My lens test 24-85 vs 50 vs 70-210

juno_first · 23 Mar 2014 at 14:08

This lens test wont be as good as a proper test done by dpreview etc. but it gives me an idea which lenses to put my faith in with a new full frame camera (Nikon D610), especially as two of the lenses are 23 years old with probably no reviews available. Maybe it will be of help to someone considering going full frame, being as I found no difference in quality between a zoom & a prime with a crop sensor (Nikon D90).

The biggest challenge I had was consistency. I shut the nearly opaque blinds & relied on 4 energy saving bulbs which forced 2500 kelvin to be used :eek:

. I pushed up the ISO to 400 so I didn't run into many reciprocity law issues with a 30 second exposure, although still 6 seconds at f22 :rolleyes:

Even by adjusting shutter/aperture accordingly like 1/250th at f8 is the same as 1/125th at f11 there were still gamma differences between the shots.

As I mostly take landscapes i'm currently saving for the Sigma 35mm f1.4

Sorry removed images as there was virtually no visible difference at 800x600. Which kinda says if all you do is post pics on Facebook then whats the point in spending loads on a camera & lens.
See next posts for close-ups.

juno_first · 23 Mar 2014 at 14:21

Here are a couple of close-ups between the middle & edge.

2-50-f8 middle pic

5-24-85at50-f8 middle pic

juno_first · 23 Mar 2014 at 14:33

Here is a close-up of the pic at the bottom lower left, but f22 due to the DOF.
Both same exposure but zoom is darker, probably due to vignetting.
Flicking between the two pics & the distortions from the zoom are clearly visible. About what you'd expect.

2-50-f22 end pic

5-24-85at50-f22 end pic

alexthecheese · 23 Mar 2014 at 18:12

What is shooting at f22 going to tell you? Anything at all? I thought the sweet spot for most lenses was about halfway through their aperture range, f8 / f11. That kinda thing. Tell me I'm wrong, but that sounds like it won't give you anything at all?

a1ex2001 · 23 Mar 2014 at 21:02

Shooting at F22 will just show you how bad diffraction problems are and let you compare two images that are far from optimum sharpness. I also wouldn't expect any difference between a half decent zoom and a prime at f8 both will be very sharp unless you start comparing 100% crops side by side and nit picking. I would expect the difference to show in distortion rendering and possibly ca. To get meaningful differences between lenses in terms of sharpness you need to push them out of the comfort zone!