On Thu, 11 Mar 1999 17:11:03 GMT, vhugar@geocities.com wrote:

>I have a FM2n and two primes: 50mm f/1.8 AIS and 105mm f/2.5 AIS
>Both lenses are Nikon and have produced excellent results.
>
>Now I want to add a 24mm (or 20 mm??) for landscape photography.
>I felt Nikon 20/24/28 mm AIS lenses are too pricey!
>Is it worth paying that much?? Or how about SIGMA or TAMRON?
>You get them for half the nikon price! Even better, Tokina or Vivitar
>ones, you get them for 1/4 th nokon price!!
>
>Does quality suffer a lot with these cheap ones?

Yes! In the area of wide-angles, the differences between
Nikkors and off-brand lenses is generally VERY noticeable
(unless you, like many, don't care what the image edges
look like...;-). I recently compared the Nikkor 20mm f2.8,
20mm f3.5 (compact), 24mm f2.8 (AF and late MF, which are
the same optically), 24mm f2, and the 28-70mm and 28-105mm.
Whew! Once again, it is obvious that even a zoom that is
very good at 28mm (the 28-105) just doesn't have the
crispness of the non-zooms (the 24's, and the MF 28's).
With off-brand wides I've tried (too many...;-), the
edge performance isn't up to even the mediocre performance
of the zooms - one gets mush at the edges, instead of just
a lack of "snap", even when stopped down...

>Any suggstions on good, reasonably priced 24mm ?

A used Nikkor - and it will retain its value...