There has been raging debates if DX lenses are doomed, some postulating that some years down the road all DSLR would be FX and purchasing DX lenses are bad decision. I do not think so, as there are definite advantages DX have over FX, mostly in the size, cost and performance departments (DX taking only the central part of the FX frame and thus uses the sweet spots of most lenses, even film lenses).
Along the way there has been many photographers who had tried and see if DX lenses could actually provide FX coverage. The answer to this question is maybe, some lenses would cover the FX frame at certain focal lengths, others won't.
Over Christmas I had a brief opportunity to play with a D3 that belongs to my brother-in-law and took the opportunity to test this out on my Tokina ATX DX AF 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 fisheye zoom lens. And for the heck of it, I also tested the Nikkor AFS DX 35mm f/1.8G. Do they work on FX? See the pictures for answers.
All photographs: Nikon D3, NEF file processed using default setting on Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0. Can't remember if I did any sharpening, probably did on "process multiple file" with "sharpen" selected. Exif data should be intact.
Click on photos to view full size image.
Tokina 10-17mm
13mm - serious vignette
14mm - vignette still visible
15mm - FX coverage
16mm - FX coverage.
Nikon AFS DX 35mm f/1.8G
Close focus - no apparent vignette
Normal focus distance - vignette is apparent.
Conclusions
The Tokina ATX DX AF 10-17mm f/3.5-4.5 fisheye zoom will cover FX from 15mm onwards. Whether the performance is up to par is different question. My current position without doing pixel peeping is to keep the lens for FX use and decide later if it is good enough, when I get my FX camera anyway.
The Nikkor AFS 35mm f/1.8G is a curious case - it just about covers FX for normal use. In fact I think there will be those who will use this on FX as a matter of fact, like those who would introduce vignette intentionally in their photos. My guess is that Nikon could have made a FX lens out of this DX design without incurring much cost, I would say 10-20% increase in cost would have made this an FX lens. Again its FX performance might be suspect - can cover FX doesn't mean it is good for FX. This I will need to test another day - when I have access to another FX body.
No comments:
Post a Comment