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by Tim Zurowski on Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:08 pm
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Awhile back I sold my 500 f4 VR and bought the 200-500 f5.6. For AFFT on this lens I did it at 500mm and did it many times to ensure consistency. However, this lens at 500mm is never very sharp, yet at lower focal lengths (say 250 to 350) it is amazingly sharp. I took over a thousand images last Saturday and in every case, the 500mm shots are noticeably soft, and the 250 to 350mm shots are razor sharp. Is this normal? Assuming it is not, because I have 4 friends that use this lens and say theirs are very sharp at 500mm, what can I do about it? Did I perhaps just get a lemon? I would rather the lens be sharp at 500mm than at 300mm. FWIW, I am on the wait list for the 500 f5.6 PF, but with the availability of that lens here in Canada, it could be a year before I see one. So in the meantime I need to get this lens as sharp as possible at 500mm.

Thanks :)
 

by SantaFeJoe on Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:21 pm
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How is the sharpness with manual focus and live view at 500? Can you get a sharp image that way? In other words, is this copy capable of sharpness at 500?

Joe
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.  -Pablo Picasso


Last edited by SantaFeJoe on Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 

by Tim Zurowski on Mon Feb 25, 2019 8:22 pm
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SantaFeJoe wrote:How is the sharpness with manual focus and live view at 500? Can you get a sharp image that way?

Joe
I'll give it a try. Thanks
 

by Karl Egressy on Tue Feb 26, 2019 6:53 am
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Hi Tim,
Maybe Nikon services could help to solve your problem.
Meantime you could try to go back from 500 just a bit and it might be sharp at that focal length.
Canon 100-400 f 4.5-5.6 L IS was known to have had a similar problem.
People dialed back to 380-390 and it was sharp at that focal length. It was the older version of the lens.
 

by E.J. Peiker on Tue Feb 26, 2019 8:01 am
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I think expecting an $1100 consumer grade zoom to have the same sharpness as a $10K pro prime is an unrealistic expectation. The 200-500 is a decent lens for the price but it is nowhere near the same sharpness as the 500 f/4 or 500 f/5.6 primes - it isn't even close. Almost all long zooms lose some IQ as you get to the far reaches of it's focal length range. Of course to get the most out of that lens or any lens, especially in the Nikon world, a good Auto-focus fine tune is necessary. Those 200-500's are all over the place and very inconsistent from sample to sample on how much adjustment they need.
 

by Tim Zurowski on Thu Feb 28, 2019 2:19 pm
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I did some lens tests today and shot a test subject at 500mm, 450mm, 400mm, 350mm, 300mm & 250mm. Sure enough the only one that was soft and unacceptable was at 500mm. All others were fairly sharp and acceptable for this lens. The difference was quite noticeable! So then I took a bunch of LIVE VIEW shots at 500mm with manual focus, and they are much better. So my only conclusion from this is that FoCal is just not a good option anymore for AFFT. I did the lens 5 times at 500mm with FoCal and in all 5  tests, the AFFT came out within 2 points (-1, 0 & +1) Since -1 came out three of the 5 times and offered the sharpest frame, I had set it at -1. So I guess it is back to the old $5 bill AFFT process. At least this shows me that the lens can be sharp enough at 500mm

EJ, FWIW I never said I expected this lens to have the "same sharpness" as a $10,000 lens. What I did say was that "this lens at 500mm is never very sharp". That being said, to my critical eye, when used at 300mm it is every bit as sharp as my 500 f4 VR was and from there to 450mm almost no difference. The lens is definitely acceptable at a pro level at all focal lengths (other than 500mm). Sure if you want to be anal about it and get right into the fine technical tests, it probably isn't as sharp, but for people like me that is totally meaningless. What matters is if it is acceptable to the user and the images can be printed and marketed. With this lens both are very doable. I sell thousands of images and no one ever says "hey, that wasn't taken with a $10,000 lens". :)
 

by SantaFeJoe on Thu Feb 28, 2019 2:41 pm
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It seems like there is a lot of adjustment room, too, whether front or back focusing. Why not try a slightly different setting adjusting in increments of 1? Even without using any aid, you probably will be able to easily get it right. What’s to lose?

Joe
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.  -Pablo Picasso
 

by Mike in O on Thu Feb 28, 2019 3:17 pm
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Tim, just curious if you tried shooting at f8 (expanding your DOF)? If you get good shots, I would suspect your mfa is off (believe me I am speaking from experience). I have gone back to check mfa & couldn't believe where I had set it. Lucky that you don't have a 99II which sets different zooms lengths and independently the 4 corners.
 

by Mike in O on Thu Feb 28, 2019 3:17 pm
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Tim, just curious if you tried shooting at f8 (expanding your DOF)? If you get good shots, I would suspect your mfa is off (believe me I am speaking from experience). I have gone back to check mfa & couldn't believe where I had set it. Lucky that you don't have a 99II which sets different zooms lengths and independently the 4 corners.
 

by Tim Zurowski on Thu Feb 28, 2019 3:27 pm
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Yes, I have even shot waterfowl at f10 and f11 and they are unacceptable at 500mm. I have done AFFT to dozens of lenses (mine and many friends) and have finally realized that FoCal is a waste of time; at least it is with Nikon gear. I did two more test runs using FoCal again and both times it came out at +1. The difference between -1 & +1 is basically negligible to the eye. This lens is out by at least 5 or 6 (or more) points. I have found that just changing the AFFT setting and taking shots of test charts to be unsatisfactory for getting reliable results. I think I am just going to go to a good waterfowl spot where the birds are easy and tame and take a bunch of shots at different AFFT settings, and just pick the one that is sharpest at 500mm. Not scientific, but may make the lens more usable for me.
 

by Mike in O on Thu Feb 28, 2019 3:40 pm
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I use a car way down the street and focus on the license plate with hopefully some chrome showing. If everything is working good. the license will be sharp and blue fringing off the chrome will be negligible. Seems to work for me when I want to adjust for far away objects..
 

by Tim Zurowski on Thu Feb 28, 2019 3:55 pm
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I almost never shoot far away subjects, with most being within 50'. I have done the license plate thing many times. Problem with it is it does not have any fine details to resolve. I judge fully by how well it resolves the fine feather details around a bird's eye. With my tele lenses 95+% of my shooting is birds. Using a license plate, this lens (at 500mm) looks plenty sharp, but not so with birds. One of the birds I was shooting last Saturday was a Northern Hawk Owl, which is a notoriously tame and easy bird to approach. Many of my shots were well within 50' and ALL VERY soft. I wish I had thought at the time to dial it back to 400-450mm. Now I know :)
 

by E.J. Peiker on Thu Feb 28, 2019 5:23 pm
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Just about every super tele zoom I've ever touched requires a very different fine tune value at max focal length than the rest of the lens. Unfortunately only Tamron and Sigma give us the capability of correcting for this by being able tow rite fine tune tables to the lens rather than in the body. Since you are getting better results in Live View than in normal AF, that is exactly what's going on here since live view uses AF at the sensor level and ignores the AFFT value. And FWIW, I've never found Focal to be as good as a real fine tune done with a tethered computer and the long ruler of a Lens Align II.
 

by Karl Egressy on Sat Mar 02, 2019 3:36 pm
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When I switched from Canon to Nikon, I updated FoCal to be able to test Nikon lenses/cameras. It was a waste of money, It did not work.
There are different ways to do the test. I usually do it two different ways and accept the result if it is within plus minus 1 when comparing the results.
Steve Perry has a way of doing it with the new cameras, D850, D500 and D5. You can check out the video.
 

by Tim Zurowski on Sat Mar 02, 2019 5:18 pm
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Karl Egressy wrote: Steve Perry has a way of doing it with the new cameras, D850, D500 and D5. You can check out the video.
Karl, I have been using FoCal for about 5 years now, so I am very familiar with it and know how to use it. Can I assume this Steve Perry method you refer to is NOT using FoCal, but some other method? Any chance you can provide a link for it?
 

by E.J. Peiker on Sat Mar 02, 2019 6:41 pm
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Use the Google Machine... ;) :D
 

by Karl Egressy on Sun Mar 03, 2019 9:46 am
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Tim Zurowski wrote:
Karl Egressy wrote: Steve Perry has a way of doing it with the new cameras, D850, D500 and D5. You can check out the video.
Karl, I have been using FoCal for about 5 years now, so I am very familiar with it and know how to use it. Can I assume this Steve Perry method you refer to is NOT using FoCal, but some other method? Any chance you can provide a link for it?

Hi Tim,
Here is one link. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYXXP9r0oAc
Follow the instruction. I do it at 10.5 m as my living area is that big.
Summertime I will repeat it at around 15.0 m
Perform the autofocus fine tune twelve times, remove the highest and lowest values and calculate the average of the ten remaining values.
(Weighed average)
I also use Spyderlenscal to double check the results.
 

by Tim Zurowski on Sun Mar 03, 2019 12:47 pm
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Thanks Karl.  So Steve is talking about using the internal AFFT system to the D500. I totally forgot that the D500 had that. I'll give it a try today.
 

by Tim Zurowski on Sun Mar 03, 2019 3:28 pm
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A bit windy here today to be sure, but I ran Steve's AFFT process twice today and the 10 AFFT points total -5 & -6, which averages to -0.5 & 0.-6. So I am no further ahead than what I got with FoCal, which gave me -1 three times, 0 once and +1 once.. Will run it again another day when there is no wind. Unfortunately I have nowhere I can do this inside with enough distance for a 500mm. This appears to be confirming that FoCal was pretty much bang on. :shock:
 

by Karl Egressy on Sun Mar 03, 2019 5:16 pm
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Actually here is the Steve Perry video I mentioned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cHhrWF-pqM
 

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