I'm looking to buy a wide-angle lens for a Nikon N70. Am I best to stick to Nikon lenses or are other brands comparable (e.g. Sigma). I guess I'd be looking at a 28mm lens, probably autofocus. Also is manual focus better over autofocus for these lenses ??

Thanks

Rob

-- Rob Howes (howes@cmgm.stanford.edu), February 03, 1999

Answers

Rob,

It is difficult to find a better set of lenses than the Nikon 24D 2.8 and the 28D 2.8. For the fine quality and the reasonable price of these Nikon lenses, why even consider a third party?

The newer wide angle auto-focus Nikons employ "close range correction", that in my opinion, make them superior optics to the older manual lenses.

Good luck in your decisions...

John

-- John Purdy (jpurdy9@aol.com), February 03, 1999.

I agree with the poster above -- the Nikkor 28/2.8D is a bargain. By the way, it lacks CRC (CRC = "Close Range Correction" -- of the Nikkor 28/2.8s, only the AIS version had it), but is still very sharp and incredibly lightweight too.

The Nikkor 24/2.8D would also be a superb choice. All the Nikkor 24s, going back to the non-AI ones, have CRC.

CRC is something you want -- it's more than a marketing gimmick, so don't let anyone at the store tell you that "close-focusing" or "macro focusing" mean the same thing. With CRC, the lens groups move independently when focusing from near to far, so lens performance is optimized for both close and distant subjects. CRC is sometimes called "floating element design."

Get the AF-D version of whatever lens you get, so you can use the nifty 3-D metering and "D" flash technology on your N70.

-- John Kuraoka (kuraoka@home.com), February 04, 1999.

When the AF 28/2.8 D came out, Nikon said it has CRC (brochures and reviews). The newer brochures omit this claim. It has one more element than the AF 28/2.8 non-D, and is reportedly much better optically than the plain AF though not as good as the 28/2.8 Ai-S.

It looks exactly like the other CRC wide angles they make (design of the front element etc.), but who is to say if it has it or not if Nikon is unsure ... :-)

Ilkka

-- Ilkka Nissild (ilkka.nissila@hut.fi), February 04, 1999.

Illka: Nikon says they don't have it. I called Nikon (because of the confusion in their own product literature that you point out). The tech support people said that the 28/2.8D does *not* have CRC; of the 28/2.8s, only the manual-focus AIS version has it. On the other hand, the 28/2.0 has had CRC since its introduction, as have all the 24/2.8s and 2.0s.

Rob: The Nikkor 24/2.8 is a classic lens in any version, including the AF-D, but it's almost twice the cost of the 28/2.8D.

Addressing the use of manual focus over AF, which I found hadn't been discussed: I find the camera rarely puts the plane of focus where I want it to be, especially when using a wide-angle lens. When using hyperfocal focusing, of course, AF is useless. That, in turn, brings up another point: the 28/2.8D has hyperfocal markings for f/11, 16, and 22, where the manual lenses have those plus an mark for f/5.6. The point of getting an AF-D lens, isn't as much for the AF, as for the D -- the ability to use the distance information for flash metering and automatic exposure modes. Besides which, with an N70, you get somewhat limited in your options when you mount any manual-focus lens.

-- John Kuraoka (kuraoka@home.com), February 04, 1999.