Nikon PC-E Nikkor 24mm f/3.5D ED Review

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July 24, 2009

The Nikon PC-E Nikkor 24mm f/3.5D ED is Nikon's first wide angle tilt and shift lens. Professionals have for decades been waiting for Nikon to release a tilt and shift wide angle lens. The only tilt and shift lens Nikon shooters have had is the 85mm PC lens, that was upgraded last year. The 24mm PC-E lens is now one of three tilt/shift lenses from Nikon, the other two are the 45mm PC-E and the upgraded 85mm PC-E Nikkor. The 24mm lens features no less then 3 ED glass elements and 3 aspherical lenses and the new Nano Crystal Coating. Tilt/Shift lenses are quite unique in their use that you can control both perspective and enhance Depth Of Field. Even when the lens is used wide open you can expand the DOF drastically. Nikon has packed this lens with quite a bit of Nikon technology: ED Glass, SIC Nikon Super Integrated Coating, N Nano Crystal Coat, ASP Aspherical lens elements, and D Distance information

Specifications

Positives

• Great manual focus feel.
• Weather sealing
• IR Performance.
• Contrast / Sharpness. Wide open both contrast and sharpness is great.
• DOF markings, lens is provided with Depth Of Field markings (about time that we are seeing this again) The lens does not have a Infrared compensating mark but is marked with "8" on the DOF scale (see picture)
  
  In my opinion they should have marked it, and it's beyond me why they didn't mark it like this (see picture below) Should not be necessary to read the manual for the lens to figure this out.
  

Drawbacks

• Price, TS lenses are not cheap and the 24mm Nikkor is no exception. But as quite often, performance comes at a price, and the lens does deliver.
• It has tendencies for small amounts of CA and some color fringing in really high contrast scenes.

Verdict

The PC-E Nikkor 24mm shows great sharpness from f/3.5 to f/16, after that the lens starts softening up due to diffraction. That said, the lens can be stopped down to f/22 without problems, at f/32 it's somewhat soft on screen, sharpened picture @ f/32 is usable on prints though. Tilt shift lenses are amazing tools, not just for landscape and architecture work, but for anything you want control over focus and depth of field. The Nikon 24mm have superb optics both for normal shooting as well as tilt and shift shooting. IR performance is awesome with this lens, and it shows no Hot-spot at any aperture. Do note that not all features of this lens will work on all cameras. On some cameras you can not do the full shift movement as it will hit the prism. The PC-E lenses are compatible with all Nikon Dslr's in Manual mode. Only with the D300, D700, D3 and with the D3X the auto-aperture control is possible directly from the camera.

Features
Performance
IR Performance
Build
Value

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Alternatives

Purchasing items through these links helps me adding more content to this website. The links takes you to B&H's website, which is my recommended store to get equipment from. I've used B&H personally since 2005, and I get all my equipment from them these days(including the lenses used for these reviews). Thanks for your support, Fredrik.

Nikon AF Nikkor 24mm f/2.8D Price From: $349.95 USD

Nikon MF PC-E Micro Nikkor 45mm f/2.8D ED Price From: $1,799.95 USD

Nikon MF PC-E Micro Nikkor 85mm f/2.8D Price From: $1,699.95 USD

Schneider MF 28mm f/2.8 PC Super-Angulon. Price: $2,078.95 USD

*Prices and rebates are subject to change. Listed price is from March 9, 2010

Sample Pictures

Images have been imported to photoshop CS4 through Capture NX 2 thus leaving the original image settings as shot, I. E white balance, sharpening, etc .etc. Full resolution sample images are in RGB color mode. Check out my copyright page for information about usage of these images.