Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G VR Lens

Product Information

The VFA target should give you a good idea of sharpness in the center and corners, as well as some idea of the extent of barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, while the Still Life subject may help in judging contrast and color.

Used Nikon Lenses | Second Hand Nikon Lenses | CameraWorld Used Nikon Lenses | Second Hand Nikon Lenses | CameraWorld

My principal purpose, though, was not comparison but just to see what the lens does with a variety of subjects and its full range of focal lengths, with and without the Kenko 1. Ghosting and flare is reasonably well controlled, with strong point sources of light in the frame creating a little flare and loss of contrast in extreme circumstances. When the lens cannot autofocus and starts to hunt, the autofocus performance gets to a crawling speed. when zoomed in), along with the lack of the gold ring on the front of the lens indicate that the lens is not on the same level as professional-grade constant aperture lenses in terms of optics, which is quite understandable, considering what it can offer in terms of zoom range. Wide open, both lenses have an almost identical corner performance – I cannot see any difference between the two.

It's not impossible to achieve accurate manual focus, but it's definitely harder than it needs to be. Low-light focusing can be more problematic, but given the slow maximum apertures on offer, this isn't meant to be a low-light lens anyway.

Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED Vibration Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED Vibration

This is by no means an over-exaggeration – this is how small the new 300mm f/4E VR really is when compared to its predecessor! This gives them an effective zoom range of 75-300mm on Nikon camera bodies such as the D3100 and D5100, very close to the classic telephoto zoom range of 70-300mm on full-frame cameras. But there are two problems using this lens at long focal lengths First, as I said before, it's very hard to hold steadily enough to entirely avoid camera motion without a tripod, which I don't use. While the 28-300mm works well on both full-frame and cropped sensor cameras, its 28mm focal length is too long for general use on cropped sensor cameras (with an equivalent focal length of 42mm). As the lens is zoomed to 135mm, the resolution drops off a little, but is still very good across the frame from wide open, reaching its peak at f/5.When used at its widest apertures, the lens' performance is somewhat uneven; it needs to be stopped down even by one stop to achieve consistently sharp images across the frame. As a G-series lens, there's no aperture ring, so it may not work properly on a film body that can't set the lens aperture. Thanks to the popular demand of the 18-200mm and the full-frame Nikon 28-300mm VR lenses, Nikon decided to add another superzoom to the DX line. MPB will also keep you informed about the status of your gear at every step of the way and the whole process is carbon neutral. The Sigma is on par with the Nikon for sharpness, corner shading and distortion; the Nikon handles chromatic aberration much better.

Nikon 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR DX AF-S Nikkor Specifications Nikon 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR DX AF-S Nikkor Specifications

While dust specs generally do not affect the sharpness of a lens, too much dust decreases lens contrast, resulting in images that look a little cloudier than normal. Nikon was able to do this by using a high refractive index (HR) lens element (which allows using a single lens element instead of multiple elements made of standard glass), without compromising sharpness and image quality. The lens mount features a rubber gasket to minimize dust and debris from making it into the camera chamber. The first switch is used for moving between Auto / Manual (A/M), Manual / Auto (M/A) and Manual (M) focusing operation.

If you are planning to mount this lens on a tripod, I would highly recommend to replace the original lens collar with a more stable version from either Kirk or Really Right Stuff. The hawk was just cruising above me, so I did not have to track focus – the lens just acquired focus at once and I took a couple of images. The AF-S Nikkor 55-300mm lens may have a lot of plastic parts, but the lens mount is, thankfully, made of metal. When it comes to corners, the Nikon 55-300mm performs a little better at 70mm than the 28-300mm though. Weight-wise, the Nikon 300mm f/4D AF-S is pretty light when compared to expensive super-telephoto lenses from Nikon.

NIKON AF-S DX NIKKOR 55 - 300 mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR Telephoto NIKON AF-S DX NIKKOR 55 - 300 mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR Telephoto

On a Nikon digital body with an APS-C sized sensor, the lens will give an effective field of view of approximately 80-450mm. When it comes to AF, the 55-200mm zoom is surprisingly slow for a modern AF Nikkor, and is one of the slowest focusing lens in the AF-S line-up. For the money, the lens makes an excellent companion to an 18-55mm for a two-lens system that runs the full gamut of wide-angle to telephoto. Most of the recently-announced lenses by Nikon have a plastic exterior, which does not necessarily mean that the lenses are not solid.Further, the front lens element will rotate during focus operations, making the use of polarizing filters that much more difficult. On the other hand, the delay I experienced with the stabiliser kicking in I found a little more disconcerting. If you do need to use the lens on a tripod, just use the camera tripod mount instead, as your camera mount will easily be able to handle the lens even with teleconverters attached. The Nikon 55-300mm VR is a plastic lens with a metal mount, which is easy to carry and handle due to its low weight.