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What Lenses for the D800?

Steen

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member
Antonio Chagin said:
(...) I was looking the Voightlander up in B&H and there's seems to be two versions, being the version II now for sale. Which version is yours?? Are there any known difference between these two? (...)
Click to expand...

My Voigtländer 20mm is the SLII version.

The SLII version comes with a CPU matrix metering chip.

As far as I know the two versions (SL & SLII) are optically identical (at least I have never read the opposite).


Quoting from cameraquest.com

"All SL II lenses feature manual focus and computer chips for metering with modern DSLRs.

SL II series lenses have screw in lens hoods. SL I series lenses used bayonet lens hoods.

SL II lenses are black finish only. SL I lenses had black / chrome lens barrels.

Nikon AF or Digital: Set aperture ring at f/22, controlling f/stops from the camera, NOT the aperture ring. gives you manual focus with fully compatible metering."


Voigtlander SL II Lenses

Voigtlander Color Skopar 20mm f/3.5 SL II Aspherical (Canon EOS) - Lab Test / Review
 
J

Jan Brittenson

Senior Subscriber Member
FYI - B&H now has the Voigtländer 40/2 SLII in stock ($449). Just ordered one for myself. I'm thinking the 40/2, a 20, and the AF-S 85/1.8G or AIS 105/2.5 will make a nice little pocket lens kit.
 
G

gurtch

Well-known member
Nikon did not put any 50 mm lens on their preferred list for D800, which is surprising. I checked a number of lens tests on Photozone. I am considering a D 800e kit to include several VERY inexpensive Nikon primes. I am most interested in f 5.6 to f11 for my seascape work. at those apertures the 50mm f 1.8 ($120), and 85 mm f1.8 ($425) should be a no brainier. Their resolution figures generally meet or beat very expensive zoom at 1/3the price, giving up flexibility of course. I pre- ordered the D800e, and purchased the 14-24 for interior architectural work I often do, and the Zeiss 18 mm (has a filter thread--important to me) for seascapes. adding the cheap 50 and 85 would round out a modest system.
Dave.
 
ustein

ustein

Contributing Editor
>adding the cheap 50 and 85 would round out a modest system.

I have the 50mm f/1.8G and plan to add the 85mm 1.8G too.
 
G

gurtch

Well-known member
ustein said:
>adding the cheap 50 and 85 would round out a modest system.

I have the 50mm f/1.8G and plan to add the 85mm f1.8

coming from you, high praise indeed. here is Photozone's recommendation:

The Nikkor AF-S 85mm f/1.8 G is an excellent lens that performs on a very high level in almost any regard. Sharpness is excellent in the image center straight from the largest aperture, the borders and corners deliver very good resolution wide open and excellent sharpness stopped down.
Typical for a fast prime there is pronounced vignetting wide open, which can easily be cured by stopping down. The same applies to Bokeh fringing. CAs and distortion are very well controlled though. The biggest surprise is probably the bokeh quality, which is not right up there on the benchmark level set by 85mm f/1.4 lenses, but quite close.

The build quality is on a high level and in line with other Nikon consumer prime offerings. Thanks to an AF-S drive autofocus action is virtually silent and quite fast for a portrait lens.

So, in summary, for most subjects the lens gives around 95% of the performance of an AF-S 85/1.4 but at just one third of the price. Certainly highly recommended!
Click to expand...
 
ustein

ustein

Contributing Editor
>coming from you, high praise indeed.

I followed Photozone.de :)

With the 50mm the D800 feels nearly light (though not small).

My new light D800 kit:



I think the 85mm would also fit in.
 
Jack

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Sigma 120-300 f2.8 and converter: It's best in the 180 to 300 range at all apertures, pretty marginal at 120 but already cleaning up by 150mm. Wide open performance is just okay, certainly usably sharp centrally but not laser crisp and edge contrast is a bit soft -- a bump in clarity helps a lot. Also, for whatever reason f2.8 performance is much better at closer, under 10m distances. (Lens focuses pretty close, like 8 feet or so.) f4 and 5.6 improve to very good, primarily from increased edge contrast, f5.6 very good all the way to corners. f8 it is a laser with excellent contrast. The 2x converter is marginal -- works in a pinch but lower contrast overall. On the upside, the Sigma OS is impressively good -- I was able to easily handhold and get perfectly sharp images at f8 with 1/320th shutter speeds. In short I can recommend it as a versatile range with usable fast aperture, though much improved stopped down. For the relatively low price -- it's cheaper than Sigma's own fixed 300/f2.8 -- it has a lot to offer, but of course you are paying for the fast aperture that isn't stellar in terms of size and weight penalties.
 
tashley

tashley

Subscriber Member
Just an update: I mentioned somewhere that the 100mm Zeiss Makro Planar F2 was, whilst gorgeously sharp and with lovely lovely bokeh, not my top suggestion on the D800/E because of the fringing issues it had when at the wider apertures. So bad that no amount of fiddling with lens corrections in LR or C1 would get rid of it and if you really wanted to save the shot you had to round-trip it to photoshop and spend a lot of time dealing with it very manually.

LR 4.1 Release Candidate has new options for dealing with it and I am hugely impressed. I need to get over the first flush of excitement and look for any flaws that I might not like so much but so far, this takes the lens out of the 'might be for sale' category. Which I am so pleased about because I really like it.

Here's a scene that was ruined by the dreaded purples:

All the files are here:
Tim Ashley Photography | D800/E with Zeiss 100mm F2 Makro Planar | _DSC0096

The full scene:



Crops before and after treatment:





I know that looks like it's just desaturated everything but next post will show crops from a different part of the image with the same treatment
 
ustein

ustein

Contributing Editor
If I would have only one prime lens for the D800 the AF-S 50mm f/1.8G would be it.






This image is a moire trap (not here):



This crop shows why:

 
ustein

ustein

Contributing Editor
>16-35 but understand you cannot probe test lens.

Have no idea. But I own the 17-35mm and it has to do when I would need it (very rarely I guess). But I will try to perform some indoor tests at some point.

Note: these are all our own lenses.
 
Jack

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Okay, finally caved and ordered a 200/2 -- used, VR1 G version. Also ordered a 2x ver III converter and since the Nikon 1.4x won't AF with this lens, I ordered a Sigma 1.4x to try -- not holding my breath on that combo being great though.
 
ustein

ustein

Contributing Editor
>but it is very useful indeed and on the lenses I own, exactly matches my real-world findings.

But it also shows that two numbers are not the full story.

1. No mention of CA
2. Zooms only at one focal?
3. Different f-stop measurements
 
tashley

tashley

Subscriber Member
For sure... but I can't find anywhere that has all variables covered which is why I'm doing so much testing myself for the things that matter to me. But that lens rentals page is a great place to start. I wish the UK had an equipment rental agency as comprehensive, helpful and well priced as them!
 
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