Nikon 14-24 Review

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The Nikon 14-24 Lens is my wide-angle lens of choice.

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The Nikon 14-24 Lens Review

This is the best wide angle lens I have ever used. Whenever I am standing with a fellow photographer that has a Nikon DSLR, I immediately force them to remove whatever lens they happen to have on and put this one on so they can try it out. They are amazed too.

I’d say of my favorite portfolio pieces that this lens accounts for a good 40-50% of them!

Here is an anecdotal collection of the things they say:

“There is hardly any distortion!”

“I can’t believe how much I can see through this thing!”

“I wish I had this when I went to [insert name of a place where there is general photography-regret].”

“Wow that is a big ass bubble on there.”

As for that last comment; it is very true! The lens is huge – much bigger than you would ever expect. It has a huge glass bubble on the end to gather all that light, so traditional lens covers don’t work. The one it comes with reminds me a little of a top to a Starbucks coffee, and it’s not so easy to fit into your pocket as you are out and about.

Pretty much every landscape I take now and in the future will use this lens. It’s much better than the Sigma 10-20mm that used to fill my nights and days. Below is a shot I took with this monster of a lens. You can click on it to zoom in (All Sizes) on the Flickr link to see how wonderful it is.

What is that “f/2.8” about? It’s about speed. When you shoot at 2.8, you get a lot of light in very quickly. To prove how valuable this is, look at one of the shots below. I was hanging out of a helicopter shooting Chicago at sunset. There was not much light, and having a lens that shot at f/2.8 saved the day. Most of my landscape shots, however, are shot at a higher F-stop, like f/8 for example. When everything is at infinity, the F stop does not matter too much. However, as with the Chicago shot, you can see it is sometimes handy to use that “fast” 2.8 speed.

I’ve used this lens on a few different bodies. On the D3X (See my Nikon D3X Review), it is even wider and more amazing. I can usually capture everything I need in a scene… just amazing.

Not a Fish-Eye Lens

This is definitely not a fish-eye lens. I have shot with those, and they have extreme distortion. This does not. Yes, there is stretching on the sides and some distortion, but it is not nearly as intense as a fish-eye lens. Despite the bulbous-looking lens itself, it is definitely not a fish-eye.

Video of me using Nikon 14-24 in the Field

Well, not in a field… in Paris…

Sample Photos of the Nikon 14-24 in the Field

Here a few pics of me using this lens on some shoots…

The Nikon 14-24 out in Japan… You can see the bulbous lens. It looks like a fish-eye but is not.

More Information about my Photos

You might notice that I have a special post-processing technique. If you would like to find out more about that, you are welcome to visit my HDR Tutorial.

If you want to find out more about other equipment, I have some HDR Camera suggestions that also discuss a few other lenses.