Good enough for landscapes, but terrible at close ups, motion, and detail

[Cara_Chapel]

I'm satisfied with medium and faraway landscape shots I take on this lens, but when I try to do wide-angle close up, especially of moving or detailed images, I get purple fringe on water droplets and I don't get anything like the clarity or sharpness I get with the same subjects and settings using, for example, my Nikkor 70-300mm VR. I'm pretty disappointed in this lens's performance.

 

[bkjones88]

Maybe I'm misunderstanding but how is it fair to compare wide angle close-ups with those shot at a minimum of 70mm? Care to post some examples?

--
Flickr photostream: https://www.flickr.com/gp/155725559@N02/Vm148C

 

[toomanycanons]

Nikon 16-80mm f/2.8-4E VR Review

photographylife.com

 

[jfriend00]

Who tries to use a wide angle zoom for closeups? It's just the wrong tool for the job.

There is no way that's a priority in the design. That's kind of like saying my 600 f/4 is really cumbersome for portraits. Wrong tool for the job.

 

[Razor512]

The 600mm f4 is a good portrait lens, it is a very compact lens that is easy to hand hold, and with minimal modification to your pants pocket, it can be quite the pocket friendly lens .

Anyway, for the 16-80 lens, is it possible to get a sample raw file where the issue is in place?

While it will not be ideal since the lens is being used in a way that it was not fully designed for, sometimes many of the issues can be corrected/ mitigated in post. It may be worth experimenting to see if acceptable results can be had after post processing.

 

[cosmicnode]

The 600mm f4 is a good portrait lens, it is a very compact lens that is easy to hand hold, and with minimal modification to your pants pocket, it can be quite the pocket friendly lens .

Anyway, for the 16-80 lens, is it possible to get a sample raw file where the issue is in place?

While it will not be ideal since the lens is being used in a way that it was not fully designed for, sometimes many of the issues can be corrected/ mitigated in post. It may be worth experimenting to see if acceptable results can be had after post processing.

Strangely enough I have seen pro's use the 600 f4 for portraits. This is when they are shooting drivers inside a pit garage from the garage door, LOL :-D

--
Mike.
"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure."

 

[threw the lens]

I'm satisfied with medium and faraway landscape shots I take on this lens, but when I try to do wide-angle close up, especially of moving

Remember if the subject is moving, that's not the lens' fault.

or detailed images, I get purple fringe on water droplets and I don't get anything like the clarity or sharpness I get with the same subjects and settings using, for example, my Nikkor 70-300mm VR. I'm pretty disappointed in this lens's performance.

Apparently maximum magnification on this lens is only about 1:4.8 which is not much, so I doubt you are getting very close to water droplets and you must be magnifying them a lot to see them at wideangle.

Lenses are usually weakest on their long end. If you get better images on the short end of a 70-300, than on the long end of a 16-80 that doesn't really surprise me.

If your lens is very new, I recommend you test it in case it has an optical problem.

 

[Leonard Shepherd]

One possibility with close-ups is you are "not taking control of focus distance".

CAUTION - the myth of "focussing one third in" for maximum depth of field rarely provides the intended result.

There is no avoiding something called the hyperlocal distance. This is 3 feet 3 inches at 16mm at f8.*

The significance of hyperlocal distance is you get everything sharp from half the hyperlocal distance to infinity.

With your lens at 16mm and f8 this is from the 18 inches to the skyline.

If you do not not take control of focus distance and focus on something at 20 feet or further away, subjects close to the camera are unlikely to be within the depth of field - and unsharp.

There is a fair bit of flack at the moment on the Nikon ML forum about corner performance of the 14-30 at 14mm.

Some overlook that at f4 at 14mm the HD is 4 feet 10 inches* and that for maximum front to back sharpness focus distance should be 2 feet 5 inches.

* is used on the presumption most will be happy to start with 0.033 mm as the measure for visual sharpness in a print. Nikon usually uses 0.033 mm (or close to it) in their depth of field tables.

 

[Flashlight]

Shot from about the closest focus distance of 35cm:







--
Philip

 

[Nikon33]

The 600mm f4 is a good portrait lens, it is a very compact lens that is easy to hand hold, and with minimal modification to your pants pocket, it can be quite the pocket friendly lens .

Anyway, for the 16-80 lens, is it possible to get a sample raw file where the issue is in place?

While it will not be ideal since the lens is being used in a way that it was not fully designed for, sometimes many of the issues can be corrected/ mitigated in post. It may be worth experimenting to see if acceptable results can be had after post processing.

LOL!

 

[fpapp]

The significance of hyperlocal distance is you get everything sharp from half the hyperlocal distance to infinity.

You learn something new every day! Very cool!

 

[Leonard Shepherd]

The significance of hyperlocal distance is you get everything sharp from half the hyperlocal distance to infinity.

You learn something new every day! Very cool!

HD can be quite easy to work out to better than 5% accuracy - in your head

Start with HD for a 50mm on FX and use 32 feet.

With a 24mm lens HD is one quarter of the 50mm number and 8 feet.

With a 100mm lens HD is 4 times the 50mm number and 128 feet.

That should get you started.

For f4 double the f8 number, and for f16 half it.

Observation 1

With a 24 mm lens "focussing one third in" in a landscape is a lot further away than 8 feet HD - and can renders some near detail unsharp :-(

Observation 2

Changing focal length has a much bigger effect on HD and depth of field than changing aperture.

I might start a new thread on how to easily use HD in the lens forum later.