Ahhhh my old wide-angle workhorse. Nikon released this lens after the wider 14-24mm f/2.8 lens was on the market. This lens was the first full-frame lens Nikon released in this focal range with their VR capability as well, however the trade off here was that it only opens up to f/4 as opposed to f/2.8 (a whole stop) and isn’t as wide (16mm as opposed to 14mm).

The lens is designed to work on Nikon’s FX sensor bodies (full-frame). If you’re on a DX sensor body (or crop-sensor) the lens you should use for a wide-angle shot is something in the range of a 10-20mm or a 10-24mm focal length – remember the crop-sensor has a 1.5x multiplier so your effective focal length with these lenses is more on the order of 15-35mm-ish.

The lens itself is fairly long, and heavy. It’s not as long as any telephoto zoom like the 70-200, but it’s almost as long as a 24-70. This means that if you’re walking around with this lens attached to your SLR over your shoulder, you do need to be careful walking through doorways, crowds and such otherwise you’ll either knock someone in the stomach or put a nasty dent in the side of your lens as your enter a room.

Wide open at f/4, I don’t find any problems with the sharpness of the images this lens. Stopped down all the way at f/22, you’ll even catch some pretty special sun flares.

Why would I want this lens?

This lens is best at capturing sweeping landscapes, with the lesser important subjects in the background. Because of the distortion in the lens, subjects in the background appear much tinier than they actually are. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish them at all. That said, it’s a truly beautiful lens for landscapes with a dominant foreground element.

What do I love about this lens?

It’s wiiiiiiiiiiiiiide as it gets. I really don’t feel the need for that extra 2mm in the 14-24 after using it for a year in a lot of different scenarios. I also don’t mind losing the stop of aperture either because my purpose for this lens is landscapes. When I’m shooting my landscape images, I’m always on a tripod, so there isn’t ever a reason where I need that extra stop of light. I can always just slow down my shutter speed. This is one of my favourite lenses, and is my go-to lens for shooting wide-angle landscapes.

What do I hate about this lens?

It’s pretty darn heavy. I really notice it when it’s in my backpack, or when I have to walk around carrying it. Also, zoomed all the way out the distortion is pretty heinous. In some landscapes or architectural scenes, that may be what you’re going for. In some situations, it may not be. Also, at this focal length, it can’t be used for portraits – the distortion in the lens ends up giving people funny-shaped faces or squashes their body down a little bit. Not exactly flattering unless you’re after that specific look.

Example Images

Should I buy this lens?

That all depends on what you want it for. You’ve got a couple of official Nikon choices – the 14-24 f/2.8 and the 16-35mm f/4. It all comes down to your needs. Here are the questions you’ll want to ask yourself:

• Do you need f/2.8?
• Do you need wider than 16mm?
• Do you need longer than 24mm?
• Do you need VR?

It also pays to check the price point of each of these lenses and see what’s right for you. I will say this much… I stand by the 16-35mm lens. It comes with me everywhere I go and as you can see above, I’ve managed to capture many different images in different situations with it.