Photography News Issue 57

Photography News | Issue 57 | photographynews.co.uk

42

First tests

– and the zoom ring is usable even when the hood is reversed for carrying which improves reaction time – as do the customisable AF buttons near the front element. There are tethering points for locking the lens up securely, its barrel is all metal and it’s fully weather sealed, too. There are lots of controls, so it’d take some familiarisation time to start using them ‘blind’. On board are the usual options; multiple VR modes, and focus distance limiting to avoid foreground clutter fooling the system. Focus-wise, you can also pick from A/M, M/A and M; in A/M it takes longer for the manual focus ring to engage manual focus, whereas in M/A it takes you straight tomanual. You can set the AF buttons either to action AF- On, AF-L or have them snap you to a preset focusing distance, which is easy to set up. AF was very snappy, near and far, takingunder a second to jump fromthe closest 200cm to infinity, and working with my D850’s tracking modes very well. Even with my standard test of a

dog running towards me at high speed I got more hits thanmisses. Nikon reported some time ago a firmware upgrade on the way to improve this further – points at the edges of the array on D5, D850 and D500 bodies were to act as cross types; this hadn’t surfaced at the time of this review going to press. The lens’s Vibration Reduction, rated at 4EV benefit, was highly effective, too. I was getting plenty of sharp handheld results at 1/20sec even when shooting at 560mm. If you need to travel light and respond to unpredictable subjects, this zoomwill serve you well. It’s more flexible than a prime, so you can go in close or frame your subject in the scene without moving your feet or changing lenses. Arguably, you’ll get shots you would have missed otherwise. We didn’t have equivalent primes to test it against, but sharpness and AF speed seemed very good to excellent. It’s a significant outlay, and not far off the Canon equivalent, price wise, and an indisputably powerful tool. KS

180mm

280mm

400mm

550mm

F/4

F/4

F/4

F/5.6

F/5.6

F/5.6

F/5.6

F/8

F/8

F/8

F/8

F/11

Images Optically, the lens is excellent. It’s very sharp at all focal lengths, and only seemed to drop off very slightly at with the teleconverter engaged at the long end. Even then, the difference was minor, though.

F/16

F/11

F/11

F/11

F/16

F/16

F/16

F/22

Verdict

There’s no doubting the quality of Nikon’s new 180-400mm f/4E, and the built-in 1.4x teleconverter is a great addition giving even more flexibility than the regular zoom allows. For amateurs, it’s well worth treating yourself to a loan if you have a special trip planned; though sending the lens back may be a wrench. Pros Optical quality, handling, tank- like build. Ditch your primes for this one light and flexible lens Cons It’s a heavy beast, and you need deep pockets

F/22

F/22

F/22

F/32

F/32

F/32

F/32

F/45

Powered by