Disappointed w/ my fancy Nikon zoom

[Huss]

I just compared my ancient Minolta 35-70 3.5 zoom to my brand spankin' new gee whiz Nikon 24-120 VRII IS AF etc lens. And the Minolta blows it into the weeds. Yeah it is a shorter zoom range, but it is much much older tech etc. And waaaay cheaper. The Minolta lens is sharp like a fixed focal length, the Nikkor disappoints like zooms tend to do.
Shot both on film - one with the XK, the other with an F6. I'm wondering if the VR is actually hurting not helping w film images, so will try one more roll w the VR off.

Ming Thein wrote this about VR

https://blog.mingthein.com/2016/08/19/stabilisation-is-good-but-only-up-to-a-point/

 

[dee]

That Minolta 35-70 is superb with my Sony A290/A35 .
I bought a Minolta 505Si with silver 35-70 at the airport on the way to a rare holiday to Toronto. It was intended as a simple point and shoot to complement my heavy 700i with sigma lens .The 7000i did not get a look in , I was amazed at the quality of the shots from this cheap combination .
I bought the A290 as a cheap way to use this lens as the crop factor is perfect for architectural details .
I ended up extending to a Sony A35 with a pair of zooms , but in truth , the A290 with it's CCD colours suits me perfectly .
dee.

 

[Waus]

The Minolta lens is a gem!-Leica used this (lens)design for their 35-70mm...

 

[Ronald M]

I have done thousands of pics with my 24/120. Perfect no. But the convenience is worth it under some conditions.

It is not so bad customers would notice. I barely do. It is favorable with my 1.4 Nikor G primes.

You might have a bad sample. Maybe it does not do well on film.

Try a good tripod , mirror up, and no VR.

 

[Huss]

I have done thousands of pics with my 24/120. Perfect no. But the convenience is worth it under some conditions.

It is not so bad customers would notice. I barely do. It is favorable with my 1.4 Nikor G primes.

You might have a bad sample. Maybe it does not do well on film.

Try a good tripod , mirror up, and no VR.

I'll try with no VR but not the rest as I want to replicate my normal shooting environment. Maybe my expectations are too high, or maybe it is just better on digital as the digi cameras' software automatically runs optical corrections/sharpening etc.
Just that my Minolta zoom that cost me $80 is such a cracker in comparison shooting in the same way.

 

[willie_901]

The VR on most Nikon zooms is not designed for shutter speed faster than 1/250. (link).

I abandoned Nikon because of their contemporary lens offerings. I felt the performance was just good enough and not worth the brand price premium.

 

[MikeMGB]

The VR on most Nikon zooms is not designed for shutter speed faster than 1/250. (link).

I abandoned Nikon because of their contemporary lens offerings. I felt the performance was just good enough and not worth the brand price premium.

I sold my fancy Nikon gear a couple of months ago, the lenses were not sharp and chromatic aberration was terrible, even on pro lenses.

 

[Huss]

The VR on most Nikon zooms is not designed for shutter speed faster than 1/250. (link).

Thanks for the link! I will definitely turn it off and try again. All my shots were taken in bright light so the speed would have been higher than that.

I'm hoping performance would kick up several notches because it has been a while since I've had buyer's remorse, and don't want it now!

 

[flavio81]

I Nikon 24-120 VRII

This lens is infamous on the web as one of the worst Nikon zoom lenses.

I think i've read an analysis by Marco Cavina where it is shown that the optical design is very good, but the manufacturing decisions made the lens go invariably into misalignment on practical use.

 

[Huss]

This lens is infamous on the web as one of the worst Nikon zoom lenses.

I think i've read an analysis by Marco Cavina where it is shown that the optical design is very good, but the manufacturing decisions made the lens go invariably into misalignment on practical use.

The reviews I've seen from pro users have the opposite reaction.

https://photographylife.com/reviews/nikon-24-120mm-f4g-vr


https://blog.mingthein.com/2015/05/01/review-nikon-afs-24-120-vr/

Perhaps you are thinking of the previous version which was a 24-120 3.5-5.6 variable aperture lens? Not this f4 lens.

 

[willie_901]

I sold my fancy Nikon gear a couple of months ago, the lenses were not sharp and chromatic aberration was terrible, even on pro lenses.

Exactly!





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[willie_901]

Thanks for the link! I will definitely turn it off and try again. All my shots were taken in bright light so the speed would have been higher than that.

...

My pleasure. I hope this helps!

 

[Huss]

So there was a custom car show one street over from my gallery today. Thought this would make some fun subjects to test the F6 and 24-120 w/o the VR turned on. Battery indicator level on the camera showed full. Took 10 shots - now it was at 50%! Took 3 more and on lucky #13 the mirror stayed up, the camera was locked up with dead batteries.
Of course today I didn't bring a spare set cuz I was only going to shoot one roll, and the camera showed full charge...
Stoopid Watson rechargeable batteries...

When I got home and put a fresh set in, the camera unlocked. The whole time I was thinking that I would have been totally fine if I used any of my mechanical cameras... Technology, who needs it?

😉

 

[ChrisLivsey]

chromatic aberration was terrible, even on pro lenses.

Current lens designs from Nikon are intended to be shot on the current and recent digital bodies with the built in lens correction files, a new version which is uploadable has been recently released. Nikon doesn't love film anymore, their recent competitions specifically exclude film entries.
Perhaps, and I have no experience, the third party zooms such as Sigma and Tamron, will perform better as they cannot rely on the software/firmware to fudge the result?

 

[Keith]

Not great optically I agree but very versatile .. I find the pincushion distortion at the long end the worst part of this lens.

 

[unixrevolution]

So there was a custom car show one street over from my gallery today. Thought this would make some fun subjects to test the F6 and 24-120 w/o the VR turned on. Battery indicator level on the camera showed full. Took 10 shots - now it was at 50%! Took 3 more and on lucky #13 the mirror stayed up, the camera was locked up with dead batteries.
Of course today I didn't bring a spare set cuz I was only going to shoot one roll, and the camera showed full charge...
Stoopid Watson rechargeable batteries...

When I got home and put a fresh set in, the camera unlocked. The whole time I was thinking that I would have been totally fine if I used any of my mechanical cameras... Technology, who needs it?

😉

Most of the equipment failures I have suffered, photographically or otherwise, have to do with a dead battery.

Complete side note: Am I the only one who thinks English should pick separate words for a battery that has no charge, and one that doesn't work at all (i.e. normally rechargeable but wont' charge, won't work in any way?)

 

[Jdi]

Haven't shot Nikons in years. However, when I did Nikon very clearly stated if you don't need VR, keep it off. Have you read the manual that came with the lens? At least back then, Nikon had one of their white papers on the Support site that explained their position.

Now shoot Fuji. Same, don't use it if you don't need it.

 

[pvdhaar]

This lens is infamous on the web as one of the worst Nikon zoom lenses..

There are now three versions of the 24-120.. There's the original AF-D one without VR, the variable aperture one with VR and there's the latest constant f4 aperture one.

It's especially the first AF-D version that has the worst reputation, and I can see where that's coming from.. The copy I had wouldn't give crisp images unless stopped down to f11-f16, and suffered incredible pincushion distortion at 35mm. I'm now shooting with the 3.5-5.6VR version, and it's much better behaved, sharpness is acceptable at f8 already and the distortion seems less pronounced as well. Granted, it doesn't come anywhere near the performance of the f2.8 zooms, but it's quite versatile. Haven't shot the f4 version, so can't comment on that..

 

[Huss]

Shot the roll today w/ fresh batteries, and only had the VR on at speeds < 1/60.
I usually use a protective filter, but kept that off today just to eliminate any other possibilities.
If the pics still aren't sharp as expected, then I'll most probably unload it .

 

[Huss]

So for the purpose of scientific testing, I acquired a D750 and tested the lens.
It is very sharp on the D750 which tells me that there is some processing software at play, that obviously is not available with film cameras.

So... remember how the conventional wisdom is that digital cameras need much higher quality lenses than film cameras? Well, it seems that this is a maybe..

This 24-120 VR4, latest version, is not great on film, but is excellent on digital.