Guy Mancuso
Administrator, Instructor
I went back into Capture NX and played around a little and from what I am seeing is it does do a better job with the file itself. Still playing but this looks pretty good.
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Thanks! That's exactly what I needed to see as I'll be using the 24-120 f4 as the 'normal' lens on my D800 when I get it – at least initially.We started today.
All with 24-120mm f/4 zoom handheld (LR4 + our CS5/6 scripts).
Gallery with full sized samples can be found here (gallery will grow).
Even though I am not crazy about the program itself the files look a lot better than ACR.
I may certainly be in the minority (and opinions vary greatly with many), but there are two Nikon lenses (zooms) that I personally felt performance fell far short of what I was expecting/hoping for, especially for what they cost. These are the latest 24-120 f4 and 16-35 VR, but for somewhat different reasons. I can see excellent sharpness in the 16-35 VR at its wide end where it would do fine on the D800 save for the excessive distortions at/near 16-19mm, which for complex subjects (and subsequent distortion correction) with large # of files, simply wasn't an attractive or workable option. Nikon I believe wanted improved sharpness at 16mm over the 17-35 f2.8 at 17mm, so excessive barral distortion unfortunately was a consequence.Thanks! That's exactly what I needed to see as I'll be using the 24-120 f4 as the 'normal' lens on my D800 when I get it – at least initially.
I may go for Zeiss primes eventually, or the 24-70 f2.8 when (if?) it gets upgraded with VR2 etc.
Thanks a bundle Guy. These files look SERIOUSLY good. Capture NX is included with the D800E so maybe I'll just have to get used to it... I can see it'll be like so many other cameras... LR is Mission Control for import and catalogue but the Picks get sent to whatever native program is best before ending up as TIFF in LR....Just playing around yesterday with my 85 and 35 lenses and I used Capture NX2 to process these.
I may certainly be in the minority (and opinions vary greatly with many), but there are two Nikon lenses (zooms) that I personally felt performance fell far short of what I was expecting/hoping for, especially for what they cost. These are the latest 24-120 f4 and 16-35 VR, but for somewhat different reasons. I can see excellent sharpness in the 16-35 VR at its wide end where it would do fine on the D800 save for the excessive distortions at/near 16-19mm, which for complex subjects (and subsequent distortion correction) with large # of files, simply wasn't an attractive or workable option. Nikon I believe wanted improved sharpness at 16mm over the 17-35 f2.8 at 17mm, so excessive barral distortion unfortunately was a consequence.
I recently tested a # of samples of the 24-120 f4 (latest version) for use as a "walk around" and as long as not shooting subjects that are complex in nature, at the wider end of its zoom range, distortion correction is pretty straight forward. The other issue for me personally, was it's overall relative performance on the edges/sides (save for focal lenghts above approx 65mm). It wasn't bad but wasn't what I hoped for either. Sort of middle of the road in parts of the frame. Again this is a wider range constant aperture zoom and compromises have to be made. I felt even a superb sample of Tamron's 28-75 f2.8 lens ran rings around the current 24-120 f4 but again its range is considerably shorter. Yet if looking for a high performance relatively light/small walk around lens where high(er) performance is required for a high MP camera, a really good sample of the 28-75 f2.8 offered not too much optical compromise relative to larger Nikon pro glass.
I'm only mentioning these observations as obviously even a decent lens might look alright on a D800, but if extracting max. performance is desired, lens selection becomes all that more important.
Dave (D&A)
Yes Dave i am noticing the slightly over sharpened looks too, its good but just a touch to much. I'm looking at my menu items now and seeing if i have some camera sharpening on with the raws and than look at Capture and see under pic. controls whats going on . The files look overall better for sure but like to knock that sharpening down a touch more or turn off and do it myself. Yea Yea yea RTFM i know . LOL....and that's been the problem ever since Capture was first released (for NEF files). It's always been able to extract the best from NEF's but unfortunately for some shooters, at too high a cost with it's infrigment on time required for processing files and it's interface. It's interface has always been cludgy (hey did I spell that right?) although it's gotten better with each successive generation, and processing file(s) used to take eons...but that's been improved too, yet for some these issues still exist. It's fine when one has a limited # of files to process, but if the job has hundreds of files or more, out comes the ACR . The best analogy I could come up with is this: you know that awful tasting medicine you had to take as a kid? You knew it would it was good for you and would make you feel better, but yet you still hated taking it! For me that's "Capture"...LOL!
Guy, the files you re-posted with Capture do appear to be better and this even comes through at screen resolution although I've found with Capture it's easy to slightly over-sharpen.
As for the 180mm, you might have gotten one of the better samples. Out of all the lenses you mentioned you obtained, the 180 was in my opinion the biggest concern as many samples I tested just fell short when used on high MP cameras like the D3x. Even on 12MP D3s, I though some others lenses in similar focal length range eclipsed it's performance by a considerable margin.
Thanks for posting your images and thoughts. Your preliminary observations are very informative and helpful, as were Steen's and others who have done the same.
Dave (D&A)
I like the NX versione quite a bit better.I went back into Capture NX and played around a little and from what I am seeing is it does do a better job with the file itself. Still playing but this looks pretty good.