Nikon Nikkor AF-S DX 12-24 mm f/4G IF-ED review - Distortion

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Nikon Nikkor AF-S DX 12-24 mm f/4G IF-ED

11 March 2011

Arkadiusz Olech

6. Distortion

The lenses of this class, despite very short focal lengths, are characterized by a special distortionless mapping, which makes them keep the curvature of straight lines under control. You must pay for such an operation, though, by serious deformations of the perspective in the frame corners. If you are taking a portrait photo and you care about the emotional well-being of your models, try to put their face close to the image centre.

The Nikkor fares quite well when it comes to keeping the lines straight. At 12 mm focal length the barrel distortion, measured by us, amounted to –2.0%. For comparison it’s enough to say here that the Canon 10-22 mm at even wider angle, more aberration-prone, reached at 10mm, had deformations on the level of –2.4% and the Sigma 10-20 mm outclassed the rivals having at 10 mm the distortion value of only –0.88%. The Tamron fared the worst here - at 11 mm it reached the level of as much as –4.0%. Compared to the Tokina the Nikkor once again gained a small point because the Tokina at 12 mm had the distortion of –2.8% so a bit higher.

With the increase of the focal length the distortion quickly changes into pincushion and its level decreases. At 18 mm we get 0.84% and 0.83% at 24 mm.

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