Nikon 70-200 AFS VR f2.8 on the D3
The Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 AFS VR G on the Nikon D3
Sunday, 20 April 2008
First off:
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1.The 70-200 is an ideal, fast, photojournalism and sports lens.
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2.It also has nice Bokeh, making it a good portrait lens.
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3.Reviews by Bjorn Rorslett and Digilloyd have found problems with corner sharpness and vignetting at 200mm f2.8. Does this matter? f2.8 would be a pretty unusual setting for landscapes, but just possible on an evening/early morning distance shot. In most cases the lack of corner sharpness wouldn’t notice.
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4.Does vignetting matter? no, as its easily fixed in post processing. It may matter if you’re shooting at high ISO (6400+) and noise comes up on the corners with correction. Again highly unlikely for landscape use.
5. If the lower edge is out of focus, the bokeh appears more out of focus than a ‘sharp corner’.
See next page for examples and corrections on landscape shots.
Basically these show that the centre of the image is sharp at f2.8, and that the edge improves by f5.6. My lens is better on the right than the left.
Full Frame 200mm @f2.8 100% crop centre
100% crop lower Left 100% crop lower right
There has been a lot of debate on the forums about the corner performance at infinity at 200mm on this lens covering the FX sensor.
Several prominent reviewers have found it to be ‘inadequate’.
I set out to see how much of a handicap this would be for occasional use of my 70-200 as a landscape lens.
