Nikkor 200mm-400mm Lens?????

[Tom Swaman]

Does anyone have any experience with the Nikkor 200-400mm lens?

Did you find thid to be sharp at 200mm? At 300mm? At 400mm?

I put one lens through a rather rigorous shooting test and got great results at 200mm and terrible or mediocre results at 4oomm. With a lens of this cost, mediocre=terrible in my opinion. Usually Nikon glass is good at long focal lengths. Does anyone have any thoughts or comments about my experience?

Thanks in advance,
Tom

[cyclohexane]

My guess is that you might have had a bad copy. My dad uses this lens, and if I recall correctly had good results at all focal lengths when he tried it. As soon as I'm not ill (stinkin' summer bugs) I'll grab it and take it for a spin.

Everyone else I've talked to about it (and everyone who's reviewed it) raves about it too.

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Another possibility: it looks so good at 200mm that 400mm looks like garbage by comparison? I know that my 70-200mm gets weaker as you get to the long end...

[Tom Swaman]

Michael,

Thanks much. I feel you are correct. Sometimes I question my own results and do not trust myself so I asked the question.

GET WELL QUICKLY!!!!!

Tom

[dougjgreen]

I've heard that some of the current long AF Nikkor glass is let down by having tripod collars that have quite a bit of flex in them. Bjorn Rorslett has commented on this as well. I'm wondering if you might not be getting vibration through the tripod mount that is degrading the images - and of course, this would be much more noticeable at 400mm.

[cyclohexane]

I'm wondering if you might not be getting vibration through the tripod mount that is degrading the images - and of course, this would be much more noticeable at 400mm.

Good point. I replaced the tripod collar on my 300mm with one without flex from Really Right Stuff, and my dad did the same with his 200-400mm.

[cyclohexane]

GET WELL QUICKLY!!!!!

Thanks! =)

[Tom Swaman]

Doug,

I checked carefully for this four separate times in separate shooting sessions by taking the lens off the tripod and shooting on two Safari bean bags on a firm surface. Frankly, I originally tested the lens on a gear head and I thought the L-bracket a bit thin and potentially problematic.

Thanks for the thought.

Tom

[cyclohexane]

Well, I got a chance to give the lens a spin anyways, so...

Here are some shots, using a D200 mounted on a Gitzo 3530 with Wimberley head (none of it mine, heheh). VR was ON ("Normal"), tracking using AF-C and Group Dynamic (mode 1). All images shot wide open, ISO 200. Everything converted using Phase One's Capture One LE with sharpening, noise suppression, banding suppression, and color noise suppression disabled.

Apologies for the "Adobe RGB" colors; I may need to reinstall Photoshop as it doesn't seem to be converting my files to the correct sRGB profile when I'm saving them. Web-sized shot first, followed by 100% crop. Web shots are resized using a generic action that runs some sharpening in LAB mode, but the 100% crops are unsharpened.

200mm:




290mm:




400mm:




There is some visible degradation as one zooms in, but honestly the images sharpen up just fine. Most of the shots I took at 400mm look a little like they're slightly out of focus- and the thin DOF at f/4 isn't helping. I'll try to get in some more lens time when I'm well to rule out user error.

[Nikonfreak]

Great info guys. I've not had a chance to work with one of these lenses but I've heard wonderful things about it. I'm surprised to see this thread. I'd expect stellar performance from this lens given the price point.

I'd also agree with the above in that if there's one weak point in the Nikon glass "armor" it's the feet on the tripod collars. The one on the 300 f/2.8 VR is nothing more than "ok" in my opinion as it will wobble a tad when mounted on a wimberley sidekick. Maybe it's best described as a little "sag". Unacceptable for a lens of that price point.

I have not yet ordered the RRS foot but have considered it recently.

Julio

[cyclohexane]

I have not yet ordered the RRS foot but have considered it recently.

You should... no wobble whatsoever. 'Twas worth the $55 or so, especially considering that the small point-and-shoot plates are also $55 (I also have one of those, haha).