D7000 - Which of the Holy Trinity would you take when you hang out with friends?

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D7000 - Which of the Holy Trinity would you take when you hang out with friends?

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NSXType-R

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Baba Ganoush said:
I agree with some of the comments here that the 18-55mm kit lens is not nearly as good (i.e., presumably most people mean sharp) as it is sometimes claimed to be. Perhaps I have a bad copy of this lens, but in order to get what I consider to be decent shots with it on my D7000, I have to crank the in-camera sharpening setting on the neutral Picture Control I prefer all the way up to a value of 6. Even then the images are only about half as sharp as those I routinely get with Canon's similarly cheap 18-55 mm kit lens on my old 450D XSi, where I need to do much less in-camera sharpening. I'd like to sell my 18-55 mm lens, but what I can get for it seems such a pittance I don't know that it's worth my time to shop it around. In the meantime, I've bought a 16-85mm lens for my D7000, which has proven to be at least the equal of the 18-55 mm in terms of sharpness, as I had guessed from looking at the MTF curves and as I've confirmed with a number of test shots to compare the two lenses in detail under various shooting conditions. The first lens I bought with my D7000 was the 50mm f/1.8D FX lens, which also gets high marks from many Nikon users, but IMHO that lens is a pretty junky one, too, and a waste of money. (The copy I bought was made in China; the earlier copies that people rave about perhaps was made in Japan and thus of much better quality, which could account for the difference in opinion.)

Maybe your lens front focuses or back focuses?

Posted 2 years ago #
Drab

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NSXType-R said:
Maybe your lens front focuses or back focuses?

Yea, when one complains of three sharp lenses not being sharp the lenses are unlikely the cause.

Posted 2 years ago #
spraynpray

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Baba Ganoush said:
"I agree with some of the comments here that the 18-55mm kit lens is not nearly as good (i.e., presumably most people mean sharp) as it is sometimes claimed to be. Perhaps I have a bad copy of this lens, but in order to get what I consider to be decent shots with it on my D7000, I have to crank the in-camera sharpening setting on the neutral Picture Control I prefer all the way up to a value of 6. Even then the images are only about half as sharp as those I routinely get with Canon's similarly cheap 18-55 mm kit lens on my old 450D XSi, where I need to do much less in-camera sharpening. I'd like to sell my 18-55 mm lens, but what I can get for it seems such a pittance I don't know that it's worth my time to shop it around. In the meantime, I've bought a 16-85mm lens for my D7000, which has proven to be at least the equal of the 18-55 mm in terms of sharpness, as I had guessed from looking at the MTF curves and as I've confirmed with a number of test shots to compare the two lenses in detail under various shooting conditions. The first lens I bought with my D7000 was the 50mm f/1.8D FX lens, which also gets high marks from many Nikon users, but IMHO that lens is a pretty junky one, too, and a waste of money. (The copy I bought was made in China; the earlier copies that people rave about perhaps was made in Japan and thus of much better quality, which could account for the difference in opinion.) "

NSX said: "Maybe your lens front focuses or back focuses?"

Say what?

Posted 2 years ago #
TaoTeJared

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I think his CHI is off. (Camera-Human interaction)

Posted 2 years ago #
soshigee

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Uhh o_O maybe people mean that it's sharp in ratio to the price of the lens? :|

and i did hear some bad things on the 50 1.8 :|

still going for borrowing 18-55 b4 i get any zooms ^.^

Posted 2 years ago #
Drab

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soshigee said:
Uhh o_O maybe people mean that it's sharp in ratio to the price of the lens? :|

and i did hear some bad things on the 50 1.8 :|

No, on absolute levels they are plenty sharp.
The 18-55 is slow, cheaply made, and has lots of annoying ergonomic attributes, but it is not what one would consider a "soft" lens by any reasonable definition.

Posted 2 years ago #
soshigee

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does any1 own the 16-35mm f/4 ? I'm considering that also :P

Posted 2 years ago #
Baba Ganoush

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I see that my previous post hit a raw nerve among the Nikon fanboys here. As Jack Nicholson said, perhaps you guys can't handle the truth. (LOL)

My implicit point was that--considering the price---the Nikon lenses I mentioned do the job, but they are nothing to rave about and, depending on your expectations and personal requirements, perhaps not as high a quality as one should mate with a camera as good as the D7000. I have compared the quality of the images from these lenses with those I have taken of the same scenes at the same equivalent 35mm focal lengths with my Canon 24-105mm L lens, which is a pretty decent standard for comparison. The pictures taken with the Canon lens are clearly superior, as they should be for a lens that costs 5+ times more than the Nikon lenses I am judging. The Canon outperforms the cheaper Nikons not only in the center of the FOV, but also out to the edges---and is more symmetric in doing so (i.e., I have the feeling that the sharpness of the Nikons degrades out to the edge of the FOV in a slightly asymmetric fashion about the optical axis, but haven't pursued that point very far). But, by the same token, I have a Panasonic FZ28 that I use as a travel camera, for which I paid a grand total of $250, and the pictures I get from it are as sharp as, if not sharper than, those from the Nikon. Pictures from my Panasonic ZS6, which I bought at Costco for about the same price as the Nikon lenses, also give the Nikon photos a run the money when it comes to sharpness, and it's just a damn P&S camera.

Over the past two decades, I've taken well more than 150,000 individual images that I have examined carefully and processed for my photo library. I know exactly what I'm looking for. Bottom line, it is possible that either the D7000 copy or the lenses I bought are not working properly to yield sharply focussed images, but as it stands now, I stand by my earlier statement that the photos I get from the 50mm prime and the 18-55 mm are not as SHARP as one might expect given the rave reviews that are so widely posted on the Web. For the price, acknowledging that these are not pro-level lenses, you may find that the results with your equipment are acceptable. I say, chacun son gout!

Posted 2 years ago #
Testing123

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Let us count the logical fallacies.
Ignore those and extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.

You're claiming results which are not supported by the preponderance of the test data out there, but that's ok because you're an authority and those who disagree are fanbois.

Thanks, boss.

Posted 2 years ago #
Mike Gunter

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Hi,

I had the 18-55mm on my D50 and sold it with the camera. I thought it was sharp as any lens I had and better than some. It's such a cheap lens, I keep thinking I might get another for travel and let the 18-105mm stay at home.

As for "build quality", I'm finding that an old saw. Granted, if it takes a hard fall, it very well may break and end it's life, but 'plastic' also mean pliable - it does have 'some' give to it - hopefully enough to survive a small drop, and if it doesn't, used, refurbished, lenses are quite reasonable - about the cost of a high-quality filter. Some folks like metal lenses, and I get that. But I've seen glasses shattered from a lens made of metal, too, so it doesn't solve all problems.

It isn't fast, but too many people keep equating 'fast' and 'sharp' as the same thing. It's a slow lens that's very sharp. It's a lot like the other kit lens - the 18-105mm, also sharp, also slow.

If the Canon lens and Lumix camera pictures are sharper, it could well be that there are systemic problems with his focus, too. He wouldn't be the first. A number of users - a surprising number - are finding some lenses are not focusing well on the D7000. That's getting pretty well documented on the forums. Baba could well be one of them. He might try fine tuning his lens, if he so chooses. Tweaking the fine tuning could make a huge difference in his picture taking with the camera.

My best to all,

Mike

Posted 2 years ago #
Baba Ganoush

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Mike Gunter said:
If the Canon lens and Lumix camera pictures are sharper, it could well be that there are systemic problems with his focus, too. He wouldn't be the first. A number of users - a surprising number - are finding some lenses are not focusing well on the D7000. That's getting pretty well documented on the forums. Baba could well be one of them. He might try fine tuning his lens, if he so chooses. Tweaking the fine tuning could make a huge difference in his picture taking with the camera.

My best to all,

Mike

Thank you Mike for offering your polite and helpful comment, which is what a forum is for. When people won't accept different opinions and lash out with insults instead of constructive comments, a forum becomes just an echo chamber. Then what's the point?

I agree that the next step is to fine tune the lens and perhaps service the camera. I've just ordered a kit to do a proper test for front/back focus, but I don't think that will affect my conclusions since I've done my testing with both AF and manual focus. Still, it's worth a try before sending the camera back for warranty service.

And I agree with you that build quality is not a big issue for any of these lenses. I'm not buying a battleship; if it breaks when I drop it, then it's my fault for being careless. I have no expectations that a moderately priced lens should survive extreme abuse.

Posted 2 years ago #
Drab

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So a fighter and then a peacemaker. ;)
I'm a scrapper by birth, but I gotta go with Mike on this one. Let's play nice.

EDIT:

But whoa there Baba. Don't be so quick to distance yourself from the scrap you picked (at least enabled) with provocative words such as "fanboy". Testing's charges are spot on the money if not a bit crude.

Posted 2 years ago #
Mike Gunter

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Hi Drab,

I have my sword and my plowshares - I'm not sure I'm any good with either, but this isn't a fight to fight. The lens is a good lens. If he isn't good results he needs to try to find out 'why' somewhere else.

@Baba. I'm likely the biggest fan of those things that have 'Nikon' on them you'll ever find. I'm also a picky SOB, too. If it doesn't work right, I'll say so, much to the chagrin of those who have to fix the bad pixels at Nikon.

I'm still saying things - loudly - about poor focus on the D7000. I think that's your problem. There are too many accounts of focus issues popping up for it to be too small an issue. It might be fixable with firmware or a simple trip to the shop, but it seems to be there. But the lens is a good lens.

You'll likely find that out in time.

My best,

Mike

Posted 2 years ago #
Baba Ganoush

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Drab said:
So a fighter and then a peacemaker. ;)
I'm a scrapper by birth, but I gotta go with Mike on this one. Let's play nice.

EDIT:

But whoa there Baba. Don't be so quick to distance yourself from the scrap you picked (at least enabled) with provocative words such as "fanboy". Testing's charges are spot on the money if not a bit crude.

But my accusation of "fanboy" was followed by "LOL," so it was obviously meant in jest, whereas the comment that prompted my response was not. Alpha males are to be found everywhere, so NR is no exception. I picked no quarrel. I merely responded to one with humor and ridicule. LOL!

Posted 2 years ago #
spraynpray

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"I see that my previous post hit a raw nerve among the Nikon fanboys here. As Jack Nicholson said, perhaps you guys can't handle the truth. (LOL)"

Followed by:

"Thank you Mike for offering your polite and helpful comment, which is what a forum is for."

Sounds like you need to take your own advice there Buba!

BTW - try as I might, I can't see any of your super-sharp snaps on the PAD thread?

Posted 2 years ago #
NSXType-R

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Drab said:
Yea, when one complains of three sharp lenses not being sharp the lenses are unlikely the cause.

spraynpray said:
Baba Ganoush said:
"I agree with some of the comments here that the 18-55mm kit lens is not nearly as good (i.e., presumably most people mean sharp) as it is sometimes claimed to be. Perhaps I have a bad copy of this lens, but in order to get what I consider to be decent shots with it on my D7000, I have to crank the in-camera sharpening setting on the neutral Picture Control I prefer all the way up to a value of 6. Even then the images are only about half as sharp as those I routinely get with Canon's similarly cheap 18-55 mm kit lens on my old 450D XSi, where I need to do much less in-camera sharpening. I'd like to sell my 18-55 mm lens, but what I can get for it seems such a pittance I don't know that it's worth my time to shop it around. In the meantime, I've bought a 16-85mm lens for my D7000, which has proven to be at least the equal of the 18-55 mm in terms of sharpness, as I had guessed from looking at the MTF curves and as I've confirmed with a number of test shots to compare the two lenses in detail under various shooting conditions. The first lens I bought with my D7000 was the 50mm f/1.8D FX lens, which also gets high marks from many Nikon users, but IMHO that lens is a pretty junky one, too, and a waste of money. (The copy I bought was made in China; the earlier copies that people rave about perhaps was made in Japan and thus of much better quality, which could account for the difference in opinion.) "

NSX said: "Maybe your lens front focuses or back focuses?"

Say what?

To the above posts- Drab and SprayandPray- I did assume his focusing abilities to be reasonable. If he did focus correctly and still thinks that the lenses don't focus to his liking, he should try out the focus correction, which is available on the D7000.

Posted 2 years ago #
TaoTeJared

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@Baba Ganoush - we are all just giving you a hard time :)

I'm with Mike on this one - sounds like the camera is not focusing properly. It happens to all brands, rare but when it happens with multiple lenses I would guess something off. Your Canon will be sharper than the 18-55mm for sure, but as you said, it cost 5x more.

Another thought, I have friends who shoot Canon that have said that Canon does have a higher default noise reduction, saturation and sharpness straight out of the camera than Nikon. Nikon does seem to take a more neutral stance in-camera processing believing that users would prefer to do the adjustments in post. Neither practice is better or worse, just seems what they do. My Panasonic digi-cam over sharpens like crazy. It is much older (5+yrs) and on an old sensor you can really tell. If I turn it off, images are quite fuzzy. I don't know how much difference it makes, but they seem to think it does.

Posted 2 years ago #
Drab

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NSXType-R said:
To the above posts- Drab and SprayandPray- I did assume his focusing abilities to be reasonable. If he did focus correctly and still thinks that the lenses don't focus to his liking, he should try out the focus correction, which is available on the D7000.

I was supporting you, not challenging you, by saying that "if three lenses all appear softer than common knowledge the problem very likely isn't the lenses."

Posted 2 years ago #
spraynpray

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..and my point also was that if all three lenses are soft, all three of them being front or back focussed is unlikely.

Posted 2 years ago #
studio460

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Baba Ganoush said:
I agree with some of the comments here that the 18-55mm kit lens is not nearly as good (i.e., presumably most people mean sharp) as it is sometimes claimed to be. Perhaps I have a bad copy of this lens . . .

Sounds like you may have a bad copy. Also, as I've come to increasingly scrutinize my personal cache of Nikkor lenses (since I joined NR), I've found that Nikon quality is not wholly consistent. I have some noticeably soft Nikkor glass, even among certain focal lengths, long-heralded as among Nikon's "sharpest" lenses (e.g., 180mm f/2.8). It's true, the 18-55 VR is very cheaply built, but my copy happens to be very sharp. It's sharper than my AF Nikkor 18mm f/2.8D, and much smaller, so if I don't need the speed, I grab the 18-55mm instead. It's the only "kit lens" that I actually use:

Nikon D90
AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR; ISO 100; f/8 @ 1/125th

And, even though the 18-55mm is as slow as molasses, for static subjects, the VR can really help make a shot. It's actually almost pitch-black to the eye in this scene below, but the 18-55mm's VR allowed me to make this 1/8th-second exposure without a tripod:

Nikon D7000
AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR; ISO 3200; f/3.5 @ 1/8th

And, although the image above is shot at a fairly high ISO, and therefore, includes a fair amount of noise, the image still retains a high degree of acutance. This $99 lens (refurb) is so surprisingly useful, that I would go so far as to nominate the 18-55mm VR as the leading contender for inclusion in the new, "Poor Man's," Holy Trinity.

Sure, for low-light interiors, the super-slow 18-55mm is going to be virtually worthless, but it's so small, and so inexpensive, I still think it's worth keeping in the bag. This day and age of multiple-thousand dollar zooms and ultra-fast, $2,000 primes, has really affected the way I think about the "standard" lens set-up, urging me to re-think my options, redefine my photographic goals, and completely reassess my past and future lens selections. And, despite my huge aversion to slow kit lenses in general, I've really grown to appreciate this little gem, the 18-55mm, for what it is.

Posted 2 years ago #
Baba Ganoush

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"I'm with Mike on this one - sounds like the camera is not focusing properly. It happens to all brands, rare but when it happens with multiple lenses I would guess something off. Your Canon will be sharper than the 18-55mm for sure, but as you said, it cost 5x more."

You are absolutely right on this. I admit that when I first got my Canon with its 24-105mm lens several years ago, the performance was a tad disappointing. I documented the problem, sent the camera and lens (with my test shots) to Canon for recalibration. When I got them back, along with a note from Canon saying they had made some adjustments, the improvement was nothing short of astonishing. So, %$#@ can happen even with the most expensive equipment.

"Canon does have a higher default noise reduction, saturation and sharpness straight out of the camera than Nikon. Nikon does seem to take a more neutral stance in-camera processing..."

I agree with Nikon's philosophy to leave the user in control of his tools. Even so, in my original post, I was just reporting that my pre-processing images---those taken straight from the camera---were not as good as I had expected, considering the many laudatory reviews I had read before I purchased my camera and the 50mm prime lens. Not to put too fine a point on it, it's not obvious to me that my 18-55mm lens, say, is performing worse than expected from Nikon's MTF data. It may well be performing up to its specs, just as my Canon kit zoom lens may well be performing consistently up to its MTF specs, which are very similar to those of its Nikon counterpart. My comment in my post was only that the actual results I got in the field (which are the real test) did not seem to live up to the reputation I had inferred from the many favorable user comments I had read on the Web.

" My Panasonic digi-cam over sharpens like crazy."

Panasonic has that reputation I gather, and I am sure it is true of my FZ28 as well: very aggressive on-board sharpening and noise reduction.....which of course impacts my comparison with the Nikon.

"he should try out the focus correction"

That is the next step, to be sure. As I said, I've ordered a test kit to do this systematically in case I decide to send the camera back to Nikon for service. In the meantime I can take a sequence of shots with a series of different adjustments to see if there is any improvement as I go through the exercise. I just have to find the time.

My sincere appreciation to those who responded to my post and offered helpful comments....

Posted 2 years ago #
studio460

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Baba Ganoush said:
I admit that when I first got my Canon with its 24-105mm lens several years ago, the performance was a tad disappointing. I documented the problem, sent the camera and lens (with my test shots) to Canon for recalibration. When I got them back, along with a note from Canon saying they had made some adjustments, the improvement was nothing short of astonishing.

How much did that cost? My 180mm f/2.8, 35mm f/2.0, and 18mm f/2.8 Nikkors aren't as sharp as they could be.

Posted 2 years ago #
soshigee

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I hope I get a good copy of whatever I'm getting. might be 16-35 f/4 :O

Posted 2 years ago #
studio460

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soshigee said:
I hope I get a good copy of whatever I'm getting. might be 16-35 f/4 :O

I really like that focal-length range from Nikon. It's definitely wide enough on the short end for FX, and 35mm is as long as I'd ever shoot on a short FX zoom. It's also the only FX wide-angle with VR. While not as fast as its Holy Trinity big brothers, it's nice that it's a constant-aperture lens.

Posted 2 years ago #
Michael DeRose

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hmm, after reading all this, i have to add, i found the 50mm to be a bit too soft when i tested it out on my d7000 at my local camera shop. @baba, if you still are having problems, i would go and try the 35mm 1.8. It was sharper then the 50mm i tested. I think if your dont like how things look after that, you might want to send your camera in to get checked.

Posted 2 years ago #