Purchased my first Nikkor 2.8 lens!

[Youthman]

Wow Amy! That shot is BEAUTIFUL! Nice capture.

How can you say the 17-55 was your first f/2.8 lens you bought when you were holding that 70-200 f/2.8 in your hands?

Key words there is "bought". The 70-200mm was given to me since it has focusing issues. The AF works intermittently and I was using manual focus the other day and it did not want to focus. I had to rotate the manual focus ring a few times to get it to begin focusing again. So even though it's a cool lens, it doesn't generate the excitement that I get from the 17-55mm 2.8 since it's in mint condition and in perfect working order.

Skip the AF issues and just practice your MF skills

It's hard to manually focus on a kid playing basketball or my daughter running track or cross country. For most of what I would use the 70-200mm, it would be action shots which would be very difficult to use manual focus on.

[Thaddeus Smith]

Gotcha, makes sense.

It will probably cost a few hundred $$, but you can send that lens into Nikon to have the focusing issues repaired. Still far cheaper than buying new (or even used, since it was free). It would be a shame to have such a lens sitting unused.

[Thaddeus Smith]

oh and btw, the 70-200 is wonderful for landscape photography.

http://digital-photography-school.com/why-you-need-a-telephoto-zoom-lens-for-landscape-photography/

and portraits. it was one of my all around favorite lenses (if you can't tell)

https://www.flickr.com/groups/70-200_landscapes/

Edited May 2, 2014 by Thaddeus Smith

[LarryC]

I like f/2.8 -- it's bright enough for easy exposure, usually rich in contrast as well as bright, and not too big to be a size, weight, and cost burden until you get up to 200 mm or more. A nice shallow depth of field wide open when you want that.

In contrast, f/4 gets a bit dim for me in today's ground-glass AF screens, and the d.o.f. is a little vague for my tastes.

[Youthman]

Michael, are those your images in the links you provided? Honestly, I never would have thought to pull out my telephoto lens for landscape. Interesting way of looking at it.

Larry, am I correct that typically the lowest aperture on a lens is not usually the sharpest? I've been told that most of the time, that 1 stop above the lowest aperture will provide the sharpest image.

[dtel]

Larry, am I correct that typically the lowest aperture on a lens is not usually the sharpest? I've been told that most of the time, that 1 stop above the lowest aperture will provide the sharpest image.

I want to hear the answer to this also, I always thought f8 was sharpest for most lenses ?

[dtel]

You are the second one that has mentioned the Zeiss. I've never heard of them. Do they make them for nikon lenses?

They make everything that needs good glass, eye glasses, lenses, binoculars, rifle scopes, microscopes, well a lot of things, and there usually the best you can get.

[Youthman]

Seems there isn't an exact answer.

This guy did some testing with 3 different lenses and each lens had different f/stop that were the sharpest.

This guy suggests it is typically 2 stops from the lowest aperture. So in a 2.8 lens, 5.6 would be the sharpest.

Guess the best way to find out is to test each individual lens you have and see for yourself.

[dtel]

It can never be easy can it.

With my eyes it will be hard to tell, I already have my diopter cranked to the other end being I can't take a pic with my glasses on. Everyone who tries to use it ask what's the problem, I tell them and they usually just trust the autofocus instead of adjusting.

Edited May 3, 2014 by dtel

[Thaddeus Smith]

Unfortunately not my pics. I used my 70-200 most for portraits and weddings, preferring my voigtlander 58mm for landscapes (when I did them). I focused mostly on candid/photojournalist styles when I wasn't doing weddings.

[Max2]

Diffraction is the issue when stopped way down. Different lenses will give different results. I have a sigma 1.4 prime that is pretty much maxed out at 5.6 As a rule of thumb, F8 is good level for me on my zoom lenses, unless you are going for some lighting effects. Im not all up on it, but there is a lot of info out there on this.

Ken Rockwell

Laypeople think diffraction is caused by light rays bending around sharp edges. Physicists know the limiting resolution is defined by the diameter of the Airy disc which is defined by the f/number, and astronomers and spy satellite designers know that angular resolution is defined by the diameter of the clear aperture.

Diffraction is accurately predicted by both ray and wave theory.

Theoretical maximum resolution is limited by f/number. A perfect lens can do this under perfect conditions. A lens this good is called "diffraction limited." Few lenses reach this level at large apertures. Most lenses meet these levels at small apertures, because the resolution limits are so low at f/22.

f/

line pairs per mm

1.4

1,100

2

800

2.8

565

4

400

5.6

283

8

200

11

141

16

100

22

71

32

50

45

35

64

25

90

17

128

12

These limiting resolutions are the resolutions at which contrast falls to zero. The contrast is reduced as the resolution approaches these figures. If you have a system which only resolves 50 l/mm, you can still see a loss of sharpness if you stop a lens down to f/16 which can resolve 100 l/mm. This is because the contrast falls at the lower resolutions which the system can see. You have 0% contrast at the limiting resolution, and about 50% contrast at half that resolution. The percent contrast vs. resolution curve is called Modulation Transfer Function (MTF). MTF is similar to a frequency response curve.

[sputnik]

You are the second one that has mentioned the Zeiss. I've never heard of them. Do they make them for nikon lenses?

Carl Zeiss, German. They've been around a long time. The lenses are things of beauty, sharp as a tack. Gorgeous glass, and heavy. Only downside is lack of auto-focus for many OEM models, but I'm ok with that most days. Until my eyes start to go, ha.

After Christmas, I was stocked up with Amazon gift cards, so I splurged. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't drop that kind of cash.

All my other lenses are Canon, except my 70mm-300mm, which is a Tamron (with image stabilization). I'm very happy with that one for the price. I take most of my wildlife shots with it:

Amy, did you get the f1.4 or the Makro f2.0? While Zeiss is a German company, I think the Zeiss Planar 50mm lenses are actually made in Japan by Cosina nowadays. Certainly a fine lens and available in a Nikon mount to answer Youthman's question. I looked at the f1.4 myself but it didn't strike me as being a heavy lens.

Edited May 4, 2014 by sputnik