Nikon D7000 manual New Magic Three

Chapter 11 ■ Working with Lenses 383

To the Original Magic Trio, I often recommend adding one (or both) of these lenses:

■AF Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D IF. The nickname of this lens is “The Cream Machine” because of its remarkably smooth bokeh, which provides absolutely gorgeous out- of-focus backgrounds, especially when the lens is used with a wide aperture. It’s incredibly sharp, and can definitely be used at f/1.4. The 85mm f/1.4 is the perfect portrait lens, and can be used wide-open without qualms. If you need this sort of lens, it’s almost a bargain at its $1,000 price, and worth the extra $600 over its 85mm f/1.8 counterpart. Both Nikon 85mm lenses are D-series AF, rather than G-type AF-S lenses, and are becoming long in the tooth, so you might want to look for one now before they are entirely supplanted by the much more expensive new AF-S 85mm f/1.4G version, which has a $1,700 price tag.

■AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED. If you need a slightly wider view than that provided by the Trio’s 17-35mm f/2.8, this lens makes a good sup- plement. It could never replace my 17-35 fave in terms of sharpness and freedom from aberrations, but, since I already own one, I’m keeping it for those times when I want to capture something requiring the field of view of a 10-16mm (or slightly longer) lens. The overlap between this lens and the 17-35mm doesn’t bother me; it just means I don’t have to swap lenses quite as often. Each will do a little of what the other one is best at. One disadvantage of this lens is that it won’t cover the full- frame of an FX-format camera like the Nikon D3s, so you can’t use it effectively if you upgrade in the future.

The New Magic Three

There are new sheriffs in town: a whole new Magic 3. Two were introduced with the

original D3 and D300: an AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED, and an AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED lens. Both are G-type lenses (they lack an aperture ring), have AF-S focusing, and have constant f/2.8 apertures. In 2009, Nikon announced a replace- ment for the 70-200mm VR lens, rounding out the Magic Trio with an all new lineup. Like the original big three, these are all full-frame lenses that work with any DX or FX- format Nikon camera.

The chief advantage of the new lineup (if you can call it that) is that there is no over- lap. You can go from 14-24mm to 24-70mm to 70-200mm with no gaps in coverage. I don’t find that an overwhelming advantage, because there are lots of situations in which the 17-35mm range of my existing lens is exactly what I need; if I used the “new” trio exclusively, I’d find myself swapping lenses whenever I needed more than a 24mm focal length.

So, I now own both the new 14-24mm f/2.8 zoom and the old 17-35mm f/2.8 lens— and I use them both about equally. The 14-24mm gives me a bit more wide-angle per- spective than the 17-35mm lens, and it is fabulously sharp. I use the 17-35mm lens when I think I’ll need the longer focal length, when I want to shoot semi-macro