FX continues to get all of the Nikon love, with the 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5G ED FX lens getting a refresh. This US$750, 385g lens rounds out the variable aperture line of zooms for FX, and will be available in March. FX users now have:
- f/2.8: 14-24mm, 17-35mm, 24-70mm, 70-200mm VR
- f/4: 16-35mm VR, 24-120mm VR, 70-200mm VR
- variable aperture: 18-35mm, 24-85mm VR, 70-300mm VR
As you get more consumer, the zooms move a little more towards the telephoto side. Curiously, only the f/4 set has VR across the board.
Still, FX has a pretty complete set of zooms that'll take you from very wide to fairly telephoto. It has f/1.4 and f/1.8 prime sets, too. But apparently Nikon has stopped dating DX and no longer is sending its love that direction, as the 14-year old DX lineup is still pathetically neglected and sports lots of holes in its lens lineup. Just buy a D600 seems to be Nikon's consistent message of late. Makes you wonder what message they'll come up with when they finally do get around to iterating a higher-end DX body later this year. Perhaps: If you don't buy a D600, buy this?
Along with the 18-35mm, we also got the official announcement of the US$17,900 800mm f/5.6, coming in April along with a new US$750 1.25x teleconverter for it (making the lens a 1000mm f/7.1).
Nikon's sample images, once again, leave a lot to be desired. One is even back focused ;~).
Tokina, at least, showed a wee bit of DX love at CP+, showing two lenses, one DX: the 12-28mm f/4, a slightly wider focal length range than their existing 12-24mm. So at least one lens maker hasn't forgotten that DX bodies far outsell FX bodies and those users would like a few more options than they've got; options that are a lot like the FX options. Tokina also officially announced their FX 70-200mm f/4 lens, their first with the VCM-S image stabilization.