Nikon 55-300 review for portraits
The 55-300mm ƒ/4.5-5.6G ED VR was introduced in August 2010 as a new telephoto zoom lens companion to its 18-55mm wide-angle zoom lens. Nikon already has two consumer-grade telephoto zoom lenses: the 55-200mm VR and the FX-capable 70-300mm VR. Show On a Nikon digital body with an APS-C sized sensor, the lens will give an effective field of view of approximately 80-450mm. The lens vignettes when mounted on a full frame body; you'll see black circular edges on either side of the image. As a G-series lens, there's no aperture ring, so it may not work properly on a film body that can't set the lens aperture. The 55-300mm isn't a ''constant'' lens, in that as you increase the focal length, both the maximum and minimum aperture sizes decrease. The following table reflects the change in aperture with focal length: Focal Length55-100mm100-200mm200-300mmLargest apertureƒ/4.5ƒ/4.8ƒ/5.6Smallest apertureƒ/22ƒ/25ƒ/29 Dealers tend to make the lens available as part of various body and lens kit, or on its own for around $350. The lens ships with a lens hood, and accepts 58mm filters. Sharpness As with most lenses the optimal results are achieved when stopped down - in the case of the 55-300mm VR, to ƒ/8 or ƒ/11. Best results for sharpness seem to be achieved with the lens set to either 70mm or 100mm and ƒ/8, where sharpness is tack-sharp across the entire frame. When used at its widest apertures, the lens' performance is somewhat uneven; it needs to be stopped down even by one stop to achieve consistently sharp images across the frame. Results when used wide open at 200mm and below are decently sharp if uneven, at around 2 blur units; at 300mm, it's not as uneven, but corner softness moves up to 3 blur units. Close the lens down by one or two stops, and it finds a happy place. As we've already indicated, it's happiest in the wider region of its zoom range; performance is still very good at 135mm, but at 200mm or 300mm sharpness never gets better than 2 blur units, even stopped down to ƒ/8 or ƒ/11. Diffraction limiting sets in at at ƒ/16; fully stopped-down performance is acceptable at wider focal lengths, but at 135mm and longer, it becomes quite soft; at 300mm and ƒ/29, we note around 6 blur units across the frame. Chromatic Aberration The lens shows good resistance to chromatic aberration. Chromatic aberration is present at the wide angle (55mm) when the lens is stopped down considerably, but is very low indeed until around 135mm. At 200-300mm, chromatic aberration begins to become problematic, especially in the corners. Please note that the CA results for 300mm aren't currently available, but will be posted shortly. Shading (''Vignetting'') If corner shading is an issue at all, it's when the lens is used at its widest apertures, and then, at 100mm or longer; even then, we note corners that are only 1/3 EV darker than the center. Stopped down, corner shading is negligible. Distortion Distortion results for the Nikon 55-300mm ƒ/4.5-5.6 are typical for this class of lens, showing a complicated mix of both barrel and pincushion distortion in the longer range of its telephoto focal length. Between 55-67mm, distortion is slightly barrelled, at around +0.3% in the corners; the lens reaches a kind of parity around 62mm. After this point, the corners show pincushion distortion while the central region shows some slight barrel distortion. At its worst, we note almost -0.5% pincushion distortion in the corners above 135mm; similarly, almost +0.3% barrel distortion distortion throughout the image above 100mm. Autofocus Operation Despite being an AF-S lens, the 55-300mm ƒ/4.5-5.6 is relatively slow to autofocus. Our non-scientific testing puts it at around 1.5 seconds to rack through near-far focus on a D300s body. Manual focus is selected with a dedicated AF/MF switch: despite being listed as an AF-S lens, you can't override autofocus by just turning the focus ring, you have to switch to manual focus mode. In this case, the AF-S term just means the focus motor is built into the lens. Further, the front lens element will rotate during focus operations, making the use of polarizing filters that much more difficult. Macro Macro results are fair for this lens, with a magnfication of 0.28x, and a close-focusing range of 1.4 meters (around 4 and a half feet). Build Quality and Handling The 55-300mm ƒ/4.5-5.6 is composed of polycarbonate plastic, with matte black finish, a metal body mount and plastic filter threads. As an advantage this makes the lens quite light (580, 18.7oz) and easy to handle; however, it doesn't feel as robust as Nikon's more expensive lenses. It doesn't feel cheap; it just doesn't feel as ''solid'' as one might hope. That said, Nikon's figured out what to keep and what to leave and out and still leave the lens economically priced: features such as using 9 rounded diaphragm blades in the aperture to deliver smooth out-of-focus elements; using 1 High Refractive Index and 2 ED elements in the optical design; and a tripod-sensing VR system. The lens has two control features: a switch to enable or disable autofocus, and a switch to enable or disable vibration reduction. The lens does not feature a distance scale, depth-of-field indicators or infrared index. The lens takes 58mm filters: as mentioned, these will rotate during focusing. The zoom ring is considerable, about one and three-eights inches wide, with well-textured raised rubber ribs. It provides a nicely spaced zoom selection, rotating 90 degrees through its range. The lens will extend about one and five-eights inches during its zoom range. Zooming action is very smooth but nicely dampened; the lens won't creep at all. The focus ring feels like a bit of an afterthought, a ribbed rubber ring a quarter-inch wide. The ring offers ninety degrees of focus travel, with hard stops on either end of the spectrum. It's worth noting that there's some slight lens extension during autofocus, with the lens barrel protruding an additional 3/4 inch at 300mm. It's not impossible to achieve accurate manual focus, but it's definitely harder than it needs to be. Clearly, this is a lens that's not intended for anything but autofocusing. That said, autofocus, while dependent on the body, is very accurate. The lens features vibration reduction, and in practice, it works quite well - see our IS Test section for full details. In short, it doesn't quite offer the 4 stops of shake reduction as advertised, but it does offer some benefit. The lens ships with the HB-57 hood, a rounded hood that offers protection from flare. The lens can be reversed and mounted on the lens for storage; when mounted, it adds 1.5 inches to the overall length of the lens. Alternatives We've limited our alternatives to image-stabilized telephoto zooms. Nikon 55-200mm ƒ/4-5.6G IF-ED AF-S DX VR ~$225 While the new lens offers the longer 300mm focal length, the older 55-200mm is a third-stop faster, and when compared, seems to offer slightly sharper and smoother results than the new lens. Results for CA and distortion are similar; the new lens shows much less corner shading Sigma 50-200mm ƒ/4-5.6 DC OS HSM ~$160 The Sigma is on par with the Nikon for sharpness, corner shading and distortion; the Nikon handles chromatic aberration much better. The Sigma doesn't offer the extra reach of 300mm, but it is a third-stop faster at the wider 50mm. Also, about half the price of the Nikon. Tamron 18-270mm ƒ/3.5-6.3 Di II VC LD Aspherical IF Macro AF ~$630 Tamron doesn't offer a comparable telephoto zoom with image stabilization; its closest offering in the same range would be the 55-200 ƒ/4.5-6, which we have not yet tested. The 18-270mm offers Vibration Compensation (VC), and a similar zoom range. The sharpness and CA profiles are quite similar to the Nikon; good in the mid-range, but poorer when zoomed in to its full extension. Distortion is of course somewhat different, as the lens has a very wide range of focal lengths to contend with, and vignetting is about the same. More expensive than the Nikon, though of course, you get a whole range of wide-angle thrown in as well. Conclusion Considering the price point, you do get a good deal of lens for the money: it's fairly sharp wide open, sharper when stopped-down, and other traits such as tolerance to chromatic aberration, corner shading and distortion are as good or better than you'd expect for a lens in this class. It's not quite as good as its predecessor 55-200mm, but then, it's not just a matter of tacking on an extra 100mm of focal length; something's got to give, and thankfully, there's nothing that gives too much to make that happen. For the money, the lens makes an excellent companion to an 18-55mm for a two-lens system that runs the full gamut of wide-angle to telephoto. Sample Photos The VFA target should give you a good idea of sharpness in the center and corners, as well as some idea of the extent of barrel or pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, while the Still Life subject may help in judging contrast and color. We shoot both images using the default JPEG settings and manual white balance of our test bodies, so the images should be quite consistent from lens to lens. As appropriate, we shoot these with both full-frame and sub-frame bodies, at a range of focal lengths, and at both maximum aperture and ƒ/8. For the ''VFA'' target (the viewfinder accuracy target from Imaging Resource), we also provide sample crops from the center and upper-left corner of each shot, so you can quickly get a sense of relative sharpness, without having to download and inspect the full-res images. To avoid space limitations with the layout of our review pages, indexes to the test shots launch in separate windows. Nikon55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR DX AF-S NikkorNikon 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR DX AF-S Nikkor User Reviews7.5/10average of 8 review(s) Build Quality7.3/10 Image Quality7.3/10
9 out of 10 pointsand recommended by RussellG (1 reviews) Sharp, light, VRII, inexpensive Rotating front element, questionable hood quality (new design) This lens is pretty much a longer version of the 55-200 which is a great lens in its own right. I saved over $100 by getting this lens over the 70-300mm. The zoom is smooth and image quality is as good as the venerable 70-300 VR lens, perhaps a bit better to my eyes (especially at 300mm). There's some CA as expected but nothing to worry about. VR is the second version like my 16-85mm and works very well at 300mm. The only thing I noticed about the VR is that it takes a half-second or so to stabilize, so you have to be a bit patient before you press the shutter. Auto focus is not the swiftest and is about the same as the 55-200 and perhaps not as fast as the 70-300 so this may not be a good sports lens. It's a nice light lens for its range. Build quality is okay (although the metal mount is a nice touch). The hood is a new design and snaps on to the front element (easier to put on for sure because you don't have to line up any notches). It's always loose so it rotates freely (not too easily though). To remove it, you have to depress two tabs and pull it off. I don't get the feeling this is a solid design here and worry that any bang on the hood will break it off. I'm hoping it's sturdier than it feels and I think Nikon got a little cheap here. In the end I think Nikon built a nice, light lens here and, despite some minor niggles, I prefer it over the 70-300 for my purposes (general photography - family & scenics/wildlife - no sports). What is the Nikon 55Ideal for general telephoto use! The Nikon AF-S 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G VR DX lens produces fantastic photographs. The advantage of vibration reduction ensures consistently sharp images. It is the ideal lens for any photographer looking for great results in a handy size. What is the best aperture for Nikon 55As with most lenses the optimal results are achieved when stopped down - in the case of the 55-300mm VR, to ƒ/8 or ƒ/11. What is the difference between 55 300 and 70 300 lens?The 55-300 has more range at the lower end and a wider aperture at the long end. The 70-300 is about 22% lighter (415g vs. 530g), has a nearer min front focus (1,1m vs. 1,4m), and often has better test results. Is Nikon AFBest Answer: The Nikon D3200 is fully compatible with F-mount lens types such as AF-S and newer E-type lenses, so the AF-S DX NIKKOR 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR lens is completely compatible with this model of camera. Nikon F-mount AI and AF-D lenses can also be used but will have some limitations. |