Just FYI, the bill to dry out a 14-24 Nikkor lens was $421 and took just a week from my door to Nikon and back to me. I dropped the lens in two feet of fresh water and it sat there for about 30 seconds. If you ever dunk a lens you really need to send it in to have it taken apart and dried out/cleaned (lenses are NOT watertight). If not you may eventually get mold growing inside that you won't see for a while, if ever (mold inside your lens is not good). The repair ticket also listed "replaced element" so I'm kind of glad the bill was not more expensive (don't know which element they replaced). The lens looks brand new, actually probably even better than new since they adjusted focus to make sure everything was perfect, something they can't do on the normal manufacture line.
Nikon has a really slick online setup for repairs now - you just fill out an online form, including a description of the item and problem, along with your credit card and how you want to handle the estimate, then print out a packing label and shipping label right from their web site. They e-mail you when the item arrives and you can keep track of the progress online, then know when it is shipped and get the tracking number. I am an NPS member so did get priority service timewise (normal repair time is often a month or more) but this online stuff is available to everyone. The moral of the story is to hold onto your camera gear unless you want a real financial bath!
Ain't it the truth, although considering what this lens is, the price tag for a new one is really pretty cheap at under two grand - there isn't anything else like it by any manufacturer in this range, prime or zoom, other than the new Zeiss 21mm (and it has considerable distortion where the Nikon has basically none).
I have a great deal of envy for this lens and certainly dream of getting it and one of the adapters available( to use on my Canon system)- then I realize until I can do better with the equipment I have that spending that money would be silly.
Even so I tell anyone who is looking into starting a DSLR system that they should go Nikon due to the low noise at high ISO and the constant addition of excellent glass.
Ouch!! You probably don't feel your wallet when you sit on it now. You have to love that lens though, I think it is the best 35mm WA there is. When I switched from Canon to Nikon that was the first lens I purchased along with the 24-105mm VR which is not that great a lens but very usable stopped down.
I was really expecting to pay much more and be without the lens longer than a week so I am a happy camper - especially since they had to replace one of the elements (not sure why). And now I have a lens that is perfectly calibrated and even better than new! And just FYI Ed, I am using a polarizer with this lens when needed. I fixed one up for use with the Mamiya 28mm and it works with this lens at 14mm on fullframe camera with no dark corners. This contraption is expensive, ugly, and just barely works, but it does work - no one else seems to have figured out how to make this happen. (I tape this filter - http://www.filmtools.com/schneidoptru1.html - to the front of a Cokin X-Pro holder - photo of it here - http://www.filmtools.com/schneidoptru1.html). This lens is the reason why I switched over to Nikon (besides the fact that Nikons are much more user friendly) - there isn't any lens better for pinpoint star photos at f2.8 made by any manufacturer (my Zeiss f2 lenses are great too, but not nearly as wide and so I can't use as long of an exposure with them). Combined with the D700/d3/d3x is it a killer combo.
Speaking of my wallet - I just bought my 16-year old daughter a car so there isn't anything left to put in my wallet anyway, ha!
Yup, neither did I, but if she doesn't drive she will never learn how! Kids that don't learn until later are worse drivers - kids who learn how to drive their own car end up better drivers and live longer! We often spend four hours each day getting her to school and back, so her being able to drive some next year when we are unable to will be a big help - 'tis the nature of the beast of both living so far from the nearest school and having a kid that pushes herself to excel in advanced activities. The only problem is that in order for her to ever drive alone we require her to have at least ten hours driving with stop lights - there is not a single stop light in all of Newton County so she may not be able to drive alone for a while!
I'm glad there is a way to polarize that lens with a giant filter. I've been trying to research a way to adapt a PL mount lens onto an SLR. Zeiss makes a 14mm f/1.3 for movie cameras that could do some serious sharp stars if there was a way to adapt it. http://www.zeiss.com/cine
I'm glad that huge front element didn't crack- that piece of glass would have been more than $421.00.
Yup, that would be very nice but I would probably just keep it for stars and not worry about needing to use it for everyday stuff, although I believe they do make a normal screw-on polarizer for those lenses, at least there are 112mm ones available. Never heard of an adapter for them but someone just might have one - might cost more than the lens though!
I would like to find an proper adapter, it would be great to find one that would adjust to fit different sized lens. I played doctor frankenstein and made a contraption that works for both the mamiya 28mm and Nikon 14-24mm, but it is really a hack. I am going to have to make another stab at it because the P65 sensor is 30% larger than the P30 I built the first one for.
Ian Plant wrote a review on the 14-24 which included a picture of his filter setup. He used the styrofoam that the lens was boxed in to make his contraption. You can read his review here here. His is not clear all the way to 14mm like yours though. I think the Schneider polarizer would probably be substantially better quality than the cokin polarizer.
Yup, I've not seen anyone else that made a successful filter that worked on fullframe at 14mm - I wouldn't bother using anything else - if you can't use it at 14mm why go to the extra expense, or put a cheap filter in front of that great glass to begin with!
Tim, you probably already know this, but you can save quite a bit on car insurance if Amber takes a driver ed course this summer. That, combined with her good grades should save you a bundle!
If you can tall me some place where she can take driver's ed this summer for a reasonable fee let me know (that will not require 4 hours of driving each day!). There were only 10 spaces available at her school for next year and they were all taken by the time she was allowed to pick her classes. There is no such thing offered in our area in the summertime...
Discussion
17 repliesNikon has a really slick online setup for repairs now - you just fill out an online form, including a description of the item and problem, along with your credit card and how you want to handle the estimate, then print out a packing label and shipping label right from their web site. They e-mail you when the item arrives and you can keep track of the progress online, then know when it is shipped and get the tracking number. I am an NPS member so did get priority service timewise (normal repair time is often a month or more) but this online stuff is available to everyone. The moral of the story is to hold onto your camera gear unless you want a real financial bath!
Even so I tell anyone who is looking into starting a DSLR system that they should go Nikon due to the low noise at high ISO and the constant addition of excellent glass.
Speaking of my wallet - I just bought my 16-year old daughter a car so there isn't anything left to put in my wallet anyway, ha!
I'm glad that huge front element didn't crack- that piece of glass would have been more than $421.00.
Ian Plant wrote a review on the 14-24 which included a picture of his filter setup. He used the styrofoam that the lens was boxed in to make his contraption. You can read his review here here. His is not clear all the way to 14mm like yours though. I think the Schneider polarizer would probably be substantially better quality than the cokin polarizer.