Photography News Issue 61

Photography News | Issue 61 | photographynews.co.uk

First tests

Nikon AF-S 500mm f/5.6E PF EDVR £3699

Specs

If your photographic interests include action, airshows and wildlife, to enjoy them means long telephoto lenses, at least 300mm, maybe longer. The downsides of long lenses are expense and bulk. The Nikon AF-S 500mm f/5.6E PF ED can be accused of being expensive, although it’s reasonable in the context of top long lenses, but it is remarkably compact for what it is, weighing in at just 1460g and measuring 237mm long without its hood. It’s less than half the weight and 150mm shorter compared with Nikon’s 500mm f/4 – different spec of course. If you need another comparison, it’s just 31mm longer but 90g lighter than the current 70-200mm f/2.8. Using one Phase Fresnel lens element has enabled Nikon to make the 500mm f/5.6 so compact. It is still a sizable chunk of glass of course but in context of super telephotos it’s tiny, making life so much easier when travelling, and there are significant handling benefits too. It’s handholdable for minutes at a time, for example. Fitted to a Nikon D850 the combination balances nicely and that encourages handholding too. VR is included offering a 4EV benefit so assuming 1/500sec is the minimum shutter speed for handholding, a 4EV benefit that means 1/30sec. I tested the VR on a D850 shooting sets of five shots on a calm outdoor day at shutter speeds from 1/60sec down to 1/8sec in 0.5EV steps.

Original image

Price £3699

Format 35mm and APS-C In the box

LC-95 95 mm front lens cap, LF-4 rear lens cap, HB-84 bayonet hood, CL-M5 case Mount Nikon F Construction 19 elements in 11 groups Special lens elements Three ED, one PF (Phase Fresnel) AF motor Nikon Silent Wave Coatings Nano-Crystal, fluorine-coated front element Filter size 95mm Aperture range F/5.6-32 Diaphragm Nine blades Internal focus Yes Manual focus Yes, full-time override Minimum focus 3m Focus limiter Yes, full and infinity to 5m. Memory recall feature Distance scale Yes Depth-of-field scale No Image stabilizer Nikon VR with 4EV benefit, Sport VR mode Tripod collar Yes Lens hood HB-84 bayonet hood supplied Weather-sealed Yes Dimensions (dxl) 106x237mm Weight 1460g Contact nikon.co.uk

F/5.6

F/8

On a D850, the 500mm lens performed well including in continuous AF.

I managed nothing critically sharp at 1/8sec but success rate leapt to four shots looking pin-sharp at 1/15sec with the same result at 1/30sec. Given the focal length of this lens you have to be impressed with sharp handheld images at such slow shutter speeds if you have no other option. The VR feature has a Sport option, this for panning with moving subjects, and in standard VR there can be slight framing changes between shots in continuous shooting so watch for that. Autofocusing was very fast and silent. The lens on the D850 gave impressive AF accuracy when contrast was good. It struggled a little more when contrast was less good, say

on animal fur, as I found on a polar bear trip, so you need to find some contrast to lock on to. Overall, AF was very good and, as you need from such a long lens where depth-of-field is so shallow, it is highly responsive to framing changes and subject movement too. This lens’ other notable feature is Memory Recall. Using the Memory Set button you can register a focusing distance which you then recall by using any one of the four function buttons at the front end of the lens. The position of Memory Set means it’s usable with the right middle finger and that works fine once you get used to it. The four function buttons can be assigned as AF-L or AF-ON buttons as well as Memory Recall. High-quality performance at the wider lens apertures is crucial with long lenses, and in that respect you won’t be disappointed with this 500mm. It’s very good at f/5.6; that’s important as the lens will often be used at this value. It does get even better at f/8 and f/11 and fine detail is even better resolved. Long telephoto users rarely dip into the smaller apertures so this lens’s less good showing at f/22 and f/32 isn’t an issue but if you need top quality at a smaller value then f/16 is very capable. I tried the lens with Nikon’s latest x1.4 and x2 teleconverters too. With the x2 when the lens becomes an effective 1000mm f/11, AF was a little suspect and image quality is impacted, which is to be expected. Using the x1.4 to give an effective 700mm f/8 with very good image quality is an option well worth considering – that converter costs around £470. WC

F/11

F/16

F/22

F/32

Images For the test shots, the 500mm lens was fitted with an Arca Swiss tripod plate and fixed onto a Novo Explora T20 carbon-fibre tripod fitted with a ballhead. Shots were taken with the exposure delay mode, and the resulting Raws were processed through Lightroom.

Verdict

This Nikon 500mm f/5.6 is an amazing lens. It is so small and very user friendly for its focal length, and delivers a remarkably good performance bringing extreme long telephoto photography within relatively easy reach. True, its maximum aperture is a modest f/5.6 when top-end models are f/4, but with the amazing ISO performance of modern cameras the necessity of fast apertures is not what it once was and of course it’s much cheaper than faster lenses. Pros Optical performance, very good VR, so small for its focal length, good price for the spec Cons Arca Swiss tripod foot would be good, 95mm filter thread

Images The single AF point was aimed at the arctic hare’s nose and as you can see from the enlarged area, it was spot on.