This lens was designed in the 35mm film days for full frame FX. So it flourished indoors low light on the F4E then again on D3S. This is my long time favorite still used today. It was the 1st Pro/Press accepted kit bag wide zoom for each durability & quality. This was truly a working , money makers lens. Many renditions of it were made for military tactical & space exploration use . It cost a bomb new, nearly a new Nikon F4E body in 1993.
Thank you for this excellent review (your English is impressive, if I may say so). However, in the context of this lens, most of the video content here looks like it was shot with a 10-15mm GoPro or similar... That aside, this is as you say a legendary lens, being the first professional-grade UWA Nikkor. It used to be in every pro photo-journalist's bag. It is all-metal built (except for the M/A collar). Construction is Leica quality, as were all of these professional Nikkors back then. This lens has a ground glass aspherical front element which was very expensive to manufacture (its successor, the 17-35, uses a glued plastic-moulded element). This lens does not include ED glass, but as you say, it's a collectors' lens, which is not to say it lacks in performance. On the contrary, it remains hugely viable unless intentionally shooting wide open in hard light. Stopped down a tad and it shines brilliantly: colour rendition, micro-contrast; it's all there, as it ever was. Pixel-peepers will find fault in the corners no doubt, but that will ever be so: the price of everything and the value of nothing. And colour fringing can be instantly removed in PP. This lens remains totally valid (I use it on my Nikon D810 and D7100) and if you can find a good copy at a fair price buy it. Alas, there are not that many around for reasons of collectibility and its sheer mechanical and optical excellence. An old-school keeper! It is a work of lens art in itself.
Thank you! And thanks for all the additional info. I do actually own the successor 17-35mm and it is a bit “underwhelming” in comparison. The video you see is shot with a Panasonic HX-A1 action cam mounted on the camera hot shoe, since it is a “one man show” I want the wide angle to capture the general feel of the aria while I can focus in on the specifics with the lens. I think this is a technique used by other YT-photographer channels like Matt Granger, Jared Polin, Tony and Chelsea among other.
I have to ask why you would shoot at such a high ISO while using negative 2-3 stops exposure compensation. Why not reduce ISO for less noise instead? Am I missing something?
Well, since I used this in the evening and didn’t have a tripod plus the fact that I did some bracketing for HDR I opted for a higher ISO so I could still get shutter speeds high enough to minimise lens/camera shake. Since it also was dark outside I have been tolled TTL camera meters sees “correct exposure” as 18% grey, and I didn’t want that. The D7200 douse not have IBIS nor dues this lens have VR. So at the time it was the “best” solution for me, I also used Aperture priority.
Think the Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 suffers from a similar problem, though I don’t have any personal experience, from what I have gathered it comes from people “forcing” the M/A switch between moods without depressing the button. As for a fix for the problem… in my mined your best bet is to simply get it to a repair shop and get a cost estimate. Either way, it is a brilliant top quality lens.
