I am looking for the best wide-angle lens for my Nikon D700. It should perform very well in infrared, both in combination with 720nm filters and with the Aerochrome combo (green-orange). Well, it’s not that simple, unfortunately. Photographer Edward Noble has compiled a helpful list of lenses that have good IR performance.
Based on the recommendations, I recently bought the ancient manual lens NIKKOR-N 24mm and tried it out briefly for the first time today. Conclusion: Thumbs up for 720nm, thumbs rather down for Aerochrome combination. In general: no hotspots, which is great. Sharpness from f/11 and Infinity at distant objects, which is OK. Needs more testing. Would also like to make a comparison with the Nikon 28mm f/2.8 AI-s. Which is sharper, which has better IR performance?
What’s great is that I didn’t have to convert the NIKKOR-N 24mm (as I feared). Because normally you have to grind off the aperture ring or replace it with another ring to use the lens with modern cameras. But here it has already been done, probably by Nikon itself, in a service that no longer exists.
