Nikon Fit WA Options

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Hello people of Talk Photography, I'm afraid this is another thread asking for collective advise on getting some sort of wide-angle lens. This may be slightly different in that I am entirely open to both primes and zoom options from first and third party manufacturers.

What I require from this lens will be a lens that has a filter thread and is not a DX lens. To be honest I need Tokina to suddenly produce their 11-16 in FX but sadly this won't happen. Great optical performance is very important to me.

The Nikon 14-24 is out because it has no filter thread, I know there is a new Lee filter system that will fit it but the filter for that are going to be mind bogglingly expensive. That on top of the fact that I already have a Lee filter setup puts that idea out of the window.

The Nikon 17-35, I actually currently have this lens and although I've heard lots of brilliant things about it, it just doesn't do it for me. I don't want to get into the bad copy v good copy debate but I believe I've got a lens that could be thought of as a Friday afternoon lens.

The new Nikon 16-35 seemed like the ultimate answer to this question but at the wide end there seems to be rather a lot of distortion and even vignetting. I'm currently shooting a DX camera so the vignetting won't be such an issue (in theory) but I don't want to find all the flaws this lens has when I finally get an FX camera.

The Nikon 24-70 seems to have the optical performance in the bag but it won't be wide enough on DX and I'm not entirely sure if it would be wide enough for me on FX. Having said that, perhaps this is the best compromise.

Unfortunately my knowledge of zooms from other manufacturers is awful, the Sigma 12-24 seems great but as far as I'm aware it has no filter thread so is again ruled out. I'm not sure if Sigma/Tamron/Tokina have any brilliant zooms hidden away in their product lines.

As for primes, I've looked at the Nikon line but none of them seemed to be entirely up to the job. There are some nice Zeiss primes available but apparently the wider ones are difficult to focus (a bit of an issue?). I don't mind manual focus primes so this could expand my options a bit.

Can anyone think of a lens that caters for my needs? :shrug:
 
Have you tried calibrating the 17-35mm? Some of them need a tweak to get the AF to lock-on exactly in focus - this is why the newer bodies have the facility to do this...
Or is it just soft across the board?
If that were the case I'd send it back for a service/repair - it's a £1300 lens after all - it should bloody work!
 
Tamron ƒ/2.8-4 17-35mm as a cheapo option.

Nikkor ƒ/3.5 20mm MF prime.
 
I've sent the lens in for calibration and it came back with the note "adjusted best as possible". I was very hopeful that my issue would be sorted but it wasn't. I bought this lens second hand so I didn't pay anything like the full retail price and of course have no warranty. It's entirely possible that the problems I'm having are user error but I have taken the lens out on quite a few shoots and seem to be getting similar results. Perhaps I'm doing too much pixel peeping and not enough shooting.

Some of the better results I've been getting have been on par with my Nikon 18-70 (a brilliant lens) but I would have thought the 17-35 would do better, particularly since as I'm currently shooting DX. Ironically I got so fed up with this that I've been shooting with a Pentax 67 instead and have been much happier.
 
If you are staying on DX the 10-24 is a pretty good lens, it was only released ast year and replaces the 12-24mm.
 
Tamron ƒ/2.8-4 17-35mm as a cheapo option.

Nikkor ƒ/3.5 20mm MF prime.

I'll have a look into the 20mm prime, thanks.

If you are staying on DX the 10-24 is a pretty good lens, it was only released ast year and replaces the 12-24mm.

I plan on going FX in the not too distant future, which makes this rather more of a pain. I think if I was staying DX I'd get a Tokina 11-16 and be done with it. Decisions decisions!
 
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