Great handling, great images, and not too bad a price - this Nikkor prime lens is a cracker.
Nikon AF 14mm f/2.8D Review
element that protrudes forwards much further than the short sides of
its integral petal-type lens hood. The hood has a slightly wider
diameter than the rest of the barrel, creating a useful ridge against
which the hand can rest when supporting the lens in use. This is
important, as the slightest straying forwards will result in fingers
appearing at the frame edge.
A wide and very tactile focusing ring
sits just behind the ridge but this is used only when the lens is set to
MF mode: there is no option to provide manual intervention in AF mode.
To switch between the focus modes you rotate a narrow collar just behind
the focus ring. Further back sits a small focused-distance window that
shows depth-of-field markings and an infrared focusing index.
Adjacent
to the lens mount is a manual aperture ring, which must be set to f/22
when electronic aperture control is used: Nikon’s usual slider-lock
ensures this condition is maintained. Thanks to these features, and the
manual meter-coupling ridge, Nikon’s 14mm lens can be used as
successfully on many older film cameras as it can on the latest digital
bodies.
To protect the front of the lens, Nikon provides a bespoke
lens cap that has a rigid front surface and a leather skirt. The soft
sides mean it is not as easy to fit at speed as a rigid lens cap would
be but it looks very distinguished and the skirt ensures that if the cap
is misaligned then there is no hard edge to scar the domed front
element.
Technologically this might be seen as a slightly primitive
lens but Nikon’s 14mm outperforms its Canon rival in technical testing,
peaking above 0.3 cycles-per-pixel at f/8 and exhibiting less
degradation at wide and minimum apertures. There is, however, a
noticeable magnification change at different focused distances.