Great, One Lens Option…….

Years ago when I was running the GAPW, (Great American Photography Weekends), one of our star speakers, John Shaw, used to love to say he was waiting for  Nikon to make the 14-600 mm zoom that was an f 1.4!!!   Well it was a joke because everyone knew that such a lens was virtually impossible and if it could be made the front element would have be six feet across!  He also would say that if he had such a lens he would have to own two, just in case he dropped and destroyed one and lost his entire lens system!  Even though that was 25 years ago, it still actually holds a little truth.  First, such a lens will likely never be made, Secondly, having all your eggs in one basket is dangerous.   Fast forward to today.  The optical engineers are doing things we never dreamed they could do and super zooms are becoming a reality.  Nikon makes two zooms that have created a lot of interest, the 28-300 FX lens and the 18-300 DX lens.   This mini test is on the 18-300 DX Super Zoom.  When placed on a DX sensor camera this lens give the equivalent image size of a  28mm to 450mm lens, an astounding range.   This is cool on in itself, but it would mean little if the lens was not sharp.  The lens is not a f 1.4 but at f 3.5 to f 5.6 and given the great high ISO performance of current cameras, it’s very reasonable speed indeed.  Below I’ve shown two series of shots with the lens on a D800 in Crop Mode yielding a 15 mega pixel image. The camera is tripod mounted and the images were shot at ISO 400 on a very bright day to assure a fast shutter speed to aid in getting sharp images.  Having done all of that the sharpness is pretty much up to the glass in the zoom!!!

The  first series is of the tower at Oshkosh Air Show, the settings are from first to last; 18mm  –   50mm   –   200mm  –  300mm

The next shot is of an airplane zooming in on the panel, same zoom range as above.

Summery of what I think so far.  This lens is a kick to use, it is tack sharp, and works beautifully.  It is still an entire lens system in one lens, so I still have that fear of destroying it on an important trip, but then in 43 years of photography that has never happened, (to me), so maybe I’m being too paranoid??!!  I just watched Scott Kelby’s class last night on Travel Photography, which I highly recommend, and he says his standard system for travel now is a FX sensor body (D700) and the big brother to this lens the FX 28-300.  Hard to argue with Scott, and I do agree that your photography will be better the less you carry!

The less you think about gear and the more you think about the subject and the light, the better the images get!  For that reason  alone this is a killer solution for people using DX cameras!  I have to call on some clients in East Tennessee for the next couple of days so i will take just the new Nikon D3200 camera and this lens and see how it works on a trip with a variety of imaging possibilities!   For now, dang it, I’ve got one more lens I feel like I have to own!

the pilgrim