Evaluation of Nikon AF-S 18-300 lens

IT 168 Nikon af-s18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g edvr, a DX lens with super zoom factor, has aroused a heated discussion among DX Party members since it was launched. Obviously, this lens with wide angle, telephoto and VRII damping technology is tailor-made for DX frame machines to go around the world. The DX fuselage adopts the DX pan/tilt of 18-300, and the equivalent focal length is 27-450mm, which is not only as simple as a mirror traveling around the world, but also includes the focal length from wide angle to super telephoto. Whether it's wide-angle scenery, telephoto bird shooting or capturing fear in the street, you can easily do it.

However, as we all know, in terms of design principle, too large zoom factor will inevitably lead to the decline of optical quality (which also explains why the top zoom head has no mid-range Jiao Da and the quality is good). With such concerns, many users who are very interested in this shot are afraid to start. Today IT 168 made a comprehensive evaluation of this lens. Please follow the author's evaluation and fully understand this shot.

"Solid feel and good sense of control.

Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR This lens is in dx format. Such a large zoom range can be said to be a practical hang-up lens with wide angle and telephoto.

▲ Installation drawing of Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR.

This lens looks very small, but only when you really pick it up can you find its weight? The weight is about 830g, and the length is about 120 mm (the part protruding from the lens mount). Even the relatively bulky D800 looks top-heavy, not to mention DX's frame body.

▲ Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR front lens.

Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR 77mm aperture, with big eyes, makes people feel that the optical quality is guaranteed. However, with such a large caliber, the price of its matching filter has also gone up.

▲ Telescopic design

The lens adopts telescopic design. The advantage of this design is that it can greatly reduce the length of the lens when it shrinks, but it is relatively easy to fall into dust, so everyone needs to be careful when using it.

▲ Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR zoom ring lock.

This lens is equipped with a zoom ring lock, but the length of the lens barrel will not change due to its own weight when not shooting. This design is very necessary for this large zoom lens with heavy weight.

Appearance summary: Coke is very practical, but it is too heavy to carry. Overall, the appearance is compact, the layout is reasonable, and the sense of control is good.

Wide-angle telephoto, giving consideration to macro

Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR has a long zoom range. Because it is a DX lens, when installing the DX body, the actual focal length of this lens needs to be multiplied by the equivalent focal length conversion multiple. The coefficient of Nikon's half fuselage is 1.5, so this 18-300mm lens is actually equivalent.

This focal length can be used for shooting wide-angle scenery or telephoto birds, but this is not the whole lens. Although you don't have macro shooting function, you can shoot some short stories under some special circumstances if the magnification is good.

The magnification of this lens is 1/3.2x, which has a certain macro function in terms of parameters. So what is the specific effect? Let's take a look at the shooting test effect of the nearest focal length.

▲ 18mm end shot effect

It can be seen that the wide-angle end with an equivalent focal length of 27mm can already shoot a very large scene. Shooting general buildings and scenery can be very imposing, even some indoor shooting objects with relatively small stretching space can be easily competent.

But sometimes it is difficult to catch other people's eyes because of too many details, and by shooting at the telephoto end with an equivalent focal length of 450mm, we can cut the whole picture to the area shown in the red box:

▲300mm end shooting effect

The picture taken through the 300m telephoto end (equivalent focal length 450mm) is concise and neat. Whether you go to the safari park to take pictures of animals, perform in the stands, or even take macro photos, this head can meet your requirements. Although this focal length is only the aperture of F5.6, the shallow depth of field created by telephoto blurs the background.

Therefore, we can use this lens to shoot almost all objects, from still life and macro to wide angle and telephoto. As long as you are not a professional photographer with professional requirements, having this lens can completely reduce the cost of buying special macro lenses, wide-angle lenses and telephoto lenses. Can describe? Wide-angle telephoto, macro , a walking mirror.

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The resolution is average

When choosing a lens, I believe that most people first pay attention to the resolution of the lens. After all, resolution is the most basic attribute of image quality. In the resolution test, we use Nikon D7000 equipped with Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR lens to take the sample of ISO 12233 resolution target (4000 lines) at various apertures, and test it with Imatest software, and finally get the wide-angle end and telephoto at various apertures. The test results are as follows:

▲ wide-angle resolution

The wide-angle end overall table is still relatively stable. When the aperture is fully opened, the resolution is close to 2500 lines, and when the aperture of 1-2 is narrowed to F5.6, the optimal resolution is above 2500. If you want to take a landscape photo with a wide-angle end, I suggest you use an aperture of around F5.6 to get more details.

▲ telephoto end resolution

Is telephoto end more important than wide-angle end? A little meat? But the overall level is not bad. The maximum aperture can also exceed 2000. I believe that the telephoto maximum aperture portrait can not only blur the back, but also get good sharpness. After the maximum aperture is reduced by one or two steps, the highest resolution still appears in the aperture section. If there is no requirement for background blur, the best details can be obtained by shooting telephoto with F 1 1

The test results show that for Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR, its resolution is a little higher than the general lens, but lower than many other zoom lenses with the same price (the highest value of Imatest test of Nikon AF-S 24-85 F3.5-4.5G exceeds 4000), not to mention focusing. However, I want to make a fair evaluation. In fact, the resolution of this lens is above the horizon, which is better than the general hood.

Wide-angle distortion is serious and telephoto distortion is slight.

Distortion is inevitable for lenses with large zoom ratio, which is why the top zoom head always controls the zoom ratio within three times. If the distortion is too large, when we use wide-angle close-range shooting, the picture is prone to barrel distortion, which is mainly manifested in the outward projection of the center of the picture; At the telephoto end, there will be pillow-shaped distortion, which shows a central depression.

This lens uses three aspherical lenses to control the distortion (we should know that Nikon 24-70 F2.8 lens with similar focal length has only three aspherical lenses), so we are very much looking forward to its distortion control. In the IT 168 evaluation room, we use Nikon D7000 and Nikon af-s18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g edvr to test the shooting distortion.

▲ Wide-angle/telephoto distortion test

After the actual test, the author was slightly disappointed. It is not difficult to see from the figure that the wide-angle distortion is serious. The pincushion distortion at the 300mm end of telephoto is well controlled, with only a slight pincushion distortion.

I still have to make a fair evaluation: the wide-angle distortion of this lens is still quite serious. It is suggested that you use a lens with less distortion and a long focal length or try to avoid the background with more lines after shooting some more rigorous subjects.

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The dark angle is well controlled.

For the lens with large zoom factor, it is necessary to test the loss of light at four corners. In the IT 168 standard evaluation environment, Nikon D7000 fuselage is adopted. At the wide-angle end and telephoto end, the light loss at the four corners of the lens is tested with real shots of various apertures.

▲ 18mm wide-angle end dark angle test chart.

▲ Test diagram of dark angle of ▲300mm telephoto end

The test results show that the dark angle control of this lens is still very good. As can be seen from the test chart, the dark angle of the maximum aperture F3.5 at the wide-angle end is very obvious in actual use, and it basically disappears when the aperture is reduced to F8. At the telephoto end, the lens also leaks light, but it is brighter than the wide-angle end. It is also necessary to reduce the aperture to 8 to obviously reduce the dark angle.

In this era of pursuing individuality, many photographers can pursue some dark corners to make photos look full of literary atmosphere. And even if we don't want dark corners, we can correct the loss of light in the four corners by correcting the dark corners of the fuselage or later software. Therefore, the existence of this degree of dark corners is not a big problem in my opinion. But from a scientific point of view, from a design point of view, the loss of light at the four corners is a technical difficulty that needs to be overcome.

The lens is generally anti-glare, with slight glare and ghost.

In addition to the distortion and loss of light, glare is also one of the inherent characteristics of the lens, which is mainly determined by a large number of lenses in the SLR lens. Generally speaking, glare will interfere with the picture to some extent when shooting in backlight. Let's take a look at the performance of this lens in the face of 1500w incandescent lamp.

▲ af-s18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g edvr anti-glare test.

From the test, the backlight performance of this lens is still relatively general, but although there are slight flares and ghosts, it is not ugly. Sometimes when shooting landscapes or small fresh portraits, the glare effect of backlight can increase the charm of photos. But it needs glare to look good, and the angle and size of the halo are too high. Deliberate shooting in the early stage is basically not feasible. In most cases, we'd better try to avoid bright light.

The purple border is well controlled.

Many shots are shot in a large light ratio environment, and there will be a dazzling purple edge phenomenon at the junction of light and dark. The ugly purple border will obviously directly affect the picture quality. What about the purple edge suppression of this shot? Let's actually feel it.

Use telephoto end, shoot with each aperture, and then sample and analyze the red frame of the picture with 100%.

▲ af-s18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g edvr purple edge test.

It is not difficult to find from the test results that the purple edge suppression of the lens is still very good. There is no obvious purple edge in the whole picture. When the picture is enlarged to 100%, there will be a slight purple edge phenomenon at the junction of light and dark, and the purple edge phenomenon caused by aperture contraction has not been significantly improved. But in general, this is a lens that can be used boldly in a large light ratio environment.

Jiao Wai is round and a bit bilinear.

Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR has nine circular aperture blades, which should theoretically achieve a very round and soft Jiao Wai effect. But, like most readers, I don't believe it or hate it? Theoretically? These three words, and firmly believe? Theory? Is it? Unrealistic? Synonym of. So there is the following real shot test.

▲ Jiao Wai effect test of Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR.

Under the maximum aperture at the wide-angle end, the background can achieve a certain blur effect, but it is not obvious. After all, there is no big aperture. Jiao Wai transition is natural and mild, with slight bilinear, but not very serious.

At the telephoto end, although the maximum aperture is only F5.6, the longer focal length creates the effect of shallow depth of field. Can shoot a good background blur works, very suitable for portraits. Similarly, Jiao Wai is round and beautiful, slightly bilinear.

Generally speaking, the Jiao Wai of this shot is quite round. For a large zoom lens, a constant large aperture is obviously just an extravagant hope, and the effect of shallow depth of field can only be achieved by telephoto.

Super four-speed lens anti-shake

The lens anti-shake function can often win a lower shutter for users, so that users can take clear photos with a slower shutter even in low light without sacrificing ISO image quality. Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR is equipped with Nikon's second-generation lens anti-shake technology, which can theoretically reduce the four-speed shutter.

Using the longest focal length of 300mm, the theoretical safety shutter 1/300s, and holding 1/20s after four shifts should get a clearer picture. In this regard, the author uses the D90 fuselage, turns on VR to shoot the same scene manually, and then compares the 100% screenshot of the picture.

▲ af-s18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g edvr fuselage anti-shake test.

It is not difficult to find that the four-speed anti-shake of AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR is worthy of the name. Even with an extreme shutter such as 1/25s, you can take a relatively clear picture by hand. I suggest you make full use of the powerful anti-shake function of this lens when shooting.

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Sample appreciation

▲ Official samples

▲ Official samples

▲ Official samples

▲ Official samples

▲ Official samples

▲ Scenery Nikon D90 Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR

▲ Scenery Nikon D90 Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR

▲ Capture Nikon D90 Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR.

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Editor's general comment: Go to the world with one shot

Generally speaking, this super zoom AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR lens performs well in all aspects (of course, only compared with the general head), and there is no obvious serious injury. Although this lens is much better than the hood in image quality, even the author gave it to it? Walking around the world in the mirror? But it is undeniable that this shot is more suitable for ordinary families or beginners who just want to learn something. Professional photographers and enthusiasts must be disdainful.

▲ Exterior drawing of Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR.

At present, the licensed price of this lens in Chinese mainland is around 7000, which has just been listed. According to market rules, there is still room for price reduction. But at present, this price is still relatively expensive, which is difficult for people to accept. Cost performance? This word has something to do with this shot.

Summary of advantages and disadvantages

Summary of advantages and disadvantages

superiority

1, practical focal length (telephoto and wide angle, giving consideration to macro)

2. Good purple edge resistance.

3, super anti-shake

"shortcomings

1, wide-angle distortion is serious.

2, the lens is biased, which is not convenient to carry.

3, the price is expensive

Purchase suggestion

Because Nikon AF-S18-300mm f/3.5-5.6g EDVR is a large zoom DX lens, it is not recommended for users in Quan Huafu to buy it (although Quan Huafu fuselage can recognize DX lens and automatically switch to DX mode, it wastes the effective pixels of the fuselage). If the user of a half-frame camera buys it as a hanging head for daily home or travel, it can go all over the world. In addition, its telephoto end is as high as 450mm, which is also a good choice for street shooting or bird shooting. After all, it is much cheaper than professional super telephoto.