Your Nikkor 10-24, how soft do you find it, and how much AF fine tune does yours need?

CaMeRaQuEsT

This lens just drives me mad. It is my most expensive piece of gear from Nikon and yet it is also the softest lens I own. It was terribly soft on my D3300, especially on the lower right corner, and it still is in my D7100, even after fine tuning it at +10 or manual focusing it zoomed-in in LV. My 24mm f/2.8D is extremely sharp compared to the 10-24 at 24mm. Is it just my copy or this lens is just soft by design? How are your experiences with this lens?

PB_PM

The 10-24mm DX lens is the inferior replacement that came in for the 12-24mm F4, I don't think it was ever known for being stellar.

When you say it is not sharp, do you mean at wider aperture or stopped down (F8-10)? If so it could be an issue with your copy of the lens. It might just be that the focusing is not properly aligned as well.

pictureted

I think it might be your copy. I bought one for my D90 and felt it still delivered excellent results with my D7100. Even wide open at 10mm the corners were decent. Yes there was fall-off in the cornes, but PP fixes that easily.
I never thought it inferior to the 12-24. Variable aperture, yes, but 1/2 stop faster at 10mm. That 2mm wider is wonderful.

CaMeRaQuEsT

I usually shoot at f/5.6-8 with this lens if the available light allows, and even so stopped down it is nowhere near as sharp as any of my primes wide open. The extreme corners at 10mm are the worst offenders, which is a real downer as that's the FOV I use most often. It's also pretty much useless at night wide open. I've seen many full res samples on the web and they all look more or less as soft as mine. Maybe I set my expectations with this lens too high, but I'm definitely disappointed with this investment, especially since I very seldom use it and the local demand for used units is so low I haven't been able to unload it for the last 6 months.

PB_PM

Two possible issues then, first of which is centring, meaning that one or more lens element could be incorrectly aligned, which would make one part look dramatically softer than another. Or second, part of the issue is that the lens was deigned for 10-12MP camera, I think it simply cannot handle the demands of more modern high pixel sensors.

tcole1983

I see lots of sharp pictures on Flickr. Might be a bad copy or camera issue. I always heard the opposite of what some are saying and that it was pretty good. I thought if I was going to get another ultrawide it would be the 10-24.

pictureted

from Hearst Castle - D90, 10mm, f3.5, 1/13, ISO 200 (Not AF fine tuned)

Ironheart

My copy is good all four corners and center, on a D7200. Adjustment value: zero. Given the wide angle, at 10mm just about everything should be in focus, no matter what. The focus scale goes 0.8 1 2 infinity for a reason. You have a decentered or otherwise busted copy. Send it in!

Pistnbroke

I gave up using wide lens ( 10-20 Sigma) on DX as at 10 mm you are cramming 4x the information onto the chip as you do at 20mm ....
for wide you want as many MP as possible .I now use the D800 and Samyang 14mm ( equivalent to 10mm on DX)
The physics of life

CaMeRaQuEsT

That is also true, as all the samples I've seen from all the APS-C ultra wides on the market, even coming from the factory, show the same maladies of my 10-24 at varying degrees.