Nikon Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR Review

Image Stabilization

I was glad to see that the Nikon Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR has built-in vibration reduction even though it’s not an S-series lens. On supertelephotos like this, IBIS is not always enough to compensate for the substantial amount of shake in your photos. I recommend always enabling IBIS when shooting with this lens handheld.

You may ask, is there any reason to disable image stabilization on the 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3? Well, as I found out, there is. It was just after sunset when I photographed the European Pond Turtle basking on a log sticking out of the water. I put the camera on a tripod, focused on its eye, set the shutter speed to about two seconds, and used the self-timer to take a series of three shots. All were visibly blurred. Thinking that maybe I had misfocused, I took another series of three shots, but with the same result. The sharpness suddenly improved only when I disabled the image stabilization.

This was a new experience for me. I have never noticed such a significant loss of sharpness when shooting from a tripod with VR on at a long shutter speed. I just left the stabilization on all the time. So, I replicated the situation with the 200-500mm f/5.6 lens to check. In a direct comparison, the images with VR off were indeed a bit sharper. But the difference was nowhere near as dramatic as with the 180-600mm. This is one of the few optical issues with the 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3.

Otherwise, the vibration reduction on this lens works great. Nikon promises an effectiveness of up to 5.5 stops. I was able to take acceptably sharp photos with the zoom set to 600mm and a shutter speed of 1/30s. That’s about 4 stops better than with an unstabilized lens. However, I achieved this result with the Sport mode, which is theoretically less efficient. With Normal mode, I could probably get the claimed 5.5 stops, but in practice, I would rather use a tripod for better results.

In summary, the image stabilization works very well when used for the right purpose. However, at longer shutter speeds from a tripod, you need to make sure that you’ve disabled VR when using this lens!

Autofocus Performance

On the previous page of this review, I started my series of complaints about the Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6 with the autofocus speed. And if I’m guessing correctly, you’re wondering whether the 180-600mm has improved in this regard.

In short, it’s gone strongly in the right direction. The AF reliability and speed are a lot faster now – not at the level of Nikon’s highest-end supertelephotos with the Silky Swift VCM, but much better than before. I had no problem focusing on fast-moving birds in flight even in relatively dim conditions, and you’ll see many such photos in this review.

That said, bird eye autofocus still struggled to find the eyes of some unusual-looking birds, as documented in our Nikon Z9 review. The 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 reliably focused on “standard birds” but was thrown off by more unusual-looking ones. Depending on the subject, I periodically had to activate the unintelligent Dynamic Area AF (Fn1) with my middle finger and focus like in the days of DSLRs.

But that’s the fault of the camera, not the lens. Back to school, Nikon Z8/9, and study up on herons, cotingas, and a few other species! You can look over the shoulder of a Canon classmate.

I was, however, impressed by the minimum focusing distance of the 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3. It’s slightly better than the 200-500mm, which already did a good job in this regard. The Nikon 180-600mm can focus down to 1.3m at the wide end and just over 2m at the long end, for a maximum magnification of 0.25x. (However, if you want to do near-macro photography, consider the Nikon Z 100-400mm instead – it has a maximum magnification of 0.38x.)

Distortion

The Nikon Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 has very little distortion, and the distortion profile changes very little at different focal lengths:

With around 1% pincushion distortion at every focal length, you are unlikely to notice it in your photos with this lens, even if photographing architecture. For the usual wildlife and sports photography that this lens is meant for, distortion is a non-issue.

Vignetting

Vignetting is also not a problem with this lens, regardless of focal length, aperture, or focusing distance:

Maxing out at less than one stop of vignetting, there is nothing to be concerned about here whatsoever. Bravo, Nikon!

Lateral Chromatic Aberration

The Nikon Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR has a bit of lateral chromatic aberration, but not enough to worry about. It’s highest at 180mm and 600mm, with the middle focal lengths being a slight improvement:

Anything under about 1 pixel in our lab test is negligible even when chromatic aberration corrections are turned off. While the Nikon Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 is slightly above that level anywhere you look, it is never dramatically higher. This is well within the range of what can be corrected in post-processing.

That said, adding a teleconverter significantly increases the lens’s chromatic aberration. With the Nikon Z 1.4x TC at 840mm, it reaches up to 3.41 pixels of CA. Meanwhile, with the Nikon Z 2.0x TC at 1200mm, the highest value is 3.04 pixels of chromatic aberration. While these values are high, they are no higher than expected when using a teleconverter.

Sharpness

How sharp is the 180-600mm? About as sharp as a razor blade after a few shaves. In other words, it doesn’t reach the eye-stinging, slicing sharpness of lenses like the Nikon Z 400mm f/2.8, or even the 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6, but it still does a respectable job. Here are our sharpness tests as measured in the lab:

What I find impressive in the test charts above is the very strong consistency across the range of focal lengths. There is only a small dip in sharpness at 600mm, not enough to worry about. There is no focal length or aperture on this lens that I would be afraid to use.

That said, there are other lenses which beat it overall. You’ll see that on the next page of this review – it’s somewhere in the middle relative to other telephoto lenses for the Nikon Z system. Still, considering the low price and impressive reach of the 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3, that’s enough for me.

What about with a teleconverter? Here are those tests:

Performance with the 1.4x teleconverter is decent, while performance with the 2.0x teleconverter is fairly weak. This lens simply wasn’t made for use with teleconverters, especially with the 2.0x TC (where the maximum aperture is f/13). I can see myself using the 1.4x TC with the 180-600mm, but I would do my best to “zoom with my feet” instead, if at all possible.

Flare and Backlighting

There is no need to worry about shooting in backlight with the Nikon Z 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3. I didn’t try to get the sun directly in the frame, but I took a lot of photos with backlighting under harsh afternoon sun. And the result? No unwanted ghosts or flares, no noticeable reduction in contrast. So, even though Nikon didn’t use the best coatings in its arsenal (like Meso Amorphous and ARNEO coatings), strong backlighting will not limit your artistic freedom with this lens.

Bokeh

What about bokeh? Telephoto lenses have the ability to beautifully simplify backgrounds into a veil of blur. But not all telephoto lenses are equally good at rendering out-of-focus areas. How does the 180-600mm fare in this regard?

Although the lens contains an aspherical element (a common cause of unpleasant bokeh), I didn’t encounter any ugly onion-shaped highlights. On the contrary, when there are point light sources in the photo, these out-of-focus areas are rendered very nicely.

However, grading bokeh is a bit like grading figure skating. The best way to judge its quality is to see some sample photos.

The next page of this review dives into the sharpness numbers a bit more, with some comparisons against other lenses that Nikon users may be considering. So, click the menu below to go to “Sharpness Comparisons”: