Lens Sharpness and Contrast
When it comes to sharpness and contrast, the Nikon 400mm f/2.8 sits together with the legendary Nikon 200mm f/2 and Nikon 300mm f/2.8 lenses, considered to be a sharpness “reference” lens. It took Nikon 25+ years to make it what it is today – a highly regarded work of art and engineering that delivers outstanding images to sports, action and wildlife photographers that need maximum sharpness for print. As shown further down in this review, both center and corner frames are razor sharp at all apertures, which is simply incredible. Contrast is top of the class and colors are stunningly beautiful, definitely Nikon’s best, thanks to the clever optical design of the lens.
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Bokeh and Vignetting / Light Falloff
One of the strengths of long telephoto lenses is the beautiful, creamy bokeh they are able to produce, due to the shallow depth of field, at even longer distances. The Nikon 400mm f/2.8G VR is a bokeh champion – it produces exceptionally good-looking background blur, especially wide open at maximum aperture of f/2.8. I primarily used the Nikon 400mm f/2.8G VR for birding and wildlife photography and I was stunned by the results. The bokeh looks creamy and beautiful and the lens does a superb job at isolating subjects at large apertures. Here is an example of subject isolation and bokeh for a bird shot at f/2.8:
When shooting on FX (full-frame), a moderate amount of vignetting is noticeable at maximum aperture, which gets significantly reduced by f/4.0-f/5.6 and completely gone by f/8.0:
Vignetting on DX is not as evident at large apertures and you can only see slightly darker corners at f/2.8; by f/4, all visible vignetting is gone.
Vignetting is not always bad – in fact, some amount of vignetting at f/2.8 actually looks good when shooting wildlife, drawing the attention of the viewer to the subject. If you want to get rid of vignetting completely, a lens correction profile is already available for all super telephoto lenses in Lightroom 3.5.
Ghosting and Flare
Notice how big the double hood on this lens is? Well, it is there for a reason – most long-range telephoto lenses do not perform well against the sun, when compared to wide angle lenses. So, if you shoot against the sun, you might get some large, nasty flares and plenty of ghosting, which is quite normal. The integrated “Nano Crystal Coat” certainly helps to reduce ghosting and flare, but does not eliminate it. Here is an image with the sun above the frame:
Note the reduced contrast of the image when shooting against the sun and sun rays making it into the lens. If you include the sun in the frame, you will surely see ghosts and flares, which is again normal for a telephoto lens of this class.
Distortion
Forget about distortion on the 400mm f/2.8 – it is practically non-existent. If you put up straight lines on the wall and shoot some samples wide open, you might see a very minimal amount of pincushion distortion when shooting at close distances, but as soon as the focus point gets towards infinity or the lens is stopped down a little, distortion is completely eliminated. Distortion is even less noticeable on cropped-sensor cameras. Distortion is generally not a problem, because it can be easily fixed in Photoshop or Lightroom 3 using Lens Correction.
Vibration Reduction
As I have already pointed out earlier, the Nikon 400mm f/2.8G VR comes with the latest generation Vibration Reduction II system that Nikon claims allows shooting with up to 4 times slower shutter speeds while retaining sharpness. While Vibration Reduction is a very nice feature on any lens, especially super telephoto, you have to be careful about when to employ VR and how to use it in different situations. If not properly used, VR can actually hurt images and degrade image sharpness. This happens when photographers keep VR turned on all the time no matter what light conditions they are in and shoot away without letting VR stabilize. The purpose of VR technology is to fight against different types of motion like hand motion or platform motion.
To counter these motions, the lens detects movements and their direction, then makes internal movements against that motion. Hence, if you see a subject and just press the shutter without half-pressing it and letting the lens stabilize first, you might end up with softer images. Furthermore, it is important to understand that VR was designed to work in situations where the shutter speed drops to the point where lens/camera shake causes blur. It was not designed to be used with ultra fast shutter speeds. If you were to shoot the 400mm f/2.8G VR lens hand-held at 1/1000 of a second without vibration reduction / image stabilization, you would rarely end up with blurry images, unless your subject or its parts move faster than 1/1000 of a second. So when should VR be used on such lenses as 400mm f/2.8? There are only few cases when using VR can help in getting sharper images:
- When shooting hand-held or panning and shutter speed is slow enough to cause camera shake (VR: Normal).
- When shooting through a car window and resting the lens on the window, with a slow shutter speed (VR: Normal).
- When shooting on a monopod with a slow shutter speed (VR: Normal).
- When shooting on a tripod with a very slow shutter speed (VR: Tripod).
If you use the lens on a stable tripod system as explained earlier, you should always have VR turned off, unless you are on a moving platform (such as a boat). If vibrations cause blur on a tripod and your shutter speed is very slow, then switching from “Normal” to “Tripod” mode might help. Check out this image of the full moon with VR turned on in “Tripod” mode:
Although the image was shot at a relatively fast shutter speed of 1/400 sec, the total focal length was 680mm (400mm x 1.7x TC), equivalent to 1020mm, because I mounted the lens on the Nikon D7000 with a DX / crop sensor that has a 1.5x crop factor. I initially shot with VR off, but then I was getting some camera shake when the mirror moved up before the shot, so I decided to try turning VR on in “Tripod” mode to see if it helps. As you can see from the above shot, it sure did! For subsequent shots, I disabled VR, then enabled exposure delay and used a remote to eliminate camera shake completely. The results were very comparable, so VR surely does work. Remember, when you shoot with long telephoto lenses, even the slightest camera shake can result in blurry images.
Performance with the Nikon TC-14E II teleconverter
As I have pointed out above, the Nikon 400mm f/2.8G VR works great with all Nikon teleconverters. The Nikon TC-14E II teleconverter increases the focal length of the lens to 560mm total (400mm x 1.4) and slows down the lens to f/4.0. Aside from the decreased maximum aperture, you will barely notice that the TC-14E II is attached to your lens – it has a very small effect on image quality, sharpness or color. The results with the TC-14E II are fantastic and I would not hesitate to shoot the lens wide open at f/4.0. A detailed sharpness comparison with the TC-14E II can be found further down below. Here is a sample image taken with the Nikon 400mm f/2.8G VR with TC-14E II:
Performance with the Nikon TC-17E II Teleconverter
The Nikon TC-17E II works surprisingly well with the Nikon 400mm f/2.8G VR in terms of sharpness and contrast, increasing the focal length of the lens to 680mm (400mm x 1.7) and slowing it down to f/4.8. In low-light situations, AF performance takes a hit, but it is not bad and certainly usable. The wide open performance at f/4.8 is a tad soft, so I would stop down to f/5.6 for the best results. Take a look at the following sample image shot with the Nikon TC-17E II:
Performance with the Nikon TC-20E III Teleconverter
As I have already shown in my Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II Review and TC-20E III Review, the new TC-20E III delivers very good results with fast-aperture telephoto lenses, including the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G VR II. I performed a number of outdoor and indoor tests of the TC-20E III mounted on the Nikon 400mm f/2.8 and I can say that for situations where you need the reach, the TC-20E III delivers good results, as long as you have enough light and stop down a little.
In low-light and heavy backlight situations, AF can start to hunt, so some manual AF prefocus might be needed. For fast-moving subjects, AF is a hit and miss, just like when used with the Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II. The TC-20E III doubles the focal length of the 400mm lens to 800mm (400mm x 2) and slows it down by two full stops to f/5.6. Wide open the sharpness and contrast are soft, but stopping down to f/8 brings back the sharpness and contrast to very good levels. Overall, the TC-20E III is very usable on the Nikon 400mm f/2.8G VR, just like when used with the Nikon 300mm f/2.8G VR II.
Let’s now move on to the good stuff – Sharpness tests and Comparisons.
Sharpness Test – Nikon 400mm Center Frame
Either hover your mouse or click on each image to see the aperture settings. Top left: f/2.8, Top right: f/4.0, Bottom left: f/5.6, Bottom right: f/8.0.
Do you see a difference between any of the above images? Because I don’t – the center sharpness of the Nikon 400mm f/2.8G VR looks very good at all apertures.
Sharpness Test – Nikon 400mm Corner Frame
How about the extreme corners? Let’s take a look:
Aside from some visible vignetting at large apertures, the corners look as good as the center frame, which is simply incredible! No wonder why images from this lens look so crisp and sharp.
Sharpness Test – Nikon 400mm + TC-14E II Center Frame
Let’s take a look at how the lens performs with a TC-14E II. I chose the area a little right off the center to show more details:
At maximum aperture of f/4 there is a very slight amount of softness, which gets significantly better by f/5.6. Optimal sharpness is achieved between f/5.6 and f/8.
Sharpness Test – Nikon 400mm + TC-14E II Corner Frame
And here are the corners:
Again, corners are slightly softer wide open and look the same from f/5.6 onwards.
Sharpness Test – Nikon 400mm + TC-17E II Center Frame
Here is the center frame crop with the TC-17E II attached:
Similar to TC-14E II, the TC-17E II has a slightly softer wide open performance that gets better by f/5.6 and much better by f/8.0. Optimal sharpness is achieved between f/8 and f/11.
Sharpness Test – Nikon 400mm + TC-17E II Corner Frame
And corners with the TC-17E II:
Again, the same story – the wide open performance is slightly softer.
Sharpness Test – Nikon 400mm + TC-20E III Center Frame
And finally, performance with the TC-20E III in the center frame:
The wide open performance is relatively good, but slightly soft. Stopping down the lens to f/8 significantly improves contrast and sharpness details. Optimal sharpness is achieved at f/11.
Sharpness Test – Nikon 400mm + TC-20E III Corner Frame
Corners with the TC-20E III:
Corners start visibly soft wide open, get better by f/5.6 and achieve maximum sharpness at f/11.
Now that you have seen how the Nikon 400mm f/2.8G VR performs with and without teleconverters, let’s see how it compares against other telephoto lenses.
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