I've about had it with Nikon's VR

PLShutterbug said:

By chance did you turn VR off and shoot another frame? I'm curious whether this is a lens artifact or the VR.

I haven't looked close enough at my images, or noticed what I felt were VR artifacts. It just has never occurred to me that "VR artifacts" is a thing.

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Sure. That’s an obvious test. But I can assure you that this happens all the time with different telephoto lenses, PF and non-PF. It is definitely not a lens artifact unless Nikon makes all their VR telephoto lenses with this artifact waiting to appear.

michaeladawson said:

PLShutterbug said:

By chance did you turn VR off and shoot another frame? I'm curious whether this is a lens artifact or the VR.

I haven't looked close enough at my images, or noticed what I felt were VR artifacts. It just has never occurred to me that "VR artifacts" is a thing.

Click to expand...

Sure. That’s an obvious test. But I can assure you that this happens all the time with different telephoto lenses, PF and non-PF. It is definitely not a lens artifact unless Nikon makes all their VR telephoto lenses with this artifact waiting to appear.

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I wish Nikon would give us a FW update that allows VR ON/OFF to be assigned to a physical button on the camera body.

A Owens said:

Roy Kikuta said:

TheSoaringSprite said:

I'm wondering if this is a PF lens thing. I don't own any PF lenses, but I've seen others complain about a similar issue. I've never seen this with any of my Nikon telephoto lenses, but they are not PF.

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I don't believe this is limited to PF lenses - I've got an example shot with my old f-mount 500mmf/4 VR AF-S that shows the same busy double-line bokeh. I believe I've seen the same with the 200-500 f/5.6 VR lens on a D810/D500 as well. Also the same experience with my Z 400 f/4.5... I've got to say that my "awareness" of these types of busy bokehs has been growing over the last 5-10 years.

Click to expand...

The reality is that you need to have an awareness of your BG when using a long lens. Put a busy, messy BG close behind your subject when shooting with a long lens, you will get jangly bokeh, regardless of lens.

Consideration of the BG is an important aspect of long lens technique and a low shooting position is often a solution.

Click to expand...

You’re not wrong. But your advice is really more of a workaround. I don’t think it is realistic to expect that every telephoto shot can be composed so that only the subject is focused and everything else is a nice creamy OOF blur.

I can usually live with a lot of the bad VR rendering I see. But the photo I posted here today is the worst example I’ve ever seen.

One of the question I asked though, is whether VR of other camera brands exhibits this same VR rendering with long telephoto lenses. I fault Nikon but perhaps the reality is that all brands do it. Maybe I’m asking too much of VR. Perhaps the answer is to go back to the old school techniques with no VR for critical shooting or accept the potential consequences.

m_black said:

With respect, if your shutter is at 1/4000... do you need VR at all (outside of stabilizing the image through the EVF)?

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That is a reasonable question. But with an 800mm lens (even 600mm) the answer is usually yes. And especially when using these new lightweight lenses handheld. Sure, photographers have not always had the luxury of VR. They used to have big heavy lenses and needed to use a tripod with a gimbal head.

michaeladawson said:

m_black said:

With respect, if your shutter is at 1/4000... do you need VR at all (outside of stabilizing the image through the EVF)?

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That is a reasonable question. But with an 800mm lens (even 600mm) the answer is usually yes. And especially when using these new lightweight lenses handheld. Sure, photographers have not always had the luxury of VR. They used to have big heavy lenses and needed to use a tripod with a gimbal head.

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My answer is… I’m lazy. I sure wish Nikon would give me the ability to assign VR on/off to a button on the body in a future FW update.

Maybe I’ll do some tests tomorrow

One difference is that before it was a lot of work to fix, and now, at least with Adobe it's under a minute. If you like the rest of the system, maybe consider that on the way to the heap.

How could that possibly be a VR issue unless you are stacking, multiple exposures, etc... as any movement because of the VR would move the whole image.

I used to get a ton of artifact issues, 'The worms', etc. when processing Fujinon X-Tran images in photoshop. I get some unique background effects with my PF 300 due to its unique nature... but never an issue like this with VR. VR might possible move minutely and affect sharpness while on a tripod but even that seems rare these days... most of the time it seems to help with micro-movement even while on a tripod.

If RAW, try to official Nikon converter as a test.

All of these examples in this thread look like atmospheric issues / heat haze, it can happen with any lens and without VR. I could get it on my old 300mm f2.8 and D500, so I don't think it is necessarily a VR or PF or Z thing as such.




300mm f2.8 with 1.4 TC, 9am morning sun - time to go home!

michaeladawson said:

A Owens said:

Roy Kikuta said:

TheSoaringSprite said:

I'm wondering if this is a PF lens thing. I don't own any PF lenses, but I've seen others complain about a similar issue. I've never seen this with any of my Nikon telephoto lenses, but they are not PF.

Click to expand...

I don't believe this is limited to PF lenses - I've got an example shot with my old f-mount 500mmf/4 VR AF-S that shows the same busy double-line bokeh. I believe I've seen the same with the 200-500 f/5.6 VR lens on a D810/D500 as well. Also the same experience with my Z 400 f/4.5... I've got to say that my "awareness" of these types of busy bokehs has been growing over the last 5-10 years.

Click to expand...

The reality is that you need to have an awareness of your BG when using a long lens. Put a busy, messy BG close behind your subject when shooting with a long lens, you will get jangly bokeh, regardless of lens.

Consideration of the BG is an important aspect of long lens technique and a low shooting position is often a solution.

Click to expand...

You’re not wrong. But your advice is really more of a workaround. I don’t think it is realistic to expect that every telephoto shot can be composed so that only the subject is focused and everything else is a nice creamy OOF blur.

I can usually live with a lot of the bad VR rendering I see. But the photo I posted here today is the worst example I’ve ever seen.

One of the question I asked though, is whether VR of other camera brands exhibits this same VR rendering with long telephoto lenses. I fault Nikon but perhaps the reality is that all brands do it. Maybe I’m asking too much of VR. Perhaps the answer is to go back to the old school techniques with no VR for critical shooting or accept the potential consequences.

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Something to consider: it may actually be the result of physics (spatial geometry). The camera shake results in an apparent movement of the object on the sensor, and the camera/lens VR compensates for this apparent movement. However, due to parallax (perspective shift) objects at different distances will move different apparent amounts on the sensor. The camera/lens VR can only compensate for one of these apparent movements, and presumably picks the object that is in focus. Hence closer (or further) objects will have apparent movement due to camera shake either under- or over-corrected. This might be what results in the jittery appearance of these objects, and reflects the apparent relative parallax movement.

btw, please don't ask me a bunch of questions asking me to explain or defend this theory. It is just a thought for you to consider. I don't know if it is valid!

A Owens said:

michaeladawson said:

I don't examine many photos from other brands. So I don't know if they do the same thing. But I am coming close to throwing in the towel on Nikon's VR. This has been going on for many years. I'm talking about Nikon's nervous double and triple ghosting of background elements.

Here's my latest example of this. Shot with the Z8 and 800mm f/6.3. VR is in sport mode. The Z8 is on a monopod. This is a crop to turn this from the original landscape to a portrait orientation. Otherwise it's close to full size.

That long stripe of mangled VR work on the left size mostly relegates this photo to the garbage heap. There's other spots in the photo where Nikon's VR work is evident.

I am just getting tired of just about all telephoto shots that have grasses or reeds exhibiting these VR artifacts.

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Not sure this has anything to do with VR. Z mount VR is amazing!

Looks like you shot a twig in the foreground without noticing. Also, any lens will give you nervous bokeh if your put a busy background close behind your subject. The Z mount PF's are not particularly more prone to it than any other lenses, maybe a fraction. I replaced an older 600/4 with the 800/6.3 and don't see a lot of difference regarding nervous bokeh.

Just consider your BG in every shot and get lower!

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Yep. Just looks like a twig to the left of the subject but in front of the subject focus plane. I don't think anything would save that image, VR or no VR - or Nikon VR or Sony/Cano VR. Do some post process AI work to get rid of it.

--
Lance B

Lance B said:

Just looks like a twig to the left of the subject but in front of the subject focus plane.

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I agree.

Not widely appreciated is, for mathematical reasons, while out of focus detail can be blurred out to sometimes even infinity softness behind the subject with a long focal length lens - it cannot always be blurred out as much as behind when in front of the subject.

michaeladawson said:

A Owens said:

Roy Kikuta said:

TheSoaringSprite said:

I'm wondering if this is a PF lens thing. I don't own any PF lenses, but I've seen others complain about a similar issue. I've never seen this with any of my Nikon telephoto lenses, but they are not PF.

Click to expand...

I don't believe this is limited to PF lenses - I've got an example shot with my old f-mount 500mmf/4 VR AF-S that shows the same busy double-line bokeh. I believe I've seen the same with the 200-500 f/5.6 VR lens on a D810/D500 as well. Also the same experience with my Z 400 f/4.5... I've got to say that my "awareness" of these types of busy bokehs has been growing over the last 5-10 years.

Click to expand...

The reality is that you need to have an awareness of your BG when using a long lens. Put a busy, messy BG close behind your subject when shooting with a long lens, you will get jangly bokeh, regardless of lens.

Consideration of the BG is an important aspect of long lens technique and a low shooting position is often a solution.

Click to expand...

You’re not wrong. But your advice is really more of a workaround. I don’t think it is realistic to expect that every telephoto shot can be composed so that only the subject is focused and everything else is a nice creamy OOF blur.

I can usually live with a lot of the bad VR rendering I see. But the photo I posted here today is the worst example I’ve ever seen.

One of the question I asked though, is whether VR of other camera brands exhibits this same VR rendering with long telephoto lenses. I fault Nikon but perhaps the reality is that all brands do it. Maybe I’m asking too much of VR. Perhaps the answer is to go back to the old school techniques with no VR for critical shooting or accept the potential consequences.

Click to expand...

As I mention in my other response in this thread, I'm really not sure this is a VR issue.

michaeladawson said:

I don't examine many photos from other brands. So I don't know if they do the same thing. But I am coming close to throwing in the towel on Nikon's VR. This has been going on for many years. I'm talking about Nikon's nervous double and triple ghosting of background elements.

...
I am just getting tired of just about all telephoto shots that have grasses or reeds exhibiting these VR artifacts.

Click to expand...

Yes, you said it.

Diffraction artifacts amplified with the combination of any lenses,
>not only photog but also Sherlock Holmes' lenses.

Very seldom you can experience it with your naked eyes, because they are very thin and small.

Put a lens between your eyes and lines, grass, or any straw-like complement,
and you may see them with the right angle of the light.

Everybody knows Atmo artifacts, it's simple ... because air behaves like a lens.

Straw's artifacts are less known... but ....
if you want to see sharp and in focus you close your lids:
until suddenly the image in your eyes becomes perfectly in focus.

A perfect use of Diffraction from the eyelids and eyelashes AS A LENS

Diffraction lenses are better known to be a fissure thing projecting in the dark.
Straw's is the same phenomenon in the reverse... in full light

( VR don't enter the equation )

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Photography ... It is about how that thing looks when photographed..
( Avoid boring shots )

michaeladawson said:

Maybe I’ll do some tests tomorrow

Click to expand...

I think a fundamental effect of VR, not brand dependent one, is at work here.

VR did a great job in your example for the in-focus hairs, to keep them in place on the sensor while the sensor moves due to camera shake. It seems clear that the rays converging at the focal plane, must diverge to front and back side of the plane.

I suspect that VR does not all its moves by gyro and inertia sensing, which would have to be meticulously calibrated to the camera conditions: involving the focal length at the specific setting and position of principal planes etc. The highly effective VR might include optical cues similar to auto-focus: when the collectivity of sharp contrast elements slips off position, it would have to respond in a thresholded or perhaps finely stepped motion. The number of replica in relation to the shutter speed may give a hint at the stepping frequency involved: several kHz.

A structure in the somewhat out of focus part of the image tells something how the VR manipulated rays went. Outlining in the front defocus part may give more prominent effects. One of the repliers suggested that the upcoming sun makes such VR artifacts appear. This would bode well with VR sensing and reacting to warm-air disturbances.

These ideas may suggest tests, but I have not reached a simple and clear test design yet.

VR patents might also give hints at the workings and testing.

Firstly, that out of focus object is between the camera and the subject, it extends below the subject.
In response to another post, VR doesn’t sense movement of the subject, it uses gyros and accelerometers to detect camera movement, thus if there is an object vibrating in the image area VR won’t do anything about it.
In the example shown I suspect the item causing the problem is a grass stem or, more likely, a clump of grass stems. In even a slight breeze these will vibrate causing them to appear wider than they are in reality. Next, being closer to the camera than is the subject, they will appear larger anyway.
In conclusion the blurred vertical “artefact” is nothing to do with VR and everything to do with an obstruction between lens and subject. It may, or may not, be vibrating.

I studied this problem way back when I shot Pentax and the Bigma 50-500mm ..... it was there then with IBIS on or not, (no VR) ..... it's nisen bokeh which is the splitting of out of focus backgrounds .....

my Bigma had it, my Tamron 150-600mm has it, my AF-S500mm F4D had it (no VR) and my AFS-600mm F4E VR FL has it, VR on or not ..... and it hasn't any PF elements.

..... the background stalks are split (nisen bokeh) and act like a diffraction grating between themselves and create patterns resulting in a jumbled mess .....

Why telephoto lenses produce nisen bokeh more than others? I don't know, but until lens producers concentrate on producing lenses that don't split the background the problem will remain ............. unfortunately

........ until then shoot level with the ground



then the issue is less of a problem ......

michaeladawson said:

I don't examine many photos from other brands. So I don't know if they do the same thing. But I am coming close to throwing in the towel on Nikon's VR. This has been going on for many years. I'm talking about Nikon's nervous double and triple ghosting of background elements.

Here's my latest example of this. Shot with the Z8 and 800mm f/6.3. VR is in sport mode. The Z8 is on a monopod. This is a crop to turn this from the original landscape to a portrait orientation. Otherwise it's close to full size.

That long stripe of mangled VR work on the left size mostly relegates this photo to the garbage heap. There's other spots in the photo where Nikon's VR work is evident.

I am just getting tired of just about all telephoto shots that have grasses or reeds exhibiting these VR artifacts.

Click to expand...

Few things, perhaps only occurring on the long tele's? Never noticed this on my 70-200/2.8S. Perhaps sport mode has made it worse, you might try turning that off and using standard VR, as it looks like you where not on a boat. I see some posting that their lens has it and it doesn't have pf elements. Could it be more likely in a pf lens though, since they already have more nervous bokeh, generally speaking than the f mount lenses they "replaced"? In astro, they do very weird stuff to pinpoint light sources and most try to not use any lens with them present. The reality is, for bokeh, pf lenses seem to be a compromise. Lighter yes, but the 800/5.6 on f mount has better bokeh...Be interesting if anyone has noticed this with the f mount 800...

Yes that is a ruined shot, but can be fixed in PS easily. Although - would not want to be doing this often. However, even if you ignore the vertical line, the rest of the bokeh is really ugly and distracting (not what I used to see with users using the 800 f mount lens), IMO this in particular is pf elements...

The 800mm has a FOV of slightly more than 3 degrees. If you look at your watch, a one second mark covers 6 degrees. Twice that horizontally and three times vertically.

I think problems with the Viewfinder are related to the individuals inability to track a subject. That's difficult with a gimbal mount on a solid tripod let alone handheld where one breath would cause enough movement to lose the subject.

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A Owens said:

michaeladawson said:

A Owens said:

Roy Kikuta said:

TheSoaringSprite said:

I'm wondering if this is a PF lens thing. I don't own any PF lenses, but I've seen others complain about a similar issue. I've never seen this with any of my Nikon telephoto lenses, but they are not PF.

Click to expand...

I don't believe this is limited to PF lenses - I've got an example shot with my old f-mount 500mmf/4 VR AF-S that shows the same busy double-line bokeh. I believe I've seen the same with the 200-500 f/5.6 VR lens on a D810/D500 as well. Also the same experience with my Z 400 f/4.5... I've got to say that my "awareness" of these types of busy bokehs has been growing over the last 5-10 years.

Click to expand...

The reality is that you need to have an awareness of your BG when using a long lens. Put a busy, messy BG close behind your subject when shooting with a long lens, you will get jangly bokeh, regardless of lens.

Consideration of the BG is an important aspect of long lens technique and a low shooting position is often a solution.

Click to expand...

You’re not wrong. But your advice is really more of a workaround. I don’t think it is realistic to expect that every telephoto shot can be composed so that only the subject is focused and everything else is a nice creamy OOF blur.

I can usually live with a lot of the bad VR rendering I see. But the photo I posted here today is the worst example I’ve ever seen.

One of the question I asked though, is whether VR of other camera brands exhibits this same VR rendering with long telephoto lenses. I fault Nikon but perhaps the reality is that all brands do it. Maybe I’m asking too much of VR. Perhaps the answer is to go back to the old school techniques with no VR for critical shooting or accept the potential consequences.

Click to expand...

As I mention in my other response in this thread, I'm really not sure this is a VR issue.

Click to expand...

I agree. It appears to be atmospherics given the issues I've seen