Nikon 24-120/4vr vs. Nikon 18-35G vs. Tamron 70-300vc landscape test
Nikon 24-120 f/4 ED VR is a quite boring lens. Not a superzoom, not very fast aperture, not lightweight, not great at anything besides being universal 5x zoom for full frame Nikon cameras. Shortest focal length of 24mm is reasonably wide while longest length of 120mm is reasonably telephoto. Aperture of f/4 is kind of meh at the wide end but reasonably good at the long end.
So how does it stand against more specialized lenses, a wideangle bargain of 18-35G f/3.5-4.5 ED and telephoto bargain Tamron 70-300vc? Neither of those is as universal lens as 24-120, but both are significantly cheaper if you would be buying 24-120 outside of bundle with camera.
Disclaimer: this is a test of one copy of each lens. Your copy of lens may be different, better or worse. I always prefer tests where multiple copies are tested (like Roger Cicala does), but sorry, sample size of 1 in my test is not going to be useful to to make statements about all copies of the same model.
Contenders
- Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-120 1:4G ED VR
- Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-35G 1:3.5-4.5G ED
- Tamron SP 70-300 F/4-5.6 Di VC USD
Tests
I have tested all on Nikon D750 (24MP full-frame). As usually with landscapes I use as low ISO as it is possible and tripod. Tripod is quite good and used with proper technique (delayed exposure to avoid touching camera during exposure, invoked from Live View to avoid mirror shake; see Tripod & ballhead & technique test). For tests, M mode was used. I used back button focus mode (AF-ON) to activate focus in LV with wide zone on center.
Processing of raw images is done Adobe Lightroom 5.7. Sharpening is default. I have a chromatic aberration correction turned on for sharpness tests. The 24-120 has very strong lateral chromatic aberration at the widest focal length. Other lens corrections are turned off. Images are exported to JPG with low amount of screen sharpening.
Sharpness test 1 - Dobeška
- Each lens was autofocused in LV AF (wide area) for widest aperture of the aperture series on center of the image (a small church). I used back button focus mode (AF-ON) to focus and did not refocus further during rest of aperture series.
- Unfortunately there were very strong winds during tests so I mitigated winds partly by shielding camera and tripod by my body, by waiting until strongest winds pass and by capturing multiple pictures with same settings and choosing sharpest from them. Differences in sharpness ended up being minimal so that gives some assurance in my method even for 120mm f/11 where shutter was only 1/250s. But you may perhaps see some very small blur on trees and branches (and you can certainly see that they are also moving between images).
24-120/4vr vs. 18-35G at 24mm
Overview:
To give some sense of scene depth: scene is captured from high vantage point, about 70m above Vltava river. In this widest image you can see fence in the closest position, it is about meter from camera. Buildings on the horizon on right side of the image are about 9km away. Following annotated picture shows more distances:
Full images are available here.
Click here to select your own crops (does not work on mobile phone/tablet browsers, requires a lot of RAM, about 43MB of data).
Lets look at some crops. This is center crop on the church where I placed LVAF focus point:
I think the center crop is perfect in both lenses.
24mm - Top left DX corner crop:
Now 24-120 is clearly weaker, but you have to consider that middle focal length of 18-35 is its strongest while widest focal length of 24-120 is not very strong. If I would turn off chromatic aberration reduction in LR you would see it here and more in the FX corner. 24-120 never gets as good as 18-35, but at f/8 the image is pretty acceptable.
24mm - Bottom right DX corner crop:
At f/8 the image from 24-120 is pretty acceptable, but 18-35 is better.
24mm - Top left FX corner crop:
Similarly to DX corner the 24-120 never gets as good as 18-35, but at f/8 the image is pretty acceptable. You can see some chromatic aberration that LR did not fix and I think CA is main reason for unsharpness because unsharpness appears to be directional in same direction. Image from 24-120 is darker due to stronger vignetting.
24mm - Bottom right FX corner crop:
At f/4 the image from 24-120 is quite poor, but it sharpens enough at f/8, but 18-35 is better - it is about same wide open as 24-120 is at f/8 then it sharpens more at f/5.6 and f/8.
24mm - Close distance near DX bottom crop:
The 24-120 is quite ok even from f/4, but 18-35 is perfect.
24mm - Far distance near center crop:
Here 24-120 wins, but only by very small amount. It is quite possible that LVAF focused differently such that both images are sharp enough in the middle distances, but still differ in closer-farther sharpness. This happened to me a lot when I was comparing 70-300 lenses. However 18-35 is quite a lot sharper in bottom right corner which is quite far distance too.
Overall, at 24mm, the 24-120 is weaker lens than 18-35 anywhere outside of central areal of image where both are good. 24-120 images are pretty acceptable at f/8 though.
24-120/4vr vs. 18-35G at 35mm
Overview:
Full images are available here.
Click here to select your own crops (does not work on mobile phone/tablet browsers, requires a lot of RAM, about 42MB of data).
Lets look at some crops. This is center crop on the church where I placed LVAF focus point:
I think the center crop is perfect in both lenses.
35mm - Top left DX corner crop:
You can see images are slightly misaligned - that is because 35mm end of 18-35 is wider than what 24-120 captures when ring is centered at number 35. Perhaps the 35 was 33 actually or markings on 24-120 are inaccurate (not uncommon). The 24-120 starts slightly soft, but sharpen pretty well at f/5.6 and 8. 18-35G is already quite sharp at f/4.5 and sharpens a bit more for smaller apertures. At both f/5.6 and f/8 I don't see any differences in sharpness.
35mm - Bottom right DX corner crop:
24-120 is better at comparative apertures. It is possible that 24-120 focused a bit farther in scene (while still keeping the church in center focused) and now it enjoys more sharpness at this location.
35mm - Top left FX corner crop:
This time crops are bigger to have overlap despite difference in actual focal length. The 24-120 at f/4 shows some veiling glare near bright edges. The 18-35 at f/4.5 is ok, but neither is really sharp. The 24-120 at f/5.6 and f/8 is great, the 18-35 almost catches up at f/8.
35mm - Bottom right FX corner crop:
Similar result like in top left FX corner: 24-120 at f/4 is slightly worse than 18-35 at f/4.5, but the 24-120 becomes nicely sharp at f/5.6 and f/8 while the 18-35 does not reach that sharpness at any aperture.
35mm - Close distance near DX bottom crop:
Both lenses are very sharp at any aperture.
35mm - Far distance near center crop:
Both lenses are very sharp at any aperture.
24-120/4vr vs. Tamron 70-300vc at 70mm
Overview:
Full images are available here.
Click here to select your own crops (does not work on mobile phone/tablet browsers, requires a lot of RAM, about 46MB of data).
Lets look at some crops. This is center crop on the church where I placed LVAF focus point:
I think the center crop is perfect in both lenses for f/5.6. At f/4 Nikon is a bit softer, but very still acceptable.
70mm - Top left DX corner crop (brightened via curves):
Nikon is a bit softer at f/4. At f/5.6 they are about same. At f/8 Nikon wins by small amount.
70mm - Bottom right DX corner crop:
Same story as in other DX crop: Nikon is a bit softer at f/4. At f/5.6 they are about same. At f/8 Nikon wins by small amount.
70mm - Top left FX corner crop (brightened via curves):
Somewhat soft wide open, but acceptable stopped down. Nikon at f/8 is slightly sharper in FX corner than Tamron, but that difference is bigger just slightly down from top left corner on the reddish roofs (not pictured in crops, but you can see it in full pictures).
70mm - Bottom right FX corner crop:
Nikon is starting very sharp at f/4 and gets perfect at f/8. Tamron is quite soft wide open and it does not sharpen until f/11 where it is acceptable.
70mm - Close distance bottom left corner crop:
Both lenses are very sharp at any aperture.
70mm - Far distance near center crop:
Both lenses are sharp at any aperture. Though Nikon at f/4 is slightly softer, but at f/5.6 and f/8 it is slightly sharper.
24-120/4vr vs. Tamron 70-300vc at 120mm
Overview:
Full images are available here.
Click here to select your own crops (does not work on mobile phone/tablet browsers, requires a lot of RAM, about 46MB of data).
Lets look at some crops. This is center crop on the church where I placed LVAF focus point:
I think the center crop is perfect on Nikon. Tamron reaches sharpness of Nikon at f/8 and f/11. Tamron is still very acceptable despite some softness wide open.
120mm - Top left DX corner crop:
Tamron is very good at any aperture. Nikon is worse stopped down than Tamron wide open. But when you look at the other DX corner, you may see that this may be caused by small depth of field, 120mm is quite long for this effect to be significant.
120mm - Bottom right DX corner crop:
Unlike in other DX corner Tamron is worse now and catches up at f/11. Nikon is great at f/8. At 120mm the effect of focused zone due to smaller depth of field is bigger. Field curvature may also play some role.
120mm - Top left FX corner crop (brightened via curves):
Similar to DX top left corner, Tamron wins. It may be due to small depth of field.
120mm - Bottom right FX corner crop:
But here Tamron wins on comparative apertures and it is quite sharp at f/11.
120mm - Close focus bottom left crop:
Both are sharp, but Tamron wins.
120mm - Far focus near center crop:
Nikon is better at any aperture.
120mm - Far focus FX side crop:
Nikon is better at any aperture.
120mm - Far focus FX top crop:
Nikon is better at any aperture.
Conclusion
At 24mm, 18-35G is clearly better lens. But at 35mm, it is not so clear cut. 24-120 often starts a bit softer, but it sharpens great at f/8.
At 70mm, 24-120 is better lens than Tamron 70-300 when stopped down a bit. Smaller depth of field and unequal focused zone may play important role in comparisons. At 120mm, Tamron is better in corners but Nikon is better in near center. Focused zone is really important factor in comparison here.
So is Nikon 24-120 a good lens? It is pretty good for 5x zoom that goes from wideangle to telephoto. And if you are limited by 120mm, you can crop as central area of lens is sharp enough at f/5.6 and f/8 assuming you get everything you want in focus.
Is Nikon 24-120 a good value? Well there is a Sigma 24-105/4 which I guess is really good according to what I have read, but it weights 200 grams more and it has 82mm filter size. So you get less range, more weight and size and likely an improvement in image quality. Sigma sells for less than Nikon locally, but I got Nikon in bundle where it was significantly cheaper than new Sigma. If would want to get optimal image quality at cost of weight, I would take my Sigma primes. So for me the value is there.
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Images presented in this article are copyrighted. Copyright (c) 2016 Jakub Trávník. You can use them personally, but further distribution is not allowed.
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