In article <5abh8g$rtb@hearst.cc.macalester.edu>, weinstein@macalstr.edu says...

>Recently I picked up a 24mm AI prime Nikkor (2.8?) and after getting back
>a set of pictures of the San Fran cityscape (from tank hill) I was
>disappointed by the blurriness of the images particularly at far
>infinity. Took it to the shop and they (for more $$$ than I'd admit to)
>"fixed it) but it still seems to have problems w/very distant objects.
>This is not my first sense of disappointment w/a 24mm lens. I tried
>several 24-50 zooms for both my Nikon and on a Canon Elan (Sigma brand)
>and all of them lacked a sharpness as well. Is it me? Do I just not know
>how to use a 24mm lens? Is it this particular one? Or is it something in
>the nature of the optics of very wide angle lenses?
>
>BTW to get a cyborg 2nd opinion, I tried my 24mm on my 8008 and used the
>focusing aid to see if it would focus on distant towers etc. (back here
>in the twin cities, groan) and the results were confusing. I wouldn't get
>a clean stable dot, but flashing arrows in both directions.

It sounds like a bad lens - the AI/AIS version of the Nikkor 24mm f2.8
(and f2) normally (actually, all 6-8 or so of these I have checked...)
is sharp in the center wide open, but soft at the edges/corners (by
my standards - those of others may be lower...;-) until about f5.6,
where there is a sudden improvement in quality (and all but the far
corners are sharp, and the very far corners gradually improve with
further stopping down). I assume that you did not just use the
infinity marker (though it is usually correct on these lenses),
but manually focused the lenses (not getting an "in-focus" indication
from the 8008 AF indicator [which lies egregiously, and indicates
"correct focus" when there isn't correct focus...] indicates that the
lens is just plain optically bad, or that the lens [as adjusted] cannot
reach infinity focus), though having problems with the 24-50mm also,
deepens the mystery... Normally, wide-angles are especially easy to
use - just focus, stop down to f8-11, and shoot (the short FL makes
slow shutter speeds easy to hand-hold...).
Hope This Helps