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24-120 Thoughts

pesto

Active member
I am in the process of trimming down my Nikon kit and am trying to make some buy/sell decisions. I have the 24-70 which I find myself using most of the time with this system and rarely reaching for the 70-200 VR II and the 85 1.4G almost never. My thoughts are leaning toward selling the three of them and replacing them with the 24-120. My hesitation centers around the spotty reputation that this lens appears to carry despite the fact that there are some users here of this lens whose opinion I respect. My question is simply how much of this is mere snobbery, for want of a less inflammatory term, and "me too"ism and how much of it should one heed or is this a matter of sample variation? I would not use this lens for architectural work but do tend to be rather demanding in terms of contrast and overall sharpness. It would be mounted on a D800e.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
I love mine. It is not the sharpest lens in my stable, but it is good all the way through the range -- a very dang convenient range I might add -- and it is reasonably sized. It is my main travel lens.

This shot was done with it this summer -- hand-held at 1/20th around f8:

 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Steen: No, I have not had the experience with mine that Tim is having with all of his. I bought mine in the US from a local dealer. Perhaps Tim's UK selections all came from the same bad batch.

emr: Yes, that is the round tower in Copenhagen.
 

Paul2660

Well-known member
I seem to have more vignetting issues with my 24-120 than other lenses. I noticed in Tim's sample image there was a good bit of vignetting showing. Sometimes the amounts are enough that Capture One or Lr can't seem to fix it without damage to the file. I have considered trying a LCC shot where I can and see if that helps in Capture one.

Otherwise as already mentioned a good all round of lens.

Paul
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
I like a little vignette in most images, so it doesn't bother me at all -- nor have I noticed any excessive amount with my copy. FWIW, I now pretty much leave the 24-120 welded to my regular D800 body, and then swap my other lenses around on the E body. The exception is for people/portraits, where I slightly prefer the regular D800 with whatever other lens, usually the 105DC or 70-200/2.8.

An interesting lens to use as it is at the same time probably the least-performing technically, yet the most versatile lens in my bag --- and I like the images it produces which I guess is what really counts at the end of the day! :)
 

pesto

Active member
Thanks to all who have responded to my question. I find that my 24-70 has become my default lens on my D800E and while I would like to have a bit more reach at times, the image quality is truly excellent if I don't mess things up, especially for a zoom. So I believe that I shall stay put and just be sure to cary my 105 along just in case.
Thanks again for the helpful advice.

Douglas Benson
 
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