I’ve been talking about this lens and showing too many photos taken with it since I used it for my travel 3 months ago, but I’ve never posted any review of this Nikkor 10-24mm Ultra wide Angle lens. Since I love it so much for travel, why not? So here is the short review of this Nikon’s best ever DX format ultra wide angle lens, after using it for 3 months. This is not a review of a new product from Nikon. Nikkor 10-24mm UWA lens have been around in the market for more than 2 years now, but it is still the latest UWA lens for DX-format DSLR from Nikkor until today.

If you are looking for a Ultra Wide Angle lens for your Nikon DX-format DSLR, Nikkor 10-24mm is the best you can get, in terms of compatibility. You can rest assure of its compatibility to your Nikon DSLR since Nikkor is from Nikon itself. Some of you may argue that image sharpness, distortion and speed of focusing are more important in choosing a UWA lens, but those who have read my story on the problematic Sigma 10-20mm F3.5 UWA lens will definitely agree with me. There are sharper, less distorted and faster third-party UWA lenses around in the market, like the Sigma or Tokina, but what’s the point if they can’t focus accurately and reliably with my Nikon D7000?

I should extend the title of this write up further to be “My points of view towards the Nikkor 10-24mm UWA lens, as a photo hobbyist cum traveler, after a 3-month-usage“.

Specification Highlight of Nikkor 10-24mm f 3.5-4.5G ED AFS

A solidly built zoom lens for DX-format DSLR, Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED variable Aperture ultra wide angle lens offer an ultra wide 110° picture angle, which is ideal for travel photography to capture dramatic landscapes, landmarks, architecture such as cathedrals and castles and more. I used it to capture travel attractions from a much closer distance, just be able to be in front of huge crowds. With two ED glass and three hybrid aspherical lens elements, Nikon Super Integrated Coating (SIC) and the exclusive Nikon Silent Wave Motor, this AF-S DX NIKKOR 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G ED lens delivers the exceptional image quality and fast handling that defines NIKKOR optics. It works with all Nikon DSLR, with or without built-in focusing motors (good news for D3100 and D5100 users).

Nikkor 10-24mm UWA lens can focus as close as 0.8 feet from the object, which adds flexibility and versatility to its usage that users could shoot some close up images with it (see the sample photos below). Similar to other latest Nikkor lensese, it also include a MA /A focus mode switch so I can overwrite the Auto Focus mechanism by simply turning the focusing ring without needing to switch to Manual Focus mode. Also the Internal Focusing (IF) design allows faster, smoother autofocusing and eliminates changes in lens barrel length for consistent handling. If you care about bogeh, eventhough UWA lens can’t produce much shallow Depth-Of-Field images, this Nikkor also offer 7-blades-diaphram which can render more natural out-of-focus image appearances.

Usefulness in Travel Photography

How about its usage? If you are an avid traveler who loves to capture attractive and memorable scenes on your travel, you’ll need one of this. I’ve been using ultra wide angle lens for more than half of my time on travel. I used my old Tamron SP10-24 for most of my photos on both of my Europe travels last 2 years. To further enhance my travel photos, I bought this Nikkor just before my trip to Beijing last year, and it rocked!

Taken with my Nikon D7000 attached with Tamron SP10-24mm UWA lens, on my travel to Switzerland.

Taken with my Nikon D7000 attached with Nikkor 10-24mm UWA lens, on my travel to Beijing.

The advantages of an ultra wide angle lens include its ability to capture the whole scene without having to move too much away from the object until there are too many obstacles from other buildings or visitors. Capturing the whole Taihe hall of Forbidden City in the above photo would not be possible without the Nikkor 10-24mm as I was standing at the edge of staircase down behind me.

Another advantage of using ultra wide angle lens on travel is its short focal length of only 10mm which enabled me to capture night scenes with ease, albeit having to use slow shutter speed of only 1/50s in above photo. I experienced in taking sharp photos with shutter speed of as slow as 1/10s! This is very useful if you don’t wish to lug your heavy tripod for whole day of travel!

Here are 2 sample photos taken with Nikkor 10-24mm from 0.8 feet, with both end of its zoom range. It shows the ability of Nikkor 10-24mm lens to capture close-up image of an object with reasonable size to fill up your DSLR sensor. Of course, you won’t get 1:1 reproduction as those macro lenses.

Eventhough this chewing gum was shot from only 0.8 feet away, ultra wide angle lens managed to create extra spaciness artificially.

By zooming to the longest focal length of 24mm, you can still capture a nice close up image of an object, with sufficient Depth of Field that is most welcomed in macro shots.

Performance if compared with Tamron SP10-24mm

If I were to compare this Nikkor with my old Tamron SP10-24mm, with the same variable Aperture range of f3.5-4.5 and is already great for travel photography, Nikkor 10-24mm produces images a tad sharper especially at the centre, with less CA distortion, and in a much faster way.

In terms of sharpness, Nikkor 10-24mm ultra wide angle lens is very sharp especially the centre of the frame. The sharpness will only fall off slightly at the far left end corner of the frame as seen in the above photo. Having said that, the Chromatic Aberration issue found in most other ultra wide angle lens is very well controlled for this Nikkor’s best DX-format UWA lens, which made the image softness issue at the corner seemed negligible. Most importantly, it focuses as fast as thunder and as accurate as pin point. This is much better than other manufacturer like Sigma 10-20mm f3.5, which eventhough produces slightly sharper image, but with only 50% focus accuracy (as experienced with 3 units from a local authorised dealer).

Conclusion

If you are a Nikon DSLR user who love to travel and take photos, and are willing to invest some decent money on a decent ultra wide angle lens, this Nikkor 10-24mm f3.5-4.5G ED AFS lens is definitely your best choice, due to the facts that it is 100% compatible with any of your Nikon DSLR and is among the best in terms of performance and built quality. – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photography guide

Great travel photography comes with practice, diverse experience and a sound working technical knowledge of your camera and electronic accessories. But if you are still struggling to get travel shots, of the quality you know you are capable, time and time again, then we’ve compiled a few of our top travel photography tips to help you out along the way:

1. Take pictures in context. Whatever you are photographing, whether it’s a person, an object, a landscape or a meal, getting in a few details that provide a little background information or a clue to your location can help to make your picture come to life. That’s not to say that every New York shot needs to have the Empire State Building floating in the background, but a few everyday cultural indications can give an otherwise average shot the impact it requires to be a great one.

2. Try your hand at a range of different locations. The light, for example, in the Mediterranean, is totally different to the light in Norway. Practising your photographic techniques in different climates will help you to hone your skills. And if your struggling to find a break away to fit the budget, take a look at some Thomas Cook package holidays available from your local high street travel agencies.

3. Remember that people are not tourist attractions. It is often tempting to take pictures of locals as if they were landmarks, but, not only is this naive, it is also an arrogant and rather rude approach to subject based photography. Obviously, a language barrier can make it difficult to engage your chosen subject in any kind of in depth conversation before you take their picture, but a gesture asking permission, or an exchange of any kind, will help to break the ice at least. Furthermore, isolating your subjects by making them feel like tourist attractions does not promote classy photography. Interacting with subjects before you click can help to transform your photograph into a snap shot of cultural exchange, a fragment of cross-cultural communication.

Looking for more tips? Check out my collection of travel photography tips here on Travel Feeder. – Travel Feeder, your ultimate photo travel guide to Europe

For those of you shutterbugs who haven’t submitted your best travel photos to Airasia, Airasia is hosting a photo contest for its Travel 3Sixty onboard magazine from 3rd January to 14th February 2012. If you haven’t sold enough travel photos for your next travel, this is another chance for you to at least win a free trip to Hong Kong! The contest is open for everyone from any countries!

The photo contest will run for 3 months from January to March 2012, with one different theme for each month. 3 winners each month will win a totally free 4-Day-s3-Nights Return flight + Accommodation package to Hong Kong. For January category, travelers needs to submit photos of those awesome foods or fashion they found and captured on their travel in one of the Airasia flight destinations for the last 2 years.

The contest already started since 3rd January 2012 last week. If you haven’t submitted your best photos and wish to grab this opportunity for free travel, hurry up! The dateline for photo submission for January session is on 31st January 2012. After which, a handful of shortlisted entries will be posted for public voting to choose the winners! Even better if you captured the photos on your trip with either Airasia or Airasia X, you will get additional 20 votes!

Before submitting travel photos to win the ultimate Travel Photographer Of The Year contest later this year, why not joining this simple yet rewarding contest as a warm up? As what I said before, don’t waste your talent and creativity in travel photography! Share with th world out there, you might be one of the lucky winner to win prizes for your next photo trip! – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog

Happy new year 2012! Have you set your new year resolution? I’m setting mine, of course, it’s going to be another year of traveling the world for me! For those of you who are setting your travel plan this year, you should also start acquiring your new travel gadget for your upcoming travel. What could be better than getting yourself a new camera to capture the exciting world out there?

“Which camera should I buy for this new year?” “Which type of camera is the best for travel?” “Which camera brand is better, Canon or Nikon?” These are the questions I have been asked too often recently. With tens of new models coming out each year, consumers nowadays are spoilt for choices. Furthermore, some manufacturers are actually confusing us with too many models but too little differences between them. So how could we decide?

I always answer them with these 3 questions, “How much is your budget?” “How compact the camera you would love to travel with?” “Which brand you prefer?” Why? Here are guides on how you can buy yourself a great camera for your travel this year.

1. “Which camera should I buy for this new year?” – Which camera to buy depends on how much you are willing to pay for. The more is your budget, the better you would get, logically. You can’t beat the image quality of a USD1,200 Fuji X100 with the much affordable USD400 Canon S100 compact camera, eventhough they are both 12MP. As simple as that. Of course, if you are shooting travel photos for fun, it is pointless, or even a burden to buy a heavy and bulky pro-DSLR camera such as the latest Nikon D4, eventhough it is by far the best and the latest camera ever being produced by Nikon.
2. “Which type of camera is the best for travel?” – Which type of camera is best suited for travel depends on how heavy and bulky you can travel with you the whole day. You can choose between a compact, advanced compact, ultra-zoom prosumer, mirrorless, EVIL or DSLR. To me, in order to produce great travel photos, the least you should get is a Mirrorless camera such as the Lumix GX1, Olympus PL3 or Nikon V1. Mirrorless or EVIL cameras are smaller and lighter to suit traveling light better, while retaining much of the image quality of the bigger and bulkier DSLR. If you can, or like to carry a much larger and heavier machine around your neck all days, DSLR such as a Nikon D7000 is of course a much capable choice (that’s why I’m using one ).
3. “Which camera brand is better, Canon or Nikon?” – This is probably the toughest question to answer, since neither of them could be an outright winner in any aspect. Eventually it falls back to your personal preference. Both Canon and Nikon are great in the hands of their fans. They are little difference between them in terms of quality and capability. Choosing either of them merely depends on which brand name you like most, and which your friends around you are carrying. If you are still unsure, just get the latest model from either brand. The latest is always the better. This is how they compete all this while. The latest model in the market now is Nikon D4, so it should be the best.

If you can answer all these 3 questions, you are now ready to choose one of my few recommended camera for travel below:

1) Canon S100 compact camera – Priced at USD429, Canon S100 is the best compact camera for travel with small sized sensor. If you just like to snap travel photos for fun and memory, it is the lightest camera among all my recommendations here to carry all day round on travel. However, if you have more budget and prefer more decent image quality, pick the Fujifilm X100, which has the DSLR sized image sensor. If you have lesser budget, buy the older model Canon S95 at USD339, which is equally good with 2 lesser MP only.

2) Panasonic Lumix GX1 Mirrorless system lens interchangeable camera – If you love the small size and light weight of compact cameras, but prefer the great image quality of the DSLR, then EVIL (Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens) camera is your choice of camera for travel. Lumix GX1 is the latest model from Panasonic retail at USD799 and it is the best looking EVIL camera in the market now. If you don’t need the extra 4MP of the GX1, grab the outgoing model Panasonic Lumix GF2 at a stealing price of USD345 only, which is even cheaper than the Canon S100 compact camera with tiny image sensor if compared with the Micro 4/3 cropped 2 sized sensor of GX or GF!

3) Nikon D7000 – The next step up, for travelers who wish to capture the astonishing scenery on their travel with unbeatable quality, DSLR is their ultimate choice. To remain traveling light, full framed DSLRs should be avoided since they are too heavy to carry on your whole trip. Cropped size image sensor DSLR is the next best. Since I’m a fan of Nikon and am using one, I would recommend travel photography hobbyists to buy the Nikon D7000. Though it has been launched for 1 year, Nikon D7000 is still the best DX-format model from Nikon. If you careless about the extra features and buttons of the D7000, and with lower budget, just get the Nikon D3100 at only USD599. Nikon D3100 is bigger and slightly heavier than the Lumix GX1, but it is cheaper and more capable in producing great images on travel.

With your new camera just bought, you can now plan for your holidays this year and start building up your travel photo album! If you want to take better travel photos, check out my travel photography tips.  – Travel Feeder, your ultimate photo travel guide

Colours! Colours! I love colours, I love to capture beautiful colours on my vacation travel. Well, isn’t it what travel photography all about? Arguably one of the perfect places to capture colourful scenes, marketplace features various fresh foods and groceries with multiple colours. To attract customers, vendors always stack all the fruits nicely together and even spray water to keep them good looking, and this is why this photo that I took in Barcelona looks so striking and refreshing in colurs.

Another good reason why I love to take photos of any marketplace is that I can capture some of those unique fruits and local products of the city that I can’t find them elsewhere. Even better, price tags were recorded as well. Take the above photo as example, I didn’t even know Catalan are so keen on hot chili peppers. There were at least 7 different types of peppers on offer! Moreover, there are even more choices if you are looking for chilli pepper sauce, if you look at those bottles on the shelf.

I had a sudden craving for hot and spicy foods when I looked at the photo… Let’s go and find some Tapas restaurants! – Travel Feeder, your ultimate photo travel blog