NIKON 24mm PC-EJune 9, 2008 By Ken Rockwell
The Nikon 24mm PC-E is a very specialized $1,850 wide-angle tilt-shift lens manufactured ideally for the Nikon D3. The “PC” stands for perspective control and the “E” stands for electronic diaphragm. Nikon says this is the first of three new PC-E lenses, with the next two due for announcement in the summer of 2008. These PC-E lenses are a huge step forward from Nikon’s legacy PC lenses because they are the first from Nikon to tilt. The electronic diaphragm and well-designed mechanics of this Nikon 24 PC-E allow you to shoot hand-held with tilt and shift using your AEL button. The relationship between tilts and shifts is fixed in this lens. As shipped, you get left/right swing and vertical rise/fall. If you tilt up or down, you can’t swing left or right or if you rotate the entire lens assembly to change the angle of tilt, you also alter the line in which it will shift. Unlike previous 35mm and 28mm PC lenses, this new 24mm PC may be shifted the full 11.5mm in any direction. COMPATIBILITY: The only camera on which this lens works perfectly is the Nikon D3. With other cameras, including the D300, parts of the camera interfere with some parts of tilting and shifting. The diaphragm doesn’t work on older AF cameras or any manual focus camera. If your camera can autofocus with an AF-S lens, you most likely can use the diaphragm manually. The 24mm PC-E meter-couples intelligently to modern AF and digital cameras. On the D3 you get automatic exposure and fully automatic diaphragm operation. SPECIFICATIONS:
PERFORMANCE: The drag and feel of all the adjustments (focus, aperture, rise and tilt) is just perfect—you’ll be impressed with how well everything works. The geared movements work great and the scales are engraved. There are locks for swing/tilt and another for rise/fall, with more drag settings than locks. In the field, it works very well. Focus is manual only; unlike other 24mm lenses, it focuses really close; down to macro range. Focus is tight and precise and it’s not likely to drift. The focus is internal—nothing moves externally. Metering only works unshifted and untilted. If you want to shoot this hand-held, you can set the AF-L button on the D3 in such a way allowing you to meter straight, then lock the exposure for as long as you like to shift and shoot at the locked exposure. Even with all the ED and aspherical elements, the lens still has color fringes—too bad, for a $1,900 lens intended for architecture. The good news is that the D3 often corrects this, but not always. With shift, it often confuses the D3’s algorithms, which attempt to correct images single-endedly. The D3 doesn’t know that it ought to be correcting around a point other than the center. At worst, you'll be able to see color fringes even at screen resolution. The lens has a tiny bit of barrel distortion, however, it’s simple and easy to correct in Photoshop CS2. With this lens, panoramic stitching works very well, because you’re only shifting the lens, not pointing it in different directions. You’re effectively stitching different parts of the same image, not disparate images. The diaphragm is consistent enough so the shots match just fine. You can simply shift left and right (or up and down), or get creative and shoot in more than two directions. Center sharpness, like almost everything from Nikon, is great, even wide open. Depending on what I’m doing, the D3 usually compensates the color fringes. The only way to dull the sharpness, besides stopping down too far, is to shoot wide-open and look in the two farthest corners at full shift. If you shoot with full shift, stop down to f/5.6 or f/8 and the farthest corners are perfect. On the D300 the 24mm PC-E is sharp in center at any aperture, but has visible lateral color fringes if shifted all the way. OVERALL: The Nikon 24mm PC-E lets you shoot interiors and exteriors the right way and lets you shoot landscapes and wide tablescapes with ultimate sharpness. As shift lenses go, it works easy and fast on the D3. To see examples of how this lens captures images and to read the article in its entirety go to www.kenrockwell.com 
This review was excerpted from KenRockwell.com, a personal website dedicated to photography including a thorough section on equipment reviews as well as a section on useful tips and advice. Ken Rockwell, the editor-in chief of his website, has been taking pictures since he was five years old and quickly progressed to shooting in medium format and aerial photography by the age of ten. Being the son of an electronic engineer, Rockwell began studying digital imaging in the 1970s and got his formal engineering degree in 1983. Rockwell worked at TRW LSI Products Inc., where he helped design digital imaging systems used in motion picture special effects, television broadcasts, spacecraft and even scanners. Rockwell’s photography has won numerous awards and is featured in both public and private collections worldwide. He teaches at several workshops throughout the year including the Route 66 workshop, a workshop for the Yosemite Association as well as a workshop for the Polytechnic University in Turin, Italy. To get more tips on photography and to read additional reviews by Rockwell visit his site at www.KenRockwell.com |
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