw	170 degrees
Focus motor	n/a
Optical stabilizer	n/a
Front element rotation while zooming	n/a
Front element rotation while focusing	No
Lens extension while zooming	n/a
Lens extension while focusing	Yes, 3 mm
Internal focusing	No

Handling

The Voigtländer is a very compact lens as you can see above in the pictures, and being all-metal it’s very well built and surprisingly heavy for such size. Being a manual focus lens, probably the most important aspect is how the focus ring feels on your fingers, and it does indeed feel great. The focus ring is perfectly damped and focusing is very smooth. I had been shooting with some manual focus lenses (AI-S and Samyang) but focusing with this lens feels even better than those. It feels smooth and has a long throw of about 170 degrees for precise focusing. This is mostly useful in near distance, of course, because from about 10 meters to infinity there’s almost no need to move the focus ring again. Beware, though, that the lens is capable to focus past infinity which isn’t good news for astrophotographers. Fortunately most cameras today have Live View, which is of precious help if you want precise infinity focus. The focus ring has a rubber finish for a perfect grip.
The less positive things about this lens is that it doesn’t have a lock on the aperture ring, therefore watch out and keep the aperture ring on f/22, otherwise you’ll get a fEE error on your LCD display. Because the lens is so tiny and there’s almost no space between the focus and aperture rings, attaching and dettaching the lens from the camera can be a bit difficult, but with a firm grip on both focus and aperture ring, along with the fixed 3mm spacer in between, it can be done but be warned that the lens gets almost glued to the camera.
Anyway, my only thumbs down goes to the front cap which gets off so easily with just a small touch. There were many times that I had my camera and lens on my shoulder pack and the cap was off. Just throw it out and get a Nikon one.

Resolution

For the resolution test I shot a near distance object and a far away building to find out if there were any visible differences in image quality. I focused using Live View and focused again using this method when moving the target to the corners. Turns out that the lens performs very similarly and all distances, regarding resolution and vignetting, therefore I’m not showing the far distance results this time.
The first column shows a crop of the image center, the corner crop is on the second column and the third column shows a crop of the extreme corner. Each row represents an aperture setting, from maximum to minimum in full stops. For the near distance test I used a 5 Euro bill as target. Here are the results:

You can see that the center resolution is already very high and the images have very good color and contrast. This is always true until f/16, from which diffraction starts making effect. The corner resolution is very weak at f/3.5 and gets acceptable only by f/8, where I mainly use the lens on landscape photography (or f/11 for that matter if there’s enough light). The extreme corners are dismal – this is the effect of putting a pancake lens on a full-frame camera – resolution practically doesn’t exist wide open, and coupled with heavy vignetting this makes an awful combination for available light photography. The extreme corners get much better only by f/16.
If you want corner-to-corner sharpness this lens has to be stopped down to f/16 at least, or f/11 if you can tolerate some mushy corners. Depending on your subject even f/8 can be used, as long as the corners don’t have fine details.
In conclusion, this is a lens to be used on sunny days or with the help of your tripod. This is a huge disappointment to me because the lens is great on DX!

Distortion

For the distortion test I shot a brick wall, of course:

The lens distortion is well controlled. Vertical lines are always straight and there’s no signs of barrel distortion, which is great for taking pictures of buildings. The problem resides on horizontal lines, and this mustache distortion can be very noticeable if the target has many horizontal lines. This type of distortion is very difficult to correct in post-processing, so it is best to avoid placing horizontal lines on the top or the bottom of the frame, where distortion is mostly visible.
As an example, here’s a “real world” photo of an interior. You can see that vertical lines remain straight as long as you hold the camera parallel to the ground. Because there weren’t any horizontal lines due to the framing angle I used, this shot seems perfectly balanced:

Vignetting

In this test I shot a white wall at home using manual white balance.

As detected previously on the resolution test, vignetting is very heavy wide open and things start to get even only by f/8. Notice that this is mostly visible on shots of white walls like this. As a matter of fact I can make a nice use of the vignetting wide open on shots of flowers and other small stuff like that. Fortunately most or all vignetting can be removed in post-processing.

Chromatic aberrations

It was a clear bright sunny day with the sunlight reflecting on my brother’s car and I searched for a spot where to make the shots. I shot the FIAT logo at all apertures because it was so shiny:

The use of an aspherical element is an important feature on any lens, and it’s pretty clear that Cosina made an excellent job to maintain the CA levels negligible. From all the shots I made with this lens there wasn’t a single day I noticed any fringing issues. The lens earns the maximum score here.

Coma

Coma is an important requirement in astrophotography and usually affects the corners of most lenses. This can be tested on the field, on a starry night, to check for weird distortions on the stars. Basically, lenses that are affected by coma produce stars that are no longer light points but comas instead (hence the name). One other way to test it is using a LED source of light at home in a dark room.
I put the light source at the center (first column), corner and extreme corner of the frame (second and third columns, respectively), at f/3.5 and f/5 (one stop down).

You can see that at f/3.5 the lens produces high amounts of coma at the extreme corners, although it gets better by stopping down. This is no big deal since the moderate maximum aperture is not very attractive for astrophotographers anyway, but if you’re taking this lens to the field be sure to use at least f/5 to avoid coma. Other than shooting stars and LEDs, there aren’t any more real world examples I can remember that may produce this coma aberration, so this shouldn’t scare you away.

Flare

I walked around my backyard doing many shots trying to get any flare vestiges. I started to shoot directly against the sun, then placed the sun at the corner and finally made some shots with the sun just outside the frame.

Shot directly against the sun.

Shot with the sun placed at one corner of the frame.

Shot with the sun just outside the frame.

I took many more pictures and tried hard to produce flare but without success. That demonstrates that the Voigtländer has top quality coatings inside and the results put it along with the best lenses I used, with terrific flare resistance, and all of this without the need of the LH-20N hood available separately.

Bokeh

The Voigtländer has a moderate maximum aperture and a very wide angle, so the defocused quality of an image doesn’t get the same importance as with the fastest professional grade lenses. The lens has 9 aperture blades so we can expect pretty circular out of focus highlights.
For this test I took a defocused picture at f/3.5 of the city lights and got crops of the center, corner and extreme corners. The test was repeated for f/4 and f/5.6.

The bokeh from this lens is pretty circular at f/3.5 thanks to the 9 aperture blades, as expected, except at the extreme corners where weird distortions are visible. The bokeh is very nervous internally and the edges are a bit pronounced which of course isn’t attractive at all. Stopping down to f/5.6 starts producing polygonal highlights. Generally, with this lens it’s better to shoot close-up subjects with the maximum aperture, where the center sharpness is already very good, to get the best out of focus renderings.

Macro/Close-up

The Voigtländer was capable to focus as close as 20 centimeters from the sensor plane, that is 12 centimeters from the front element. I shot an 1 Euro coin and this is what to expect at the minimum focus distance:

Summary

Build quality	9	The front cap gets off too easily, otherwise the lens is a jewel
Handling	10	Superb feel of a very solid lens, very easy to focus manually, with exposure being controlled automatically by the camera
Resolution	6	Very good center sharpness, poor corners and horrible extreme corners even at moderate apertures
Distortion	7	Some mustache distortion to be aware of, especially when placing horizontal lines at the top and bottom of the frame
Vignetting	6	May work on your favor or against you, depending on the subject, but it’s easy to correct
Chromatic aberrations	10	None, this is probably the best lens I have with such resistance
Coma	7	Wide open there’s coma at the extreme corners, but stopping down minimizes the problem
Flare	10	Top notch, no vestiges found whatever I have tried
Bokeh	5	Circular only at f/3.5 but very nervous with accentuated edges, and gets polygonal at smaller apertures
Overall	75%	Excellent lens on DX, but look elsewhere if you need good edge to edge resolution and low vignetting on FX

Samples

Here are some samples of pictures I made in my backyard. Settings: native JPEG, picture control set to Landscape mode, no post-processing applied except reducing to 600 pixel width.

f/3.5, 1/200s, ISO 200

f/3.5, 1/160s, ISO 200

f/3.5, 1/320s, ISO 200

f/3.5, 1/200s, ISO 200

f/11, 1/15s, ISO 200, -0.7 EV

f/8, 1/400s, ISO 200

f/3.5, 1/320s, ISO 200

f/4, 1/50s, ISO 800