More useful information regarding AF Fine Tuning.

http://photographylife.com/how-to-calibrate-lenses

For me I like the overlap of the 120mm with the 70-200. There are many times when I do event photography that I don't have time to swap lenses, and that extra reach can grab something that I would miss. To me, overlap is wonderful and when I didn't have it, I always felt stuck.

sevencrossing said:
+1

life is the wrong way round , buy the time you can afford all the gear, you are too old to carry it

Yes but buy the time you can afford it you can afford to pay someone to carry it for you.

park 1953 said:
You must be young. ......do it while you can and enjoy.

+1

life is the wrong way round , buy the time you can afford all the gear, you are too old to carry it

aquarian_light said:
Well thanks for the input! Weight isn't much of an issue, certainly won't be taking all my lenses everywhere for everything, but even if I had to I've got a very nice backpack bag that I frequently carry bottles of water in on my hikes. Sooooo I'm not too worried about that aspect.

You must be young. Weight is not a problem. Wish I could say that. It's not only the camera gear I have to carry but my own butt too. aquarian_light do it while you can and enjoy.

sevencrossing said:
a nice set of lenses, if you do not mind carrying a fairly heavy bag
but if you only want to travel light and still get stunning hi res shots, the 24 -120 is hard ( impossible) to beat

Well thanks for the input! Weight isn't much of an issue, certainly won't be taking all my lenses everywhere for everything, but even if I had to I've got a very nice backpack bag that I frequently carry bottles of water in on my hikes. Sooooo I'm not too worried about that aspect.

aquarium light said:
....a lens set up of a 50, and a 16-35 and in the future a 70-200.

a nice set of lenses, if you do not mind carrying a fairly heavy bag
but if you only want to travel light and still get stunning hi res shots, the 24 -120 is hard ( impossible) to beat

sevencrossing said:
another vote for Nikon 24 -120 very useful range.

vignettes and distortion can be easily and automatically corrected in lightroom

what other lenses do you have ?

70mm is a big short for portraiture; so if you do not have something like a 70 -200; I would go for the Nikon

The one or the other of the lenses in question will be complimenting a lens set up of a 50, and a 16-35 and in the future a 70-200. Basically a gap filler between the 16-35 and the future ownership of a 70-200. So I'm not entirely worried about the extra length of the nikon, because it will eventually get covered in my lens set up. But in the time between now and the glorious day i become a 70-200 owner the 120mm will be nice, but not entirely necessary.

TaoTeJared said:
I'm not sure if either lens would take advantage of the "E" below F/8 so I'm not sure it would make much difference between the two.

This lens is not intended to be taking full advantage of the resolution power here, for a portrait lens I intend to use higher apertures to make it just a hair softer. For my work where I want absolute sharpness, I have the 50mm 1.8g for stuff like architecture and still lifes, and the 16-35 for landscapes.

another vote for Nikon 24 -120 very useful range.

vignettes and distortion can be easily and automatically corrected in lightroom

what other lenses do you have ?

70mm is a big short for portraiture; so if you do not have something like a 70 -200; I would go for the Nikon

I love the 24-120 f/4, AF is quick, good range, sharp wide open, can easily get 3 stops of VR.

I have not used the Tamron 24-70 but the other Tamron lenses I have tried the VC takes a second to start/work which I found slow enough to miss shots. They may have updated it though but I haven't researched it enough.

I'm not sure if either lens would take advantage of the "E" below F/8 so I'm not sure it would make much difference between the two.

Wish I could give you feedback on the Tamron, but have never used. I do have the 24-120/4.0 though, and use it on my D800. It's a nice lens. Pretty sharp I'd say, and VERY USEFUL range! There are a few drawback: it vignettes at widest setting and distortion is, well, bad at widest FL. I never shoot at either end of any zoom for these reasons.

I think I paid $950 used, and have never looked back. It's very good and problems I mentioned can easily be fixed in post. Check out my flickr pages...almost all of the beach shots were taken with it. You can check the EXIF info. good luck

http://www.flickr.com/photos/45249503@N02/

Stabilized standard zoom... tamron is faster @ 2.8, nikon is longer @ 120mm, both have the image stabilization, both are pretty darn sharp according to online reviews, both are exactly the same price on amazon.

Thoughts?

P.S. Will be putting the lens on an 800E and will be used for studio/portraits/random-walk-around-the-woods lens.

Awhile back DigitalRev did a vid about bad glass on a good body vs good glass on a bad body. Short verdict was good glass always wins.

I would tend to agree.

I would also add, GOOD LIGHT and good glass can produce fantastic results even on the older, less capable bodies. A decent lens and the right light with even a lowly body like a D40 can make some stunning images.

tcole1983 said:
Hmmm my ratio of lens money to body money at this point is about 10:1 and if I ever upgrade my body will be around 4:1...so sticking with lenses here. Now you still have to keep up with the lately technology I think. Several generation newer bodies can do wonder for picture quality from what I have seen, but at the same time putting junky glass on an expensive body seems like a moot point also.

But now for years to come I can still use my glass I have invested in already...and my body is already out of date and needs (or I want to) upgrading.

I am with you as far as my own personal purchases go, tcole.

Only problem for me, is that my money doesn't go as far as my eyes tell me it needs to ;-)

Hmmm my ratio of lens money to body money at this point is about 10:1 and if I ever upgrade my body will be around 4:1...so sticking with lenses here. Now you still have to keep up with the lately technology I think. Several generation newer bodies can do wonder for picture quality from what I have seen, but at the same time putting junky glass on an expensive body seems like a moot point also.

But now for years to come I can still use my glass I have invested in already...and my body is already out of date and needs (or I want to) upgrading.

AA is indeed famous for his landscapes but early in his career, he could not support his family, solely with his creative work. Like many "creative " photographers he did "commercial" photography and like most commercial photographers, he took whatever work he could get and that included portraiture, see Ansel Adams an Autobiography

sevencrossing said:
Do look up his portaits of Albert Bender, Georgia O'Keeffe & Orville Cox, Robinson Jeffers, Mary Austin, Beaumont Newhall, Cedric Wright, Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston

Yes, I have mispoken....what I meant to say, was, his landscapes generally did not include people....and I believe this was quite intentional in sharing the scene as he saw it. It was to my understanding, the importance in his work was on the natural resources in the landscapes and the portraits he did snap were of far less importance. This is only my understanding and I could be in error here as well. But my knowledge is based on discussions from years ago..

Thanks sevencrossing..

msmoto said:
Probably important to understand, Ansel Adams lived in a time which was technologically limited. ........ he made little attempt to photograph people.......Just a few thoughts to encourage more comments :-)

Do look up his portaits of Albert Bender, Georgia O'Keeffe & Orville Cox, Robinson Jeffers, Mary Austin, Beaumont Newhall, Cedric Wright, Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston

Probably important to understand, Ansel Adams lived in a time which was technologically limited. No digital, no computers capable of what we can do today, and most important, his passion was the landscape. While his images are the highest form of photographic art, he made little attempt to photograph people.

If one is a "paparazzi" and is interested in recording life, then the camera's capabilities become very important. The high ISO, rapid frame rates, rapid interchangeability of lenses, and portability of the camera body are in some cases critical. So, in one senses asking which is more important is like asking which is more important in the car...the engine or the transmission....

Just a few thoughts to encourage more comments :-)

For me? I believe in lenses. Fast glass.

I took a note from reading about Ansel Adams some years back and it made sense to me. He said, all other things being equal, the lens is the most important. If it does not get through the glass, you'll never see it on the image.

As an example, I bought the Nikon 70-200mm ED VR II f/2.8 early in 2012. Fast glass. In the middle of shooting a season of local baseball, I could suddenly see very detailed fine dust/dirt particles in my images just as my eye did as the players moved or from the catchers glove. Others were just as amazed at the 'new' images.

Before that I was using an f/4.5 Nikon zoom/tele. Both good lenses, but the VR II f2/8 internal zoom was better from all my reading and seeing it could be f/2.8 through its focal range was something to be said.

I've the same experience with my Micro Nikkor 60mm and two other very good lenses.

Fast glass rules for me as I love hearing people's breath being taken in at the sight of my pictures. :-) It just makes a good camera better.

I'll get a new body in 2013. My investments in glass that I have made will only improve even more then.

@ golf007sd... nice video which I learned something again.... the distance from camera to target at which to do the AF Fine Tune is at least 50 times the focal length or for a telephoto lens at least 25 times the focal length. And adjust in small increments of 2 for the Nikon AF Tune scale.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JPTnz_mimo&feature=g-vrec

I calibrate the AF of all my lenses. For a zoom lens, the process can be extremely tedious because the optimal micro-adjustment will depend on the focal length you're using, the aperture or f/ at which you are shooting, and the distance from the camera to the target. Commercial products like Lens Align test for an AF offset at close and moderate distances, but not at large distances approaching infinity, which may require a different adjustment than the one that's optimal at the shorter distances (this I know from personal experience). To test my lenses, I use a custom designed target that is similar to an eye chart but also includes a good number of special characters with lots of detail, e.g., smiley faces are a good test of sharp/soft focus.

When I recently tested my Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR II, 70-300mm, and 24-120mm f/4 lenses on my D800, each of them came out needing a -2 unit offset, independent of target distance. However, the sweet spot or optimal value of the micro-adjustment happens to be fairly broad, so a null value (no offset) turns out to be good enough. The 70-200mm and 70-300mm lenses mounted on my D7000 require different offsets, +3 units for the former, -2 units for the latter. Again, a null offset turns out to be good enough. My newly acquired 18-300mm lens mounted on the D7000 needs a +4 setting, i.e. it slightly front-focuses. For a while I also owned a copy of the 16-85mm DX lens. Wide open, it front-focussed by +4 units at focal lengths below 28mm but back-focussed by -4 units at focal lengths longward of 70mm for apertures wider than about f/7.1 . At apertures smaller than f/7.1 a null offset was optimal. Needless to say, this confusing state of affairs was difficult to keep straight in the field, and while I did take a number of really sharp pictures with the lens, I eventually got rid of it out of frustration.

Testing zoom lenses at large camera/target distances is fruitless at wide angle and problematic at the telephoto end of their zoom range. I've tended to use shots of high rise hotel buildings, which have lots of windows or other structure on their facades. Occasionally I'll use power and telephone poles instead. Some of the poles in my neighborhood have huge electrical insulators and fuses on them, which make good targets for AF systems, since they have lots of detail and contrast needed for a solid focus-lock. Perhaps others can suggest better choices than this.

I bought a 24-70 f/2.8G and a 50mm f/1.8G with my D600 two weeks ago. The 50mm has been unbelievably sharp... with focus being spot on. But, over the last two weeks I've noticed quite a bit of weirdness with the 24-70... a lot of shots look great with focus being spot on... and others are soft. I also don't think I've been getting the resolution I should out of this lens, especially at the edges (even stopped down, on a tripod, with a 3 second shutter delay things are a bit "smeary" toward the left side).

I was doing some (informal) testing over the last few days and I noticed that all of my shots at 24mm are heavily front-focused. I started dialing in some adjustment and noticed that I needed quite a bit (~7-10) before shots looked in focus at 24mm.

Today, I decided to get more scientific about it and set up my own "lens align" kit (also known as a vertical target with a yard stick sitting next to it at an angle). I started with no adjustment and shot at about 40mm... comparing contrast detect AF (i.e., AF in Live View mode) with phase detect AF (i.e. "normal" autofocusing through the viewfinder) using spot focus in the middle of the frame for both.

At ~40mm everything looked "ok" not much difference between the two autofocus modes. At 70mm everything still looked ok (a little front focusing but not that much). At 24mm.... it is totally off. The DoF _totally_ misses the target (yes, even at 24mm where the DoF is fairly large) using phase-detect ("normal") AF.

At this point I started trying to dial in the proper AF adjustment... and I settled on about +15 at 24mm! That is huge. At that setting things looked pretty good when autofocusing around my office though.

However, using this setting I then tried 70mm... and it back-focuses. Not a huge amount, but it is evident. Then I try ~40mm... and now the DoF at 40mm _totally_ misses the target... back focusing beyond the target. Craps.

I believe that something is actually wrong with the lens. This isn't a tolerance thing. I think that an element must be de-centered or something along those lines (de-centering would explain the lack of sharpness on one side of the image as well).

I'm not going to mess with Nikon on this one. This is a $2000 purchase that is less than 2 weeks old. It's going back to the reseller for replacement on Monday. I bought it online... now I'm wishing I hadn't (much easier to take it back to my local shop...)

I did this on a rainy day some time ago and found that the 85 mm f/1.8 did show some front focussing that I tried to correct using the AF fine tune. Two other lenses also seemed to have some front focus (it wasn't much, something like +5, so I was not sure if I did something wrong or not).

Finally I decided to send the camera plus four lenses to a Nikon Service Point while camera and lenses are still under warranty. According to the report the did a LWM adjustment (seems to be some sort of lens alignment) on the 85 and did the AF fine tune for the 28 mm f/1.8 (and I am sure that they did a better job than me). The other two lenses were ok.

Bad thing was, that I had to wait for two weeks and I did miss some nice weather for taking pictures...