Photography News Issue 29 absolutephoto.com
55
Lens test
Nikon 24mm f/3.5D ED PC-E £1465
Specs
Format Full-frame/35mm Mount Nikon F Construction
13 elements in 10 groups Special lens elements 3x ED and 3x aspherical Coatings Nano crystal and Super Integrated Filter size 77mm Aperture range F/3.5-32 Diaphragm 9 blades Internal focus Yes Manual focus Yes Minimumfocus 21cm Focus limiter No Maximummagnification 0.37x Distance scale Yes Depth-of-field scale Yes Image stabiliser No Tripod collar No Lens hood Yes (HB-41) Weather-sealed No Dimensions (lxd) 108x82.5mm Weight 730g Contact nikon.co.uk
The 24mm f/3.5D ED PC-E is Nikon’s widest tilt- shift lens and from the first time you pick it up, its build quality is obvious. For almost £1500, you’d certainly expect to get a beautifully put together lens, and this one feels like it will last a lifetime. The body and the tilt-shift mechanism are primarily metal making the lens quite heavy, but it felt well balanced on my test camera, a D810, and with a tilt- shift lens most of the work is done on a tripod. One issue in the build is how close the tilt and shift knobs come to the camera body you’re using. For example, coupled with the D810, the shift control strikes the pop-up flash when it’s rotated into a vertical position (horizontal shift), but on a D3 or D4 it’s fine. To address this you just have to invert the lens through 180º, and no functionality is lost. The lens has a one-stop advantage in aperture over its Samyang rival, reaching f/32 at the top end and the aperture ring can be used manually, or moved to an ‘L’ setting where the aperture is controlled from the body. In either case, autoexposure can be used, although manually metering can be more accurate when the lens is shifted a long way. AE works on all Nikon DSLRs from the D90 onwards – for older cameras there’s an aperture stop-down button. The lens comes with a soft case and a hood. Handling is excellent, and the tilt and shift knobs are prominent, a good size and have plenty of grip.
The tilt control is the larger of the two, so it’s obvious which you’re using when working ‘blind’. The locking controls, which sit on the opposite side of the lens to each knob, work perfectly, making it easy to hold a function in place, and set the required tension in the turn; the only problem is that the shift lock is too small and sits too close to the tilt mechanism, making it feel fiddly and more difficult to access than it should be. The shift and tilt movements are beautifully smooth and accurate with click-stops for navigation. The only real issue with handling is that, unlike the others in this test, there’s only one rotation control. This means that, while the lens mount can be spun through 180º (with 30º steps) so you can alter the axis of the tilt and shift controls to where they’re needed, the two are fixed at right angles; therefore, if you’re tilting up and down you can only shift left or right. And if you’re swinging (horizontal tilt), you can only raise or lower the lens with the shift control. To get the two parallel the lens has to be taken to a Nikon service centre. It’s an annoyance, as it means you need to choose between which functions will be more useful to you. When it comes to manual focusing things return to an excellent level. The focusing ring is superbly weighted, with a light but precise feel. The lens uses a rear-focusing system, so doesn’t extend when
focusing and while the ring takes a little longer to go from near to far than the Samyang, it has a grippier feel to its grooved surface. The 24mm f/3.5D ED PC-E offers fractionally less shift than the Samyang and Canon TS lenses tested here; +/-11.5mm rather than 12mm, and while 0.5mm doesn’t sound like much, the difference is noticeable in direct comparison, and could mean reframing or missing something vital. In shifting, some level of vignetting is inevitable, and at its 11.5mm setting this lens shows quite a thick vignette as the edge of the image circle is encountered; this becomes harder edged as the aperture is stopped down. There was also a little barrel distortion at the edges of the shift. Regular vignetting (when the lens is centralised) isminimal at the f/3.5 setting and eliminated by f/5.6. Flare and fringing are both well controlled throughout and there was no apparent loss of quality at any point in the tilt range. Sharpness is excellent, even wide open and reaching its peak in the centre at around f/8 and edge to edge between f/11 and f/16. It was also well held when the lens was shifted. By the time the lens is stopped down beyond f/16, diffraction spoils the results and by f/32 is quite muddy, so the extra stop isn’t really much of an advantage. Defocused areas are beautifully smooth thanks to the nine blades and bokeh is pleasingly flat and circular.
Full-frame image
F/3.5
F/4
Verdict
The Nikon 24mm f/3.5D ED PC-E is a first-class piece of engineering and certainly won’t disappoint in the build and image quality stakes, minor distortion aside. It handles really well, too, with the only drawback being the locked arrangement of its tilt and shift controls; this doesn’t affect the performance, but it is an annoyance and means you need to have the lens serviced if it’s not in the configuration you need.
F/5.6
F/8
Quality These images were shot against a flat subject at the lens’s default position. Converted from the Raw, that are unmodified and unsharpened. Optical quality from the Nikon 24mm PC-E was very good.
Features Not much missing, bar tilt rotation
23/25
24/25
Performance Superb image quality
Handling Refined operation, but some frustrations
23/25
22/25
Value for money You won’t feel short-changed
F/11
F/16
F/22
92/100
Overall A premium lens that puts in a brilliant performance and delivers creative effects like no regular lens can. Pros Image quality, build and handling Cons Some restrictions to the controls, price
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