OwlsEyes Offline Upload & Sell: On
|
p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · 200-400mm f4 VR1 Compared to 200-500mm f5.6 VR | |
Well at the risk of overdoing the "how does this compare to that?" I finally ran the test I was waiting for someone else to do. First, I will flatly admit... I suck at lens testing. While I am a scientist, precise analytics is not my thing. I am an evolutionary ecologist... a dreamer and watcher of nature. Bench analyses bore me, though I do not object to digging into numbers and evaluating data.
With the pre-amble and disclosure over, I want to begin with why I decided to do the test. The first two images in this post say it all. This weekend I took my wife to photograph trumpeter swans. The light was nice and we were shooting side-by-side. While my position was lower (I was prone on the ice and she was sitting on her knees), we by luck happened to capture the same moment at the same time. I was using my D4 with the 200-400mm f4 @ 400mm and f4.5, she was using the 200-500mm on a D610 @ 390mm f5.6. We were both shooting at ISO 800 and, in my opinion, her shot was sharper than mine. So I began to wonder... was this a focus thing (my af point was at a different spot), was it a resolution thing (D4 = 16.x mp vs D610 = 24mp), or is the 200-500mm f5.6 just sharper than than my dated 200-400mm f4 VR1.
To save you the grief of reading the rest... the 200-500 f5.6 is close... it is very sharp, but it does not beat the heavier, faster and way more expensive optic (whew... that's a relief).
The test... test images will follow my outline. The caption below the picture will describe the settings.
So, being a biologist and biology teacher I happen to have some pretty good nature targets. So I brought my stuffed screech owl home from work (doesn't everyone have a stuffed screech owl ). I set it up in my home at a distance in which I might actually see one of these in the wild.
1. I did the test from a tripod with mirror lock-up and cable release.
2. All images where shot from the exact same location with my Nikon D4 at ISO 1600
3. I took only two shots per aperture and focal length. The first always began from infinity and relied on the AF system, and the second began from infinity but was LiveView AF-focus. I chose the sharpest image from the pair to display. Other than the images made with a 1.4x converter, the viewfinder AF system was as sharp or sharper than LiveView. With the 1.4x converter the LV shot was sharpest.
4. I shot the bird with the 200-400mm Lens at 400mm and f4.0, 400mm and f5.6, 500mm and f5.6 (w/ 1.4eII converter) and 550mm and f5.6 w/ 1.4eII converter)
5. I shot the 200-500mm at 400mm and f5.6 and 500mm and f5.6. I did not add a converter to the 200-500mm lens as we will not be using it with the converter.
6. Raw images were brought into lightroom, left in default settings and exported as full res jpeg files.
7. I imported each file into Photoshop CC, created a 1000x1000 72dpi canvas and pasted a 100% (full res) crop in the canvas. The 100% 72dpi file was sharpened with smart sharpen at 100, .3 radius.
Conclusions... in all cases the 200-400mm lens was sharper at equal apertures to the 200-500mm lens. When comparing the 200-400mm lens at 400mm and f4 is was not as sharp as the 200-500mm lens set to 400mm and f5.6. Considering that you could buy almost five 200-500mm f5.6 lenses for a new 200-400mm f4 VRII, it is absolutely amazing how good this lens really is... note all test shots were taken in low light (ISO 1600 and shutter speeds of 1/4 to 1/10 second)... a real torture test.
I hope that these findings are as interesting to you all as it was for me...
© BTLeventhal 2015
D4 w/ 200-400mm VR1 at f4.5
© BTLeventhal 2015
D610 w/ 200-500mm VR at 390mm and f5.6
200-400mm VR @ 400mm and f4 100%
200-400mm VR @ 400mm and f5.6 100%
200-500mm VR @ 400mm and f5.6 100%
|