We have all three, do not see any problem with 24, 45 or 85, if lenses have limitations then use them with that in mind. Use for studio and architecture on D800 series, very versatile lenses that can also be used, with shift, to stitch images together for larger format.
Pieter kers
November 20, 2022 2:44 pm
Hai, i have bought the three PCE -nikkors as soon as they got out. Long time ago when the camera norm was Nikon d3 FF 12MP. I still have the 45PCE and the 85 PCE. The 24mm PCE i dropped because there was too much field curvature – at infinity the corners were blurred ( even at f11 !) – however inside a room it was often an advantage; and when it was sharp the rendering was very nice. The 85 PCE was the boring always good lens. Even fully shifted at F8 it still handles 45MP without a problem. the 45PCE i think is special because of the smooth delicate sharpness / bokeh and very good macro. (However at infinity I will use my 40mm Sigma ART) When shifted i would use f8 at infinity and then it still handles almost all shifts. greetings!
autofocusross
July 25, 2022 4:44 am
I am just about to receive my copy of the 45mm version Nikkor PC-E and something occured to me. If you swing (horizontally tilt) the lens to the left to capture front to back sharpness along a diagonal line, left of centre, this throws the right hand side of the image out of focus as a result of the left side swing – is that right? That being so, what about taking the shot, then, taking a second shot, this time with the swing to the right side of the image. This would create a line of focus diagonally to the right, and throw the left side out. Having captured both images, obviously, on a tripod, would it be feasable, and successful to photo merge the two, so that you blend both images to produce one image, with two planes of focus – one on each side? Anyone tried this, anyone know?
John
October 29, 2019 1:19 pm
I do very little architecture work, but a lot of magazine photojournalism and product/still life work. Interestingly, when I owned the 24mm PC-E it mostly stayed in the bag. In my world, lenses have to earn their keep, so I sold it. Shortly after selling the 24mm I bought the 45mm PC-E. What a difference! The 45 gets used on virtually every assignment I do! For tabletop work, it’s flexibility and image quality is unrivalled. In fact, this lens is so good on the D850, I stopped using the 105mm macro… so, I sold it too. Although I also use D810s, I primarily use the 45mm on D850s and I have no quality complaints of any kind. On photojournalism assignments, even though I can’t shoot at f/2.0, or f/1.4, it is spectacular. In slower paced environments, I can get multiple individuals sharp, even when shooting wide open. Done right, it is almost impossible to tell a TS was used, and the results are almost impressionistic in quality. I can not overstate how much I love the 45mm PC-E!
Simon
December 26, 2018 7:09 am
I’ve got a D800 (not shockingly different to a 810, except for the low pass filter) and a D850 body in combination with PC-E 24mm, 45mm and 85mm lenses. Tested all combinations in full shifting mode, F stop 5.6 and 8. -My findings are; – 24mm, little bit fringing and pulling (quit a lot), with the D800 a bit less pulling , can’t use the outer edges of field on both cameras (fringing on the 850 less than on the 800). The fringing you might find, can be taken out in LR – 45mm; no fringing (not on metal as well) or pulling on the 45mm, great lens on both bodies. – 85mm; no fringing no pulling, great lens on both bodies. Of course the less you go to the outer circle of a lens the less faults one will encounter. Tough Nikon seems to have problems solved on the 19 TS, a lens I do not know or own. As said, these are just my findings, curious to know what colleagues experience with the combination D850 – PC-E lenses.
Sean Sopherfield
November 21, 2018 2:00 am
The PC-E NIKKOR lens series features a tilt/shift mechanism that provides extraordinary control over the relationship between the optical axis of the lens and the image plane, thereby enabling Perspective Control. This function proves particularly valuable for specialized professional users such as architecture and product photographers. To know more visit – www.applesupportphonenumbers.com/blog/…r-code-36/
bosh boston
November 3, 2018 10:42 am
This is the camera brand which people believe the most so far i am the regular customer of this brand. microsoftsupport.co/blog/…0xc00000f/ helped me alot to solve the issue with Nikon brand. All the latest cameras are too good of this.
Here’s my two cents on the 24mm PC Tilt-Shift that we’re all talking about. I have the Nikon D850 and the 24, 45, and 85mm tilt-shift lenses as well. I just finished testing my seven year old 24mm PC Tilt-Shift using combinations of tilt, tilt with rise, and rise only. The subject matter was a landscape with a very uneven surface with tall firs on the horizon and my orange glove in the foreground with freshly mowed grass beneath it and surrounding it. Above the glove and 12 feet are drooping branches of an alder tree with leaves nearly on the same plane as the glove. Across the road are electrical transformers and other shiny hardware. All that said I found the same sterling performance with the 24mm PC tilt-shift lens as I have going back to my F6 through a D3X, D800e, D810 and now the D850. For tilting, I needed no more than about 2º. Everything was exceptionally sharp top to botton, near to far.
I feel fortunate that mine checks out perfectly, just as sharp as ever. I can’t speak about the 45 and 85 lenses but would expect the same results. Thanks for your essay.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Paul. I believe Nikon’s tilt-shift lenses are well-built and have very solid optics. Regarding the 24mm, the common sentiment seems to be that it does not perform well when employing large shifts. The thing about photography is that there are so many factors that go into making an image which makes evaluating a lens pretty difficult. I’m glad to hear that your lens is living up to expectations.
Thanks for your comments. I take your meaning when talking about large shifts. It motivated me to step out this morning and photography some tall fir trees not far from my house. That requires a tilt shift, after a full rise, and then a tilt of around 7 to 8º. About as far as I’ve ever taken it but I’ve taken it that far many time. No problems to report. Sharp as usual. I might mention that I used a 4 x 5″ field view camera for 15 years. It was my only camera during that period. I had lenses from 75mm all the way through the Nikon 360mm with extensions for 500 and 720mm. If you can master the view camera you certainly can master the Nikon TC lenses, or should be able to. However, in no way is this meant to denigrate the findings of other people. I may simply have a very good D850 sensor and 24mm TC lens. But I think technique [my personal bias here] counts more in this situation compared to most other types of lenses and their demands. Again, not discounting the experience of other photographers here.
I’ve been on the other end of these types of discussions/problems more times than I can count. More recently I went through all the hassles of the first batch of the D800/e, the first release of the new 24-70mm Nikon E lens, etc. etc. My sympathies are with those trying to resolve these and other issues.
Thanks for the followup, Paul. I enjoyed your comment as I think it adds something to the discussion around these unique lenses.
AndyF
October 18, 2018 1:50 pm
Thanks Matt and commenters, I’ve learned quite a bit from this.
Reading between the lines I have realised that tilt/shift lenses must, of necessity, have a bigger than normal image circle.
Rick Keller’s comment regarding DOF reduction with increased tilt/shift is obvious once you think about it – but I doubt I would ever have thought about it without the comment!
Thanks, Niteen. I have not used the 85mm PC-E, but I would assume it performs similarly to the 45mm since they were released as a series. Some commenters have said that the 45mm does not perform too well with their D850 cameras. For my D810 it was great.
We have all three, do not see any problem with 24, 45 or 85, if lenses have limitations then use them with that in mind. Use for studio and architecture on D800 series, very versatile lenses that can also be used, with shift, to stitch images together for larger format.
Hai, i have bought the three PCE -nikkors as soon as they got out. Long time ago when the camera norm was Nikon d3 FF 12MP. I still have the 45PCE and the 85 PCE. The 24mm PCE i dropped because there was too much field curvature – at infinity the corners were blurred ( even at f11 !) – however inside a room it was often an advantage; and when it was sharp the rendering was very nice.
The 85 PCE was the boring always good lens. Even fully shifted at F8 it still handles 45MP without a problem. the 45PCE i think is special because of the smooth delicate sharpness / bokeh and very good macro. (However at infinity I will use my 40mm Sigma ART) When shifted i would use f8 at infinity and then it still handles almost all shifts.
greetings!
I am just about to receive my copy of the 45mm version Nikkor PC-E and something occured to me. If you swing (horizontally tilt) the lens to the left to capture front to back sharpness along a diagonal line, left of centre, this throws the right hand side of the image out of focus as a result of the left side swing – is that right? That being so, what about taking the shot, then, taking a second shot, this time with the swing to the right side of the image. This would create a line of focus diagonally to the right, and throw the left side out. Having captured both images, obviously, on a tripod, would it be feasable, and successful to photo merge the two, so that you blend both images to produce one image, with two planes of focus – one on each side? Anyone tried this, anyone know?
I do very little architecture work, but a lot of magazine photojournalism and product/still life work. Interestingly, when I owned the 24mm PC-E it mostly stayed in the bag. In my world, lenses have to earn their keep, so I sold it. Shortly after selling the 24mm I bought the 45mm PC-E. What a difference! The 45 gets used on virtually every assignment I do! For tabletop work, it’s flexibility and image quality is unrivalled. In fact, this lens is so good on the D850, I stopped using the 105mm macro… so, I sold it too. Although I also use D810s, I primarily use the 45mm on D850s and I have no quality complaints of any kind.
On photojournalism assignments, even though I can’t shoot at f/2.0, or f/1.4, it is spectacular. In slower paced environments, I can get multiple individuals sharp, even when shooting wide open. Done right, it is almost impossible to tell a TS was used, and the results are almost impressionistic in quality. I can not overstate how much I love the 45mm PC-E!
I’ve got a D800 (not shockingly different to a 810, except for the low pass filter) and a D850 body in combination with PC-E 24mm, 45mm and 85mm lenses.
Tested all combinations in full shifting mode, F stop 5.6 and 8.
-My findings are;
– 24mm, little bit fringing and pulling (quit a lot), with the D800 a bit less pulling , can’t use the outer edges of field on both cameras (fringing on the 850 less than on the 800).
The fringing you might find, can be taken out in LR
– 45mm; no fringing (not on metal as well) or pulling on the 45mm, great lens on both bodies.
– 85mm; no fringing no pulling, great lens on both bodies.
Of course the less you go to the outer circle of a lens the less faults one will encounter.
Tough Nikon seems to have problems solved on the 19 TS, a lens I do not know or own.
As said, these are just my findings, curious to know what colleagues experience with the combination D850 – PC-E lenses.
The PC-E NIKKOR lens series features a tilt/shift mechanism that provides extraordinary control over the relationship between the optical axis of the lens and the image plane, thereby enabling Perspective Control. This function proves particularly valuable for specialized professional users such as architecture and product photographers. To know more visit – www.applesupportphonenumbers.com/blog/…r-code-36/
This is the camera brand which people believe the most so far i am the regular customer of this brand. microsoftsupport.co/blog/…0xc00000f/ helped me alot to solve the issue with Nikon brand. All the latest cameras are too good of this.
Spam comment.
Hi Matt,
Here’s my two cents on the 24mm PC Tilt-Shift that we’re all talking about. I have the Nikon D850 and the 24, 45, and 85mm tilt-shift lenses as well. I just finished testing my seven year old 24mm PC Tilt-Shift using combinations of tilt, tilt with rise, and rise only. The subject matter was a landscape with a very uneven surface with tall firs on the horizon and my orange glove in the foreground with freshly mowed grass beneath it and surrounding it. Above the glove and 12 feet are drooping branches of an alder tree with leaves nearly on the same plane as the glove. Across the road are electrical transformers and other shiny hardware. All that said I found the same sterling performance with the 24mm PC tilt-shift lens as I have going back to my F6 through a D3X, D800e, D810 and now the D850. For tilting, I needed no more than about 2º. Everything was exceptionally sharp top to botton, near to far.
I feel fortunate that mine checks out perfectly, just as sharp as ever. I can’t speak about the 45 and 85 lenses but would expect the same results. Thanks for your essay.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Paul. I believe Nikon’s tilt-shift lenses are well-built and have very solid optics. Regarding the 24mm, the common sentiment seems to be that it does not perform well when employing large shifts. The thing about photography is that there are so many factors that go into making an image which makes evaluating a lens pretty difficult. I’m glad to hear that your lens is living up to expectations.
Hi Matt,
Thanks for your comments. I take your meaning when talking about large shifts. It motivated me to step out this morning and photography some tall fir trees not far from my house. That requires a tilt shift, after a full rise, and then a tilt of around 7 to 8º. About as far as I’ve ever taken it but I’ve taken it that far many time. No problems to report. Sharp as usual. I might mention that I used a 4 x 5″ field view camera for 15 years. It was my only camera during that period. I had lenses from 75mm all the way through the Nikon 360mm with extensions for 500 and 720mm. If you can master the view camera you certainly can master the Nikon TC lenses, or should be able to.
However, in no way is this meant to denigrate the findings of other people. I may simply have a very good D850 sensor and 24mm TC lens. But I think technique [my personal bias here] counts more in this situation compared to most other types of lenses and their demands. Again, not discounting the experience of other photographers here.
I’ve been on the other end of these types of discussions/problems more times than I can count. More recently I went through all the hassles of the first batch of the D800/e, the first release of the new 24-70mm Nikon E lens, etc. etc. My sympathies are with those trying to resolve these and other issues.
Thanks Again,
Paul
Thanks for the followup, Paul. I enjoyed your comment as I think it adds something to the discussion around these unique lenses.
Thanks Matt and commenters, I’ve learned quite a bit from this.
Reading between the lines I have realised that tilt/shift lenses must, of necessity, have a bigger than normal image circle.
Rick Keller’s comment regarding DOF reduction with increased tilt/shift is obvious once you think about it – but I doubt I would ever have thought about it without the comment!
Great stuff – keep it coming!
AndyF
Thanks so much, Andy!
Nice review and pictures ,would love to see how 85mm Pce performs on modern 36/45mp sensors.
Thanks, Niteen. I have not used the 85mm PC-E, but I would assume it performs similarly to the 45mm since they were released as a series. Some commenters have said that the 45mm does not perform too well with their D850 cameras. For my D810 it was great.