Lens review

Nikon Nikkor AF-S DX 10-24 mm f/3.5-4.5G ED

11. Summary

Pros:

• solid, good quality barrel with a metal mount,
• good frame center picture quality at all focal lengths,
• very good, sometimes even outstanding frame edge performance,
• low 17-24 mm range distortion,
• well corrected astigmatism,
• silent and fast autofocus.

Cons:

• high chromatic aberration for the range of 10-17 mm,
• huge "front-focus",
• high distortion at the shortest focal length,
• very slow vignetting decrease on stopping down.

On the one hand, the Nikkor 10-24 mm deserves some praise. The image quality in the frame centre is good and its borders are the best from all the APS-C/DX-designed ultra wide angle lenses tested here. It is significantly better and a bit cheaper than the older Nikkor 12-24 mm f/4.0. On the other hand, however, it doesn’t offer us much more than the slightly cheaper Canon 10-22 mm or the Tamron 10-24 mm. Especially the latter compares favourably here, as it is about 300 $ cheaper than the Nikkor. The Tokina 11-16 mm can also be considered a strong Nikkor’s rival, as it is optically good with the f/2.8 aperture and costs almost 200 $ less. We are very curious how will fare the Sigma 10-20 mm f/3.5 against the Nikkor’s background (we’ve just got it for the tests). Taking into consideration its previous 10-20 mm version’s good result it might be a formidable opponent to the Nikkor lens.

Usually an important argument for buying system lenses is the autofocus mechanism. Here this argument is non-existent. With such short focal lengths the depth of field is so big that the lenses, manufactured by independent companies, don’t cause practically any problems. Apart from that, and quite paradoxically, it was exactly the Nikkor which had the biggest slip-up with its huge front focus in this category.

The stake is high, the lenses are numerous, the prices – diversified. Customers are certainly happy , the Nikon company – a bit less so. Offering two of the most expensive instruments in this group it might have a lot of problems with reaching a high level of sales. In the meantime, the prices of its products keep rising, not falling…

Sample shots:

Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 24 mm, f/8.0, exp. 1/160 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 5.62 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 24 mm, f/8.0, exp. 1/160 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.96 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 24 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/160 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 5 MB
Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 24 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/160 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.18 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 10 mm, f/3.5, exp. 1/1000 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.32 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 10 mm, f/5.0, exp. 1/500 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.21 MB
Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 10 mm, f/7.1, exp. 1/125 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 5.19 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 13 mm, f/5.0, exp. 1/320 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.42 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 13 mm, f/3.8, exp. 1/500 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.47 MB
Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 18 mm, f/4.2, exp. 1/400 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.26 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 24 mm, f/4.5, exp. 1/500 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.05 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 24 mm, f/4.5, exp. 1/250 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.81 MB
Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 16 mm, f/4.0, exp. 1/350 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.52 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 10 mm, f/3.5, exp. 1/1000 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 3.81 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 10 mm, f/4.5, exp. 1/640 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 3.81 MB
Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 24 mm, f/4.5, exp. 1/125 sec., ISO 200 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.63 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 24 mm, f/4.5, exp. 1/400 sec., ISO 200 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 3.87 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 10 mm, f/8.0, exp. 1/100 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.94 MB
Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 12 mm, f/8.0, exp. 1/125 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.14 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 12 mm, f/4.0, exp. 1/500 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.16 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 16 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/250 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.03 MB
Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 17 mm, f/4.2, exp. 1/160 sec., ISO 200 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 4.26 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 10 mm, f/3.5, exp. 1/640 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 6.84 MB	Camera: Nikon D200 Parameters: 16 mm, f/5.6, exp. 1/320 sec., ISO 100 File: JPEG, 3872 x 2592 pix, 6.84 MB