Nikon 24-120mm f3.5-5.6G VR Review

Image © NikonUSA

As many of the loyal readers know, we here at Best Light Photo work in 2 worlds - that of Olympus and Nikon.

Today we are going to start looking at some older Nikon lenses.  Why, you may ask?  Our Nikon kit has recently been running one prime and 2 pro grade zoom lenses.  Those pro lenses do not lend themselves to the casual stroll and smaller lenses are desirable.   I'm not so much concerned about the weight as I am being able to fit everything into a Lowepro Transit 250 AW sling pack.

Went to the local camera store and was looking about for a nice, small-ish do it all street zoom.  After looking at the various options available, I decided to give the Nikon 24-120mm f3.5-5.6 VR lens a try.  The f/4 version would have been bigger than we wanted to go at this point and is quite the budget jump.

Majority of the testing was done on a Nikon Df.

32mm | 1/30 | f/8 | ISO 400

IQ

First and foremost, a lens must perform.  It needs to be sharp and provide a good base image.
Sadly, the majority of the internet reviews are very accurate.   This is not a good lens, and dare I say, that this might be the worst lens I've every used on any system.

It is not sharp at any focal length or any aperture.

I tried auto focus fine tuning on the Nikon Df and D700....no go.  I even tried shooting in live view with contrast detect AF to see if that improved things....no joy there either.
On that point alone, the lens fails.  Which is a shame because it is a decent focal range and the contrast seemed very nice.

It's hard to tell where the IQ breaks down on web size images, and I'm not a pixel peeper.

120mm | 1/320 | f/5.6 | ISO 200

Handling

I'm not a fan of the "reversed" focus/zoom rings that Nikon went to with the AF-S lenses.  I always tend to accidentally bump the darn thing. To be honest, I thought that might have been an issue with the AF being so bad.  I made sure that I took that out of the equation during the tests and verified that I was not moving that focus ring inadvertently.

On the positives, the zoom throw from 24 to 120 is relatively short so going from one end of the focal range to the other can be a quick trip.  It can also be a little less accurate because it is so close together.

120mm | 1/640 | f/8 | ISO 200

This is a G lens, so no aperture ring.

Weight/Size

For our desires, this lens was a good size and weight for the purpose it was going to be used for.  No real complaints there.  It balanced well on the Nikon Df.

120mm | 1/125 | f/5.6 | ISO 320 VR active

Auto Focus

Auto focus was decent for this lens.  Not slow, but not pro grade lens fast.  It would be fine for the majority of user situations.  This is an AF-S lens with the full time manual focus override.

120mm | 1/125 | f/8 | ISO 1250 | VR active

Conclusion

I REALLY wanted this lens to work out, I did.  It was a good size, had a useful focal range and was a quick, quiet focuser.   Too bad that the shoddy IQ in the sharpness range was a total deal breaker.  After many tests and trying to work with the lens over a 3 day weekend...there was just no salvaging the lens.  It was returned and the money was used to purchase other lenses that might fit the everyday walk around lens.

To get the provided sample images to look even half way decent I processed these images more than I normally have to.  B&W with a lot of grain helped tighten things up a bit.

38mm | 1/40 | f/8 | ISO 250 | VR active

32mm | 1/40 | f/8 | ISO 200 | VR active

110mm | 1/125 | f/5.6 | ISO 1800 | VR active

120mm | 1/125 | f/8 | ISO 3600 : VR active

Nikon 24-85/3.5-4.5 VR VS Olympus 12-50/3.5-6.3

Another FX versus m43 comparison.  Today, let's look at the Nikon 24-85/3.5-4.5 VR against the Olympus 12-50/3.5-6.3.

Both are "kit" lenses, in that the respective companies often bundle them with cameras.

Image © Olympus America

The 12-50 Pro list:

• Slightly longer field of view ~100mm versus the Nikon's 85mm
• Weather sealed
• Electronic zoom for use in movie recording
• Macro mode - locked at 43mm
• Not as large in diameter and lighter than the Nikon
• Fast AF
• Internal zoom and focus
• can have MF override if setup that way in camera menu

The 12-50 Con list:

• Slower on the long end
• Needs stopped down a bit in order to be sharp
• No built in IS - only matters if you are going to use it on a Panasonic body

Image © Nikon USA

The 24-85 Pro list:

• built in IS
• Not as long as the 12-50
• MF override without having to setup as option in camera
• internal focusing
• quite AF-S lens with respectable focus speed

The 24-85 Con list:

• Having the MF focus always "on" and toward the camera body can cause accidental misfocus until you get used to it.
• not weather sealed.
• significant barrel distortion at the wide end(correctable in post)
• telescopes when zooming
• no macro mode

Nikon 24-85

Olympus 12-50

Focal Lengths

We shall not get into any equivalence debates, as I don;t much care for them.  I feel a photographer should know their gear and learn to adapt to it and use it accordingly.  These 2 lenses come close in field of view(FOV), which I shall define here for our purposes as follows:  If I am standing in the same location with each camera and lens and go from wide to telephoto, the view I see in the viewfinder is relatively the same.

Obviously, if we do the math, the Nikon lens FOV used on an FX camera is going to be 24mm to 85mm.  The Olympus OMD cameras I have need to have a 2x multiplier so going from 12mm focal length gives us a FOV of 24mm and at the long end, 50mm focal length gives us a 100mm FOV.

Pretty close except for that last 15mm.  The Olympus pulls ahead in the pure reach factor.  However, a lot of zoom lenses tend to get a little soft when they go from one extreme to the other.  Sometimes stopping the aperture down helps.

Nikon 24-85

Olympus 12-50

Image Stabilization

The Nikon has it in the lens, the Olympus relies on the camera body that it is mounted.  Both systems work great, so a wash here.  If you have a need for stabilization then you are covered.

Nikon 24-85

Olympus 12-50

Auto Focus Performance

The Olympus cameras are great AF performers in great to good light and suffer a little bit in speed when light starts to get challenging.  With that said, the Olympus 12-50 was the lens that convinced me on the m43 system over the Fuji X-T1.  It will get you there quickly and accurately.

The Nikon, even with AF-S is decent, but not the same speed as in single point AF as the 12-50.  We do need to bring up the point of continuous AF both speed and ability to lock.  as good as the S-AF is on the m43 cameras, they do still have a ways to go in the C-AF department.  They are decent when tracking a moving subject that is going in a predictable trajectory.  

Also, for perspective - AF performance is a package deal, both the camera body and the lens systems have to work together.  You can really only judge a lens on its AF performance based on its ability to keep up with the target.

Bottom line S-AF goes to the 12-50, where as C-AF goes to the 24-85.  

In real world use, I don't see the AF speed of either of these camera/lens combos holding me back.

Nikon 24-85

Olympus 12-50

Image Quality

We've done this before with the Tamron 70-300/4-5.6 VC vs Olympus 40-150/4-5.6

We are going to look at real world use and not shoot targets.  How well can the respective cameras and kit lenses compare to each other?

On the Nikon side, we will shoot with the D700 or Df and on the Olympus side, the OM-D E-M1 or E-M5.

The Olympus micro four thirds kits are not far behind.  Mirrorless gear keeps getting better and better. Fuji is improving their AF performance and the responsiveness of their cameras grows stronger with each generation.  While mirrorless might not be  an option for you right now, it is definitely a strong competitor in a camera rich environment that is still dominated here in the USA by DSLRs.

Olympus 12-50

Nikon 24-85

Nikon 24-85

Olympus 12-50

We Are Back To Being An All Nikon Shop! Find Out Why Inside.

The New Kid On The Block - Coming To Us Early December 2013

For those of you have that have been following the blog, you know that we have been using Fuji's new X series cameras for some of our work and for personal projects.

Through out the post here, we will show you some of the great moments we captured with this gear.

Hubbard Bar and Grill
Fuji X-E1, Fuji 35mm f/1.4R

It has been a very good run but in the end Nikon is going to win out. The Fujifilm gear is great with a good sensor and a spectacular ergonomics. The lenses are top notch and you should expect nothing less from Fuji as they make great medium format lenses and have done so for years.

There has always just been something with Nikon that has always resonated and felt right for me. With the recent announcement from Nikon regarding their new DF camera, this will be the one for me that I wish the Fuji would have been.

Dee Snyder Zombified
Fuji X-E1, Fuji 55-200mm f/3.5-4.8 OIS

While I was certainly able to get some really great images from the Fuji gear,  there were always some lingering deficiencies that kept it from being the number one camera in our kit.
These included such things as slow wake up times and non-traditional continuous focusing system and a slow response contrast detect auto focus.  We here at Best Light Photographic do a lot of sports and action photography, and while the Fuji gear produced excellent image quality, at the end of the day Fuji could just not fit all of our needs the way that the Nikon DSLR gear and the new DF camera can.

Hat Shop
Fuji X-E1, 18mm f/2

Please know that the Fuji cameras are great for what they can do and are great for those that can get the best out of them. We have nothing but love and respect for the time and the images that the X series camera gave to us. You never know, in the future there may be room in our camera bag for maybe an X100s or even an X20!

Helping Prepare For The Cold
Fuji X-E1, 35mm f/1.4R

So really, the big announcement is we are all back to being 100 percent Nikon cameras.
This was not a decision that was made lightly,  and while the Fuji X cameras were an 8 out of 10 for our perfect take everywhere camera the Nikon DF is a 9 out of 10. There's just so much great Nikon glass out there that it makes the decision to go back to all Nikon the best logical choice.

If you want to learn more about the new Nikon DF camera here's a link to their official website with all the details.

Ohio State Fair
Fuji X-E1, Fuji 18mm f/2

For years we have been looking for a camera the harkins back to the days of simple image creation. Something uncluttered by extra features that we just simply don't need and a control structure that is simple to use has all of the exposure options readily available and not buried in menus and is in a small form factor that can go everywhere and anywhere. Most important is image quality and the ability to get the shot with minimal fuss. While we think that Fuji has hit a homerun in this regard we feel that Nikon hit a grand slam. The fusion of the classical control scheme from their original F and FM series cameras with the new DSLR digital format and exceptional Nikon D4 sensor make this an almost perfect still image making machine. 

If you want to see more of out X-E1 images, check out our Flickr stream.

This is really just our opinion and you may feel the same or you may feel different.

At the end of the day all we want is a masterfully crafted tool to help us create the best possible images for our own personal satisfaction and to the satisfaction of our clients.