Nikon AF-S 12-24mm f/4G DX

Nikon AF-S 12-24mm

I’m not going to repeat why a lens like this is so very important when shooting with a cropped sensor camera. When Nikon brought this lens out, they were the only game in town as none of the 3rd party lens manufactures had released their competing products at this time.

Perhaps it was because of this, Nikon obviously felt no need to be aggressive with the pricing, but on the other hand it does appear to be a very complex lens design and the performance lets you forgive the higher price somewhat.

This is one of my more used lenses as I love shooting wide angel. Performance wise, this is actually a very good lens. Vignetting is much better than I expected it would be for a wide angle DX lens. Only at 12mm can it cause any sort of issue that would require cleaning it up in the digital darkroom. Distortions too are relatively well controlled, and remarkably so when you consider the focal length. Sharpness is very good (especially centre) at 12mm if stopped down a little and becomes great by 24mm, so no complaints there either. This lens gives some of the most vivid images you’ll get, there is something in there that brings out lovely colours.

If you’ve never seen the lens I think you’ll be surprised by how big it is, or at least I was. This is not a small lens, not as big as a 28-70mm of course, but quite large nonetheless for an f/4 lens. The build quality is good, its not great but its certainly up to the task. I do wish they’d perhaps made it a little more robust for the price, but then I like exceptionally well built lenses and I can’t say this one is particularly bad, its just there is a lot of plastic in there.

It has an AF-S motor and as such it focuses very fast and quietly. The zoom and focusing rings are nice to the touch, although the focus ring is a little small for my liking but its nothing to get too upset about either. When all is said and done, you can get 3rd party lenses now that cover a similar range for a lot less money. None of them have everything going for them that the Nikon does however and its because of this that I’ve kept to this lens for more than 3 years now. It gives me back wide angle and does so with very good performance. Expensive, but I think you get what you pay for in this instance, like most things in life.