A Talented Trio Of New Nikkor Lenses
Three of Nikon’s recent new Nikkor lens releases showcase the latest optical design and technologies… and an on-going support for D-SLRs.
Celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, Nikon continues to back its support of the D-SLR with a busy program of new lens releases, including the talented trio we’ve tested here – PC Nikkor 19mm f4.0E ED, AF-S Nikkor 105mm f1.4E ED and AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8E FL ED VR .
PC Nikkor 19mm f4.0E ED
Nikon’s widest-angle perspective control lens proves to be surprisingly versatile… and highly addictive.
While it’s true that perspective control (PC) lenses have applications beyond just architectural photography, you need to be very dedicated to pursuing technical perfection to make an investment of over $3000 on a wide-angle prime… and a manual focus one at that. However, what you get with the PC Nikkor 19mm f4.0E ED is an effective solution to a number of technical problems, albeit an expensive one.
The 19mm is the widest angle PC lens to be offered by Nikon – the previous widest was 24mm – and it has an expansive 97 degrees diagonal angle-of-view when used on a full-35mm D-SLR (which Nikon calls the ‘FX’ format), reducing to 73 degrees when used on an ‘APS-C’ (a.k.a. ‘DX’) D-SLR. It makes a lot of sense to go wide with a PC lens as this is where its technical corrections can be most useful… when shooting tall structures, for example. Nikon
already offers a line-up of three PC-E series perspective control lenses – a 24mm f3.5, a 45mm f2.8 and an 85mm f2.8 – but the 19mm benefits from a number of recent developments in lens technologies and design. For starters, compared to the PC-E lenses, manual aperture selection is now performed from the camera body so the 19mm doesn’t have an aperture collar. It has a special fluorine coating on the exposed front and rear element surfaces to help repel moisture and grease, but this lens isn’t fully weatherproofed… it’s a bit hard to do with all those mechanical adjustments, but there is a rubber gasket around the lens mount. However, the biggest upgrade on this model is that it’s now possible to rotate the tilt and shift movements independently so, if required, they can be applied in different planes. It makes for a more mechanically complex design, but also increases the potential usefulness when shooting architecture, interiors and even landscapes.
Getting Into The Swing
Tilt? Shift? What are we talking about here? For starters, perspective control lenses are often also called tilt/shift lenses (Canon even uses the designator ‘TS’ on its models) and these two adjustments are collectively known as ‘movements’ and ‘displacements’ respectively. The rotational capability enables these adjustments to be applied in both the vertical and horizontal planes (or even at an angle in between).
Back in the days of large format cameras – which comprised of a lens standard and a film standard connected by a set of bellows – these adjustments were applied to the camera which was fitted with a normal lens. The flexibility of the bellows enabled the lens and the film to be tilted, swung or shifted independently of each other, enabling much greater control over both perspective and sharpness than is possible with a rigid-bodied camera. Hence the need now for special perspective control lenses with mechanical adjustments which allow the optical axis to be moved in relation to the focal plane (i.e. either tilted or shifted). The shift adjustment allows for the correction of convergence which otherwise makes tall buildings appear as if they’re toppling over. The tilt adjustment enables the plane of sharpness to be adjusted (literally tilted from the normal perpendicular) which has the effect of giving an extended depth-of-field without the need to select smaller apertures. A tilt adjustment applied in the horizontal pane is, logically, called a swing.
The rotational adjustments on Nikon’s PC Nikkor 19mm allow you to apply either tilts vertically