Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G VR Review

Sharpness Test – Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G VR @ 80mm

Let’s take a look at how the Nikon 80-400mm AF-S measured in my lab environment at 80mm:

At the shortest end of the zoom range, the Nikon 80-400mm starts out pretty strong in the center, with weaker corners. As you stop down, corners improve significantly, with the best performance at f/8.

Sharpness Test – Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G VR @ 105mm

Here is the performance of the lens at 105mm:

The lens resolves more detail at 105mm, especially in the corners.

Sharpness Test – Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G VR @ 200mm

Zoomed in to 200mm, there is a noticeable performance drop:

Stopping down to f/8 recovers quite a bit of sharpness loss, but it is still not as good as at 105mm.

Sharpness Test – Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G VR @ 300mm

Optical performance continues to drop a little, as you zoom in to 300mm:

Again, stopping down improves sharpness, with f/11 being the sweet spot.

Sharpness Test – Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G VR @ 400mm

And at lens is at its weakest point at the longest end of the zoom range:

The wide open performance of the 80-400mm AF-S at 400mm is the weakest, especially in the corners. Stopping down the lens to f/8-f/11 range produces the best sharpness, with f/11 again being the sweet spot. Do not be overly concerned about this – most other zoom lenses are weak at the long range. In fact, the Nikon 80-400mm AF-D is significantly better than the older 80-400mm AF-D, as you will see on the next “Lens Comparisons” section.

Sharpness Test – Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G VR + TC-14E II @ 560mm

As I have previously pointed out, you can attach any Nikon teleconverter to the Nikon 80-400mm AF-S. Let’s take a look at what we can expect from the lens with the Nikon TC-14E II (1.4x) teleconverter. The below chart represents lens performance at the longest end @ 560mm:

The TC-14E II seems to affect the performance of the lens significantly – there is a very noticeable drop in sharpness.

Sharpness Test – Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G VR + TC-17E II @ 680mm

Using the TC-17E II (1.7x) extender brings the range of the lens to 680mm on the longest end. Here is how Imatest measured the lens performance:

As you can see, sharpness drops even more with the TC-17E II. After seeing this and testing out the teleconverter in bright light, I came to a conclusion that it is better to crop the image in post, rather than trying to gain additional focal length by using the TC-17E II teleconverter.

Sharpness Test – Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G VR + TC-20E III @ 800mm

Lastly, let’s take a look at what happens when the TC-20E III (2x) is attached to the lens:

Even worse, the TC-20E III not only makes the lens a very slow f/11 lens (forget about autofocus), but it also makes it completely unusable. Again, you will be better off by using the TC-14E II and cropping the frame.

Now we get to the fun part – lens comparisons.