Lens FX DX Dilemma

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Roger
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Taking landscapes I find I am often at the wide end of my lens and would like to go wider.
So I’m looking at buying a wide zoom.The lenses I have short listed from reading reviews are:-
Nikon 10 – 24mm f3.5-f4 G ED AF-s (DX)
And
Nikon 16 – 35 F4 f4 G ED AF-s VR (FX)
My camera is a Nikon D300s DX format.
The reviews (for the sharpness) make me favour the 16 – 35mm VR. However as this lens is for FX format and my camera is DX, would I be wasting my money going for the more expensive (better) lens?
Or any recommendations please?
Regards
Roger R.
 
Going from 10mm to 16mm is a big jump. If you want the Ultra wide the 10-24mm is far better at 10mm than the 16-35 is :p

What do you currently have? And how wide do you want to go?

There's always the 17-55mm F/2.8 DX if you don't want/need to go Ultra Wide.
 
I've spoken to lots of people regarding ultra wide lenses as they are used extensively in my main interest - underwater photography. The common theme appears to be the sigma 10-20 f3.5 is a superb lens with cracking sharpness and a lower price than the comparable nikon / canon variant.
 
How wide does your current lens go? If it's 18mm, then the 16-35mm isn't going to gain you much, although I've found the VR function to be surprisingly useful.
There are also the Sigma 10-20 and a Tokina of similar focal length (11-16?) you could consider which are designed for DX.
 
Check out the reviews of the 16-35 and 10-24 - very good testing website.

The Tokina and Nikon 12-24 f/4s are brilliant; well made, sharp, optically very, very good. I loved both of mine, although the Nikon just seemed to have the edge in build quality. You can get a used Tokina for £250(ish) and the Nikon for £450(ish).

The Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 is also very highly regarded and arguably the sharpest UWA available

A lot o people use the Sigma 10-20mm but as is the case with a lot of Sigma lenses, you don't know whether you're getting a good one or an iffy one with a focus issue. Personally, if price is a concern then I'd go with the Tokina 12-24 every day over the Sigma. If you have the dosh, go for the nikon. If you need f/2.8 then go for the 11-16mm Tokina.

The Nikon 16-35 is supposed to be a good lens but unless it's on FX, it's not as wide as you may require. It also shows some barrel distortion at the wide end that although correctable, isn't as apparent in the Tokinas and the Nikon 12-24mm.

If the 16/17mm foal length is more your thing then go for the 17-55 Nikon - a truly amazing optic. If you can splash out (i.e. up to a grand for a used one) then either the 14-24mm Nikon or a Nikon 17-35 are truly amazing optically, although the 14-24 doesn't accept regular filters because of the bulbous front element. There is a LEE kit but it's expensive.
 
Easy - 10-24.
 
You would not be wasting your money going for a FX lens, however I am not sure that 16mm is going to be wide enough.

I would have thought the 10-24 is the one to go for.
 
Many thanks for all the very helpful replies.
I currently use the Nikon 18 – 200mm so I take the point that going down to 16mm is not expanding the lower range a great deal.
One of my concerns was the loss of image quality on a DX camera due to the effective crop from FX size, but no, the 16mm lower end will not be enough.
So will now consider the 10 – 24mm in Nikon (DX) and Sigma.
Thanks again for the great response.
Regards
Roger R. R.
 
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