Hi I'm Erkan Ozgur Yilmaz,
Today, we'll be reviewing the Nikon 24 f/1.4G lens.
Hi again,
Today,
we'll be reviewing 24mm f/1.4 lens as I've said last week.
The Nikon 24mm f/1.4G is the widest lens
in Nikon's f/1.4 aperture "G" series lenses.
As you know, other than Nikon has 35, 50, 58, 85
and the recently announced 105 mm lenses.
These are generally created for professionals,
as you see from this yellow ring,
The yellow ring in Nikon, has a similar meaning
like the red ring in Canon L series lenses.
Because it is a lens designed for professional use,
its material and build quality and its optical quality are quite good.
As in the previous lens reviews,
we'll be first talking about the material and build quality
and then finally we'll be talking about the optical quality of the lens.
Also, we'll be comparing it with the three lenses that I have that has the 24 mm focal length.
One of them is the 24-70 f/2.8G, the first version.
Then the 14-24 f/2.8G, the second of the holly trinity lenses.
And, we'll be comparing it with an old lens; Nikon 24 f/2.8D.
Let's start with the ergonomics and material quality.
If we start from top to down,
It's lens hood has a petal shape.
It is thicker than a normal lens hood.
In this professional series the hood material thickness increases a little bit.
It is a little bit different than the thin hood material that you'll find on the cheaper Nikon lenses.
This lens has a standard 77 mm filter thread.
The front element,
even it is a dome shaped one,
doesn't prevent you to put filters on this lens.
If we go down,
the focusing ring,
it is relatively smooth,
of course this lens that I'm holding is a used one
and makes noise, but nonetheless it has a smooth focusing ring.
And, interestingly, contrary to the other professional Nikon lenses that I own,
the focus ring has a very long rotation range.
It allows around 120 degree of rotation.
And this allows you to precisely do manual focus.
As it is a standard in "G" type lenses,
the focusing ring doesn't have stops.
The lens has auto focusing.
Despite this, I indeed liked the large rotation range of the focusing ring.
If we keep going down,
You see a focus scale window,
These numbers shows where you're focusing at a particular moment.
But, these are not a certain but approximate numbers.
And, again there is this big "N" letter
that you can find on Nikon's professional lenses,
it means "Nano Coating".
And "Nano Coating" generally tells us that this lens has a good ghosting and flare performance.
If we look at the side of the lens,
there is a switch
that allows us to switch
between manual and auto focus modes.
This auto focus option here is a "manual priority auto focus" option.
So, you can manually override the focus distance while automatically focusing.
As we keep going down,
right beside the rear element of the lens,
you'll see this rubber gasket
which protects the lens against weather conditions.
Again, this is a very common gasket in these pro series lenses.
And the rear element doesn't have anything fancy to show.
Well,
The material and build quality is
on par with my 24-70 or 14-24.
The price of the lens is 2000 USD.
It is a very expensive lens.
And because its high price, of course,
you start to question if it is really necessary to pay that much
by comparing its features to the alternatives.
When mounted on to the camera, I think, it is really big for a 24mm lens.
And it is heavy,
it weighs around 600 gr.
And especially, when you compare it
to another 24 mm lens,
you can see the size difference.
Of course, this is a f/2.8 aperture lens
and this is a f/1.4 one.
Of course, there is a difference in their optical performance.
But how much, we'll see...
Of course, before deciding about this lens
you need to consider
how much do you need f/1.4 aperture.
Now, f/1.4 aperture means that it is gathering 2-stops more light compared to f/2.8.
That is, for example,
a photo that you should expose for 10 seconds with this lens,
can be taken in 2.5 seconds with this lens.
And this immediately brings nightscape photography in to mind.
You immediately think that you can use this 24 mm f/1.4 lens in nightscape photography.
But, you need to look at the "Coma Performance" for this.
And the "Coma Performance" of the lens is very bad.
Especially at the corners, point light sources like stars turn in to a plus sign.
Thus, I think it is not very suitable for nightscape photography.
And when I searched for the best lens for nightscape photography
in 24 mm focal length range, I've learned that the Samyang 24 mm f/1.4 is the best.
Especially in "Coma Performance".
I keep repeating in every video I make, I very much like Samyang brand lenses.
In this focal length range, the Samyang lens is very very good compared to Nikon in "Coma Performance".
I hope, in future, I'll also own a Samyang 24 f/1.4 lens and test it.
Because it has Nano coating, its ghosting performance is good.
It has a flare pattern that effects the photo very little.
The lens does "Focus Breating".
But it doesn't have a problem like the 24-70 has
which changes its focal length hugely.
But its focal length changes.
It is a little bit better than the 14-24 at 24 mm.
Even tough it is an older lens,
the 24 f/2.8D has a little bit better performance
than 24 f/1.4.
Because it is a f/1.4 lens, it has a lot of "Vignetting" at f/1.4.
It clears a lot in f/2.8.
At f/2.8 it is better than 24-70 at f/2.8,
in fact, it is better than 14-24 f/2.8 at 24 mm.
I can say that it has a very good vignette performance at f/2.8,
At f/1.4, as I've said, it has a lot of "vignette".
As you know, there are two types of "Chromatic Aberration" problem,
the first is the change of color towards the corners,
the second is the change of color
towards the front or back of the point that you have focused.
In these two types of Chromatic Aberration problems, this lens is horrible.
It is really bad.
Especially at f/1.4 it makes axial chromatic aberration like crazy.
It is very good in "Distortion".
But,
For example, at 24 mm the 14-24 has also very good "Distortion",
at 14 mm it is horrible.
The 24-70 f/2.8 at 24 mm, its widest that is, is horrible.
I remember that I've not measured this lens.
But, I'll explain in a minute, because its size and its prices, you'll see that it is a very good lens.
Well, let's talk about "sharpneessss".
But, I didn't look at [singing] my "sharpness" notes.
Let's talk about the sharpness,
Of course, you do not pay 2000 USD for nothing.
This lens is sharper than these other lenses, starting with f/1.4 and at all apertures,
and both at the edges and at the center.
In the middle, of course the other lenses are also very good,
but at the corners the 24 mm f/1.4 is very sharp.
But at f/5.6 and above,
this little and cheap lens is also as sharp as 24 f/1.4.
There is nothing more to say about sharpness.
Let's talk about how much do you need this lens,
and what are the alternatives other than these lenses.
The 24 f/1.4 has alternatives like,
Sigma 24 f/1.4,
or Samyang 24 f/1.4
or
Nikon 24 f/1.8G
Also among the old "D" series lenses,
it has alternatives like 24 f/2.8 and 28 f/2.8.
I don't own this lens.
I absolutely wouldn't buy this.
I would not pay 2000 USD and buy this 24 f/1.4,
But instead I would buy the Nikon 24 f/1.8G
or if I'm in nightscape photography I would buy the Samyang 24 f/1.4.
Other than these,
it has cheaper alternatives.
As a lens with 2000 USD price tag, the features that it supplies is not be enough to buy this lens.
Well, today, we've done the review of Nikon 24 mm f/1.4G lens which I tried to complete as soon as possible.
As I've explained, it is not a lens that I would choose.
It has a very good optical quality, it is a very high quality lens,
but it is a very expansive lens,
it has a price tag of 2000 USD.
and when you look at the alternatives, you don't want to buy this lens.
Especially, when its size is that big,
and you can carry a lens like this, of course let's be fair this is a f/2.8 lens.
Other than that it is an expensive and nice lens.
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