I’ve been exploring my new 200-500mm Nikon f/5.6 Zoom Lens on my D500 and pushing the limits of what it can do. I’ve used it for several weeks taking photos of Soccer and Cricket and I thought I should run a few of my own lens sharpness tests to see how it’s performing in a controlled environment.
As in my previous Lens Shootout I tested sharpness indoors, with controlled lighting conditions setting the D500 on a tripod, set with a Timer and adjusting the shutter speed leaving a constant shutter speed of 1/200th of a second, with Auto ISO and tweaked the Exposure during post to try and equalise the light level between exposures.
Setting the back of some packaging with a mixture of text and symbols as the target with the tripod at the same physical distance for each test photo.
I took photos across the aperture range at f/5.6, f/8 and f/11, cropped to 1,000 x 1,000 pixels in both the dead-center of the frame and the bottom-right edge of the frame.
200mm
200mm Center Crop f/5.6
200mm Center Crop f/8
200mm Center Crop f/11
200mm Edge Crop f/5.6
200mm Edge Crop f/8
200mm Edge Crop f/11
300mm
300mm Center Crop f/5.6
300mm Center Crop f/8
300mm Center Crop f/11
300mm Edge Crop f/5.6
300mm Edge Crop f/8
300mm Edge Crop f/11
400mm
400mm Center Crop f/5.6
400mm Center Crop f/8
400mm Center Crop f/11
400mm Edge Crop f/5.6
400mm Edge Crop f/8
400mm Edge Crop f/11
500mm
500mm Center Crop f/5.6
500mm Center Crop f/8
500mm Center Crop f/11
500mm Edge Crop f/5.6
500mm Edge Crop f/8
500mm Edge Crop f/11
What I wanted to test the most was the differences between Edge and Centre sharpness as well as the the effect of different Apertures. For me I think the sensor is starting to battle ISO grain at f/11 and this is impacting the apparent sharpness. In the field I’ve tried stopping down the Aperture to try and get a wider focus across the zoom area but it’s tough the further out you zoom and the images above support this observation.
My conclusions in terms of the questions I was seeking answers to though, is firstly there’s no noticable change in sharpness from the center to the edge at the closest zoom, irrespective of aperture. The edge starts to softens only slightly as you zoom in towards 500mm, and is independent of aperture.
The thing I didn’t expect was the sharpness at f/5.6 being so consistent, throughout the zoom range. If you’re isolating a subject at the extremes of zoom then it’s probably not worth stopping down the aperture and in future when I’m shooting I’ll just keep that aperture as wide open as I can unless I’m at the 200mm end of the zoom spectrum.
It’s a truly amazing lens for the money and whilst I realise there are many other factors to consider, I at least answered my own questions.