Does My Lens Suck or is it Me?

chuckinsocal

Hi Gang,

Well I took my brand new D80 and Nikon 18-135 AF-S kit lens out for a test drive today and I'm not sure how happy I am or should be. The images appear to me to be much softer than I'd expect at a variety of focal lengths. I'm testing them at actual pixels.

I posted some of the test images here. They were all taken in P mode. Picture Quality is set to Fine and Large images. The ISO was fixed at 200 and they are all auto focused.

The first 7 images are at 135mm and the rest vary from 18mm to 100mm or so.

Originals are enabled in this gallery and right click protect is off. These are straight from the camera. No PP at all.

I guess the question is: is this the best I can expect from this lens or is there something I can do in the camera settings to get sharper images especially at the long end. Or maybe it's a defective lens or something. Or maybe my expectations are too high? :dunno

The lens got excellent reviews so I'm really surprised at these results.

Any wisdom would be appreciated. And, if anyone feels like saying "I told you so" go right ahead.

Thanks.

ziggy53

First couple of images look fine to me. It looks like a fairly overcast day by the lack of shadows and no glints on the waves.

If you want to get more "pop" from the images you will probably have to adjust the tones a bit. The prime focus also looks like it will respond to both local and global USM. Thom Hogan says the lens has a problem with CA so look for opportunities to correct that in post.

The lens will probably do pretty well at f8 and maybe f11 at the long end.

Give the lens a little more time and experience. I bet you end up liking it.

LiquidAir

Ziggy's right about the CA, there's quite a bit at 18mm, but you can clear most of that up in software. Other than that, the lens looks fine for a super zoom. If you are planning shootig lots of landscapes and making big prints, you might consider getting a better wide angle but otherwise I wouldn't worry about it.

Tee Why

I took a quick look and they seem fine. Nikon's default JPEG images tend to be soft IIRC reading dpreview.

You may also want to use center point AF and focus on a flat subject like a wall and see how the images look. Try to pick a time when there is plenty of light, overcast settings may not be the best time to evaluate a new lens.

If you are intending to shoot in JPEG primarily, experiment with the settings to increase saturation, contrast, and sharpening to your preference.

chuckinsocal

Hi Ziggy,

Coming from you that makes me feel a little better. I was a gray overcast day and nothing had pop even to the naked eye.

Maybe what I'm seeing is minor DOF issues at the lower f stop settings?. Maybe the cure is to close up the aperture then up the ISO to maintain a faster shutter speed? Experience is a key ... I have none with this kind of set up. I'll get it figured out eventually I guess.

Thanks for your response.

Justiceiro

Even an L lens is going to take not so great pics in light like that. I think you need to take a look at what it can do under optimum conditions.

Zig- jump in here and correct me if I am wrong, but my personal experience with using quality lenses (of which I own exactly one) is that they are always superior to the kit lenses, but that this margin of superiority isn't that great unless there is a lot of light- in which case Kit lenses do well also (though not as well as quality lenses).

In any case, I highly doubt that you suck.

nightowlcat

Try shooting RAW and seeing if your results are now easier to do PP with better results, with either CaptureNX or the software that came with your camera.

ChatKat

Overcast sucks out the color
I hate those So CAl days in summer when it's overcast. Sucks the color right out of your images. They look sharp - just wait for the right light. You didn't have it!

f-rider

If you are new to the D80, you can pump up a few things such as saturation in the 'shooting menu', 'customize image', 'custom', 'saturation' as well as the 'vivid' or 'more vivid' choices. The 'tone compensation' setting might also help with contrast. These might pump it up a bit for shooting jpgs but I agree with others that it would be better to shoot raw, then analyze these things in post processing and fine tune from there. They appear pretty sharp, but the flat lighting will always suck the color out of a scene.
--Doug

chuckinsocal

Thanks to everyone for your responses and comments. I guess I expected a little too much for my first time out with the camera / lens combination, especially on a cloudy gray day. I did some pp on some of the images and they looked better after that. Maybe Landscape mode would have provided more sharpness through out the distance range ? I guess I have a lot of experimenting and learning to do and people like you all will make the process a little easier and faster. I have to say again that this is the best community on the planet .

I feel a lot better now and if you all will excuse me, I have to go out and take some pictures now. Thanks again.

chuckinsocal

Hey Seymore and thanks for your response.

Actually, I don't own any filters for this lens yet so none were used here. For now I'm accepting that a cloudy gray day, the subject matter, camera settings, a lack of experience, and too high expectations all played a part in the results and how I felt about them. Today's a nice sunny day so I think I'll take a ride into the back country and shoot some horses, old barns, and the like. I'm thinking that it's basically learning how to use the camera and lens and that will take some experimenting over time along with some tips from this forum.

Thanks for the tip on the lens cover to separate groups of shots. It's one of those real simple things that I may never have thought of.

Thanks again.