Wide angle lens testing

[ch96066]

I am lucky enough to have gathered a few wide angle lenses both DX and FX and I decided to do some comparisons to try and thin down the herd so to speak.

The DX candidates are:

Sigma 8-12 4.5-5.6

Tokina 11-20 2.8

and on FX

Sigma 12-24 4.5-5.6

Nikon 17-35 2.8

Nikon 18-35 3,5-4,5 G

Nikon 28 2.8 ai-s

My reasoning is to test them in close up and landscape as these are the main uses I have for them.
I am more interested in the total drawing/feeling I get rather than absolute sharpness.

My method is to use a D750 (auto DX crop as needed) on a tripod and focus tethered using helicon remote on a tablet. This way I hope to make AF (or MF when needed) as objective as possible (not sure if AF finetune still comes into play actually). I am comparing straight out of camera JPGs with no post process (only mild cropping in some cases) again to be as objective as possible.

I tested at various apertures I thought field relevant. Wide open to f8 for the close up scenario and I will go up to f16 for landscape.
Regarding focal lengths I did 8 - (11/12) - (16/17/18) - 20 - 24 - 28 and 35. () denote these apertures are treated as one test.

I will post JPGs from certain tests most interesting to my way of work and I am looking forward to selecting your favorite from each scenario as well as comments on the rendering overall.

First up is the battle at 28 wide open. Contestants in no particular order are 18-35, 17-35 and 28.

[ch96066]

Here they are...

[gabrielpix]

Using the D750 with DX lenses, may I suggest that you try also the alternatives 1,2x crop, slightly zoomed out and full FX, maybe a little more zoomed out.

I have found, to my great surprise, that all the DX lenses I own
10-20mm AF-P VR
18-55mm AF-P VR
70-300mm AF-P VR and
work best at 1,2x crop. In fact, so well that when I wish to carry a compact zoom lens, they are viable alternatives to FX lenses.
You will get 16 Mp image files, if you use jpeg you will get full auto-correction and the wide + normal zoom will offer a slightly wider angle of view than they do on my DX body (D7100). The 10-20 will have an angle of view corresponding to an FX 14-24, the 18-55 to an FX 24-70. They will be at their best somewhat stopped down - like f/8 for the wide zoom and f/5,6 for the normal. The tele zoom can be used fully open. They offer good enough image quality for causal use and they all have VR which to some extent may compensate for the low F-numbers.

Anyway, I suggest you try 1,2x crop and full FX as well!
Gabriel

[ch96066]

Thank you Gabriel. I will give that a try at some point. What about your preferred pic and why?

[Matthew Currie]

I'm presuming that the 1.2 crop mentioned above is the crop mode in the D7100.  I can see how such a crop could easily benefit some lenses, and the resulting 18-36 full frame equivalent is good, but I wonder what advantages one gets from that rather than doing it in post.  For telephoto shots I like the crop mode because it stretches the D7100's measly buffer, and because I know I'll need to crop anyway, but is there any other advantage to cropping a wide angle in the camera?

[Akira]

Hi, Konstantinos, welcome to NG.  Hope you enjoy yourself visiting here.

Around 2  years ago, I posted a thread where I tested AF-P 10-20mm/f4.5-5.6 DX lens on D750 in FX mode here:

https://nikongear.net/revival/index.php?topic=6143.msg99087#msg99087

Hope this would be of any help.

[gabrielpix]

I'm presuming that the 1.2 crop mentioned above is the crop mode in the D7100

[gabrielpix]

No, I was referring to the crop options in the D750 - instead of using auto DX (1,5x) crop, it may be a great advantage to use 1,2x times crop, or even FX.
If you use either of these settings with a DX zoom lens, you can zoom in until the image circle fills the frame without disturbing dark corners.
For some lenses, the result are better at the FX setting
For others, at the 1,2x crop setting.
Very rarely (if ever?) does the DX setting offer the best trade-off.

The 1,3x crop setting in the D7100 will not offer any advantages regarding image quality, only for fps and buffer. I never shoot sports or similar, and have never had a reason to use it.

Gabriel

[ch96066]

Thank you Akira. It helped in that I will try the same test on my soon to come Nikon 10-24 3.5-4.5.

Do you have a preference (and perhaps why) for any of the pics posted?

[Akira]

Thank you Akira. It helped in that I will try the same test on my soon to come Nikon 10-24 3.5-4.5.

Do you have a preference (and perhaps why) for any of the pics posted?

Kostas, my impression of this humble 10-20 is quite positive.  So far as you use for DX format, the image quality was very good throughout the entire zoom range.

At 14mm, it barely covers the FX format.  The light fall-off is significant and the corners are smeared.  But the setting could be usable when this extreme wideangle effect works.

At 16mm, the image is still not perfect, but the corners are much improved.

Even at 10mm, you could make full use of its given image circle for the square format whose side is longer than the shorter side of the DX format.  The same goes for the longer settings.

Hope I answered your question correctly.

[Matthew Currie]

Thanks for the clarification.  I didn't realize there was an intermediate crop for the 750.  It makes sense now.