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How are the Nikon Primes ?

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jope88

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Hey all, I'm interested in learning some more about Nikon's prime lenses. At the moment I own a Pentax and I'm familiar with their lenses and lineup, but I'm looking for a better low light setup. I shoot street all day but what I'm most interested in right now is twilight/night shots. I picked Pentax because of their great primes but I'm interested in the ISO that Nikon has. I was wondering if there are any Nikon primes (20-50mm) that really shine at their lower fstops.

Both Oly and Pentax have their "ok" lenses and their serious quality workhorse lenses and I'm wondering what Nikon primes make up the latter. I'd appreciate any information :-)!

My smugmug account has a few recent photos that I've taken: http://johnliznyc.smugmug.com/

Cheers

p.s. is there a user website with Nikon lenses and reviews? similar to pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/

(posting this in the Canon forum as well)
 
Nikon's current best primes ,IMO ,are the new 24f1.4G and AFS60f2.8GED.

AS for Canon , the current best primes are the 135f2L, 200f2L and 24f1.4L2 , if MF is ok , then the TSE24 and TSE17f4 , these are really superb.

Non of Pentax lenses can compete these Nikon and Canon primes in terms of pure IQ and AF speed.
 
Thanks pandalee, I forgot to mention that AF lenses are what I'm looking for

JP
 
Coming from Pentax, I assume you'll be shooting DX.

If so, the 35mm f/1.8 is a great lens, a bargain, and sharp wide open.

The 50mm 1.4 G and D are both excellent. The G is sharper wide open, while the D is very sharp across the frame by f/2.8.

The 85mm 1.4D is considered the best portrait prime around. "The Cream Machine" is what it's called due to its creamy bokeh.

Most people go with those primes, and possibly a macro - 105mm VR, or 60mm AF-S.

For off-brands:

Sigma 30mm has great bokeh and a nice Field of View, but is soft at the borders and corners.
Sigma 50mm is probably the best 50mm lens available for Nikon.
Tamron 90mm is a great Macro and a good value.

As for Full Frame:
The new 24mm 1.4 is very pricey but very incredible.
The 50mm lenses are same as above,

and the 35mm f/2 is good, but there are rumors of a new 35mm 1.4 which will undoubtedly be great, but pricey.

Pentax has a better selection of crop sensor primes. Nikon and Canon have nothing like the optimized for crop DA limited series. Nikon has a great selection of zooms and a few very good primes. They are in the process of updating and upgrading the FullFrame prime lineup, whereas Canon's FullFrame L series prime lineup is complete today 24mm 1.4, 35mm 1.4, 50mm 1.2, 85mm 1.2, 135mm (these lenses are very pricey) and 100 Macro is there as well.
 
pandalee said:
Nikon's current best primes ,IMO ,are the new 24f1.4G and AFS60f2.8GED.
Click to expand...
For the time being, leave the 24/1.4G out - while it exhibits the AF problems that are widely reported, it just can't be ranked as "one of the best" Nikon's primes.

--

Robert Capa said 'you can never get close enough'. Well, he did.... He also often visited my daily photoblog at http://logatec.blogspot.com/
 
thanks , but what is the AF issue with the 24f1.4G you mentioned?

never heard anything bad about this lens.
 
jope88 said:
Hey all, I'm interested in learning some more about Nikon's prime lenses. At the moment I own a Pentax and I'm familiar with their lenses and lineup, but I'm looking for a better low light setup. I shoot street all day but what I'm most interested in right now is twilight/night shots. I picked Pentax because of their great primes but I'm interested in the ISO that Nikon has. I was wondering if there are any Nikon primes (20-50mm) that really shine at their lower fstops.
Click to expand...
The 24/1.4 AF-S is thought to be the very best Nikon wide angle by some reviewers. The 28/1.4 (used; may be hard to find inexpensively) should also be great. The 35/2D AF is compact and inexpensive, but not as sharp at wide apertures especially at the FX edges. The 50/1.4G AF-S is a very nice lens, very practical and works great at wide apertures. I recommend avoiding the rest of the AF Nikon primes in the 20-50mm range. If you can get a KatzEye screen or something, manual focus options also exist that are highly recommended: 28/2 Zeiss ZF(.2), 28/2 Ai-S Nikkor, 35/1.4 Ai-S Nikkor, and 35/2 Zeiss (ZF(.2)). The Zeiss ones are sharp to the corners wide open and/but they're quite contrasty. These Ai-S Nikkors are a bit softer on contrast and they are not quite sharp to the edges at wide apertures but the softer contrast can be pleasing for people pics in available light.

Something to consider. Are you interested in FX or DX Nikons? If DX, then the options for fast wide angles are more limited. The 24/1.4 is probably the only fast wide angle prime worth its salt (28mm-35mm is normal on DX). There are a couple of additional primes available which are not in my list: the 30mm Sigma and the 35mm DX Nikkor which are fast normal lenses for DX but they do not properly cover FX.

FX, of course, is the format of choice for low light if you can afford it.
 
Ilkka Nissilä said:
Something to consider. Are you interested in FX or DX Nikons? If DX, then the options for fast wide angles are more limited.
Click to expand...
Sigma has a bunch of DX fast wide primes.

There are more lens options in general for DX than FX. So while FX might have superior image quality (at roughly 2x to 3x the total cost plus a nearly corresponding weight gain) it is not the only option. For example, I would prefer a d90 or d300s to go hiking with over the superior d700 or d3.
 
Riccardo Polini said:
Bjorn_L said:
Sigma has a bunch of DX fast wide primes.
Click to expand...
I don't think so ... (unless you refer to FX wideangles ...)
http://www.sigmaphoto.com/sigma-lens-finder
Click to expand...
Hmm. Ok, I guess the fella I borrowed some lenses from did not know his own lenses. As I tried out a 20, 24 and 28mm f1.8, all of which he said were DX only.

Since he was trying to sell them to me, I assumed he would not have called them DX unnecessarily. I did not buy them for just that reason, since I prefer FX lenses so they can be used on both.
 
Last I checked those lenses were all FX. I own the 20 and 24. They are, however likely all D mount lenses -- which means they have aperture rings and an extra contact (never quite clear on the react purpose of that, something about distance for flash vs. The original AF mount).

--
'Nice pen, bet you write good stories with it.'
 
Nikonparrothead said:
Last I checked those lenses were all FX. I own the 20 and 24. They are, however likely all D mount lenses -- which means they have aperture rings and an extra contact (never quite clear on the react purpose of that, something about distance for flash vs. The original AF mount).
Click to expand...
I checked the Sigma site, and all 3 were in fact FX. Btw, all newer Nikon lenses are also "D" type. This includes all the newest AF-S. It has to do with distance info for metering. Apparently not a big deal, since Nikon kept it in their lenses, but stopped mentioning it.
As I recall the Ken R. had a good write up on his site.
 
pandalee said:
thanks , but what is the AF issue with the 24f1.4G you mentioned?

never heard anything bad about this lens.
Click to expand...
I guess you weren't listening ...:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1030&thread=35203282
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1030&thread=35259990
http://diglloyd.com/diglloyd/index.html

--

Robert Capa said 'you can never get close enough'. Well, he did.... He also often visited my daily photoblog at http://logatec.blogspot.com/
 
D700 + Zeiss prime is superb for walkaround.
(From a user of 3 FA Limited, Canon 85f1.2, 135f2, 200f1.8, Zeiss ZF).
pandalee said:
Nikon's current best primes ,IMO ,are the new 24f1.4G and AFS60f2.8GED.

AS for Canon , the current best primes are the 135f2L, 200f2L and 24f1.4L2 , if MF is ok , then the TSE24 and TSE17f4 , these are really superb.

Non of Pentax lenses can compete these Nikon and Canon primes in terms of pure IQ and AF speed.
Click to expand...
 
I am guessing you could not be bothered to read the rest of the thread where I acknowledged the info I got from the lens owner was wrong.
 
Wonderful information guys, I will bookmark this for future reference :-) I plan to stick with digital :)
 
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