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

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My 2.0x Kenko TC works on both cameras, but it doesn't autofocus, and holding steady enough to get really sharp images at these very long net focal lengths is difficult. I don't use a tripod, but that might help here. As usual with that particular TC, there is definite image degradation over the sharp 1.4x TC

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I have now taken many more pictures with this lens on my D7100, specifically looking for difficult subjects and conditions. In most cases, it has been pretty good to about 200 or 210mm, with or without a Kenko 1.4x TC, in or out of crop mode. So up to roughly 400mm DX net it's fine for "normal" subjects. When it comes to corner performance @ 200mm, the Nikon 55-300mm takes the lead just like in the 105mm corner test. In terms of features, the Nikon AF-S Nikkor DX 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR is a bit of a mixed bag. One one hand, it has Vibration Reduction on board – hence the VR abbreviation in the product name –; on the other, it isn't as sophisticated as on some other Nikon lenses. There's an on-off switch on the lens barrel, but there's no choice between active and normal modes. Likewise, the lens has a built-in auto-focus motor that allows AF operation on every Nikon DX camera body, including entry-level offerings like the D3100 or D5100, but – unlike with most other AF-S lenses – focusing is not internal, and manual focusing is not possible when the focus mode selector is set to the 'A' position, as shown above. The lens has no distance scale and no focus limiter, either. It's a nice light lens for its range. Build quality is okay (although the metal mount is a nice touch). The corners are very similar to 105mm – consistently good images from f/5.6 to f/11.0. Sharpness Test – Nikon 55-300mm @ 300mm Center Frame

The lens has two control features: a switch to enable or disable autofocus, and a switch to enable or disable vibration reduction. The lens does not feature a distance scale, depth-of-field indicators or infrared index. The lens takes 58mm filters: as mentioned, these will rotate during focusing. Despite being a consumer-grade lens, the Nikon 18-300mm is beefed up with plenty of optical technologies from Nikon. The lens sports the second generation VR II (vibration reduction) technology, offering camera shake compensation equivalent to a shutter speed increase of approximately four stops, allowing to shoot at slower shutter speeds without introducing camera shake. At f/8.0, the performance is almost identical. Nikon 55-300mm vs Nikon 55-200mm @ 105mm Corner Frame The corners at 70mm look very similar to the 55mm crops posted above, with softer corners wide open getting pretty good by f/8.0. Sharpness Test – Nikon 55-300mm @ 105mm Center Frame

Nikon 300mm f/4E PF ED VR Review - Photography Life Nikon 300mm f/4E PF ED VR Review - Photography Life

Both perform very similarly when stopped down to f/8.0. Nikon 55-300mm vs Nikon 55-200mm @ 55mm Corner Frame This is an in-depth review of the Nikon 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G DX ED VR lens that was released in June of 2012 along with the Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR lens. 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. The Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED VR II lens mounted on a Nikon D3300 body, extended to 200mm Unlike the slower variable aperture telephoto lenses like Nikon 80-400mm VR and 70-300mm VR, the Nikon 300mm f/4D does not have the same autofocus “chatter” issue, where AF will hesitate, constantly making AF adjustments during continuous autofocus operation (AF-C mode). NIKON D3S + 300mm f/4 @ 420mm, ISO 450, 1/1000, f/10.0 Typically with lenses covering this range, the performance is very good at shorter focal lengths tailing off as the lens is zoomed in. In the case of Nikon's 55-300mm, at 55mm the sharpness in the centre is already excellent from maximum aperture, with the resolution towards the edges of the frame catching up by f/8, which is where the lens gives its peak performance for this focal length.

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

I really like the versatility of this lens – being able to shoot at 55mm all the way to 300mm is very nice, especially for wildlife photography. Unlike the new Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G VR or the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR II, this lens is not plagued with a “lens breathing” issue and 300mm on the long side is truly like 300mm, not shorter. Another important thing to note, is that the lens does extend pretty far when zoomed all the way in to 300mm. This is quite normal for this type of a lens and most other consumer zoom lenses also extend out when zoomed in. Zooming in/out was a little jerky and not very smooth on my lens sample, but it probably does get better overtime. The lens does not creep at all and I don’t think it will, even with heavy use in the future. The HB-57 lens hood is specifically engineered for this lens and it snaps on easily – I would leave it mounted on the lens to keep the front element protected against damage and flare/ghosting. NIKON D300 + 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 55mm, ISO 400, 1/250, f/8.0 Distortion is also well controlled, at least at 55mm anyway. At 55mm Imatest could only detect 0.29% barrels distortion, whereas at 300mm 1.3% pincushion distortion has replaced the barrelling, which may become noticeable when straight lines are paramount. Fortunately the distortion pattern is uniform at both ends, making it simple to correct in image editing software afterwards. Again, the center looks very similar to 200mm, with slightly softer image at f/5.6 that gets sharper at f/8.0 and f/11.0. Sharpness Test – Nikon 55-300mm @ 300mm Corner Frame Corners look all the same to me in terms of sharpness, with a slight amount of visible purple fringing in the corners.

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

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. Although the lens has a total of 17 optical elements in 11 groups, it weighs only 580 grams. In comparison, the Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6G VR lens weighs 800 grams, while the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G VR lens weights 745 grams. 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 zoom ring is gigantic, occupying almost half of the lens barrel, which makes it easy to zoom in and out with your left hand, while holding the camera with your right hand. Autofocus is a bit slow, as it is with a lot of these "older" lenses, like the 70-300 and even the 18-140. So it's probably not the best tool for rapidly moving wildlife and sports shots, as the reviewers point out. But it does work well enough for almost all static subjects, except that it searches for focus at long distance subjects if there is any haze in the air. It does eventually find focus, especially if I help by manually focusing and then letting autofocus do the rest. 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/5.6. At smaller apertures, diffraction appears to take a bite out of the sharpness as the lens is stopped down. Finally at 300mm the sharpness at maximum aperture is certainly acceptable, but stopping down the lens to f/8 improves matters noticeably. Here peak performance is found at f/11 where images show good sharpness across the frame.While the new lens offers the longer 300mm focal length, the older 55-200mm is a third-stop faster, and when compared, seems to offer slightly sharper and smoother results than the new lens. Results for CA and distortion are similar; the new lens shows much less corner shading Bokeh is a word used for the out-of-focus areas of a photograph, and is usually described in qualitative terms, such as smooth / creamy / harsh etc. In the Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED VR II lens, Nikon employed an iris diaphragm with seven rounded blades, and it has resulted in quite nice bokeh in our view. We do realise, however, that bokeh evaluation is subjective; so we've included several 100% crops for your perusal. The Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED VR II lens mounted on a Nikon D3300 body, extended to 55mm The scale on the left side is an indication of actual image resolution. The taller the column, the better the lens performance. Simple.