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Bojan Stepancic

I made user review of new Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f2.8 VR. It is great lens but biggg. The lens is very sharp from 24 to 50mm and litle les sharp on 70mm at f2.8. Sharpnes at close-ups is not very good, but from 2 meters and further improve. Corner sharpnes is also very good. AF is lightning fast.... mor of lens and sample photos are on my blog.

http://foto-info.si/test-objektiva-nikon...-8e-ed-vr/
Not being able to read your language, but I notice a few downsides right away...

  1. Very high vignetting (light loss) wide open at 70mm, for 70mm. Through the whole range actually, but more used on seeing that for wide angle. 
  2. iIndeed, does not look very good at close focus. Not really acceptable?
  3. That tendency to produce swirly bokeh due to mechanical vignetting, pretty unusual for a modern f2.8 standard zoom?
Hi Bojan, thanks for your link and the "test" - great to see pictures from Ljubljana. Now we have two members from Slovenija.

 

Did you check AFMA before going out and shoot? To me, the pictures look great, especially the colours. or is difficult to judge, because the pictures are pretty small and no detailed crops. The Google translated text left me smiling and confused, so most of the time I'm not sure to understand what you meant.

Bojan Stepancic

Quote: 

Not being able to read your language, but I notice a few downsides right away...

  1. Very high vignetting (light loss) wide open at 70mm, for 70mm. Through the whole range actually, but more used on seeing that for wide angle. 
  2. iIndeed, does not look very good at close focus. Not really acceptable?
  3. That tendency to produce swirly bokeh due to mechanical vignetting, pretty unusual for a modern f2.8 standard zoom?
 
Yes, vingnetting is a problem at 70mm f2.8 and 24mm f2.8. Close focus performance is strange at f2.8 on 36Mpix sensor it could be better. You can look full resolution photos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/

Bojan Stepancic

Quote:Hi Bojan, thanks for your link and the "test" - great to see pictures from Ljubljana. Now we have two members from Slovenija.

 

Did you check AFMA before going out and shoot? To me, the pictures look great, especially the colours. or is difficult to judge, because the pictures are pretty small and no detailed crops. The Google translated text left me smiling and confused, so most of the time I'm not sure to understand what you meant.
I did check AFMA, Lens had little backfocus, I corect it with -8 micro adjustment, after that it was ok. Brick wall photos were made with live wiev AF, because it was to bright to see on LCD corectly for manual focus. Yes I could imagine how google translate article Smile

Bottom line, I can say that the lens is optically great, although not without flaws. Close focus photos are not sharp as normal focus photos. Vigneting is havy at 24 and 70mm f2.8, ghost and flare are present at extreem conditions, bokeh is interesting and flatering for my taste, although sombody will find it bad it depends on teksture of bacground and light. Distorsion it could be seen on test photos, nothing special, but not bad. CA is very well controled. Lens is bigg but if it will bi durable then is ok. with me. Contrast, micro contrast and colour are great. Lens is very sharp from 24-50mm corners are also sharp from f4. 

Full size photos It can be seen at this address:https://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/

Bojan Stepancic

Here is English translation of review.

http://foto-info.si/review-of-nikon-af-s...-8e-ed-vr/

Bojan Stepancic

Here I added short comparison between 24-70mm f2.8VR and 24-120mm f4VR. The difference is clearly visible.

http://foto-info.si/primerjava-nikon-24-...0mm-f4-vr/

 

also full resolution photos no flick.

Bojan Stepancic

I finally managed to compare old AF-S 24-70mm f2.8 lens with new 24-70mm f2.8VR lens. The old one is opticaly excellent lens, this is evident from the test, new one is better in field of controling CA and ghosting and flare, it is more robust but time will tell about durability. Now I could put this new lens in right context.

http://foto-info.si/primerjava-nikon-af-s-24-70mm-f2-8g-proti-nikon-af-s-24-70mm-f2-8vr-2/ 

So the new one vignettes a crazy amount more, and that is (partly?) due to back element mechanical vignetting, causing the swirly bokeh.  It is much bigger, and heavier. It is about as sharp as the old lens, so not that different from the Tamron 24-70mm f2.8 USD VC. The old one has blue/yellow LoCA (at least at tested focal length), where the new one has the usual green/magenta LoCA.

 

That is what I get, from your comparisons and earlier samples.

And the new one gets the first delays. I wonder if Nikon underestimated the demand or did manage to make another design flaw?


Bojan, did you also take a closer look at the VR? On the new 300/4 PF E it turned out to be a big flaw and still is. Some exposure times will cause motion blur. I still want to compare that lens and the Sigma Sports in terms of VR. Although Sigma has to pay a penalty for copying the Nikon VR it appears theirs is doing the better job.


So maybe the same could be with Tamron's and Nikon's versions of 24-70? I don't want to blame Nikon but at this price it has to be the best and for what I see, I don't find any good reason to pay three times what I paid for the 24-105/4 which is superb in terms of VR.
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