Checking quality on a lens
jswoolf01
Registered Users Posts: 31 Big grins
Help needed, please:
About three weeks ago, I bought a secondhand 80-200mm f/2.8 lens for my Nikon D80 dSLR. I've used it several times on various occasions under various conditions. I've found that while the low-light performance is as advertised, there are two or three things about it that concern me. I wonder if someone who has the same model lens could offer some thoughts.
1) the focusing motor often engages and disengages with an audible [thunk] that almost always makes the lens and camera flinch a bit. Is this normal, or is there something wrong with the motor?
2) sometimes the lens changes focus as I move it around, as if it's in continuous-autofocus mode when the camera is set to single-focus mode.
3) the photos I've taken with this lens often appear to be a little on the soft side. The descriptions and reviews I read before buying said the lens is tack-sharp, but that doesn't match the results I'm getting. Here's an example. This Short-eared Owl was flying past me about 30-40 feet away, and I was panning with it. Zoom was at maximum, 200mm. ISO was 1600. Shutter speed was 1/500 and aperture f/14 -- fast enough to freeze motion, aperture small enough to get decent DOF.
(Note: this version was cropped and reduced in size from the original, and slightly sharpened using Unsharp Mask in Photoshop Elements 5.)
A second shot taken about two seconds later, also reduced, cropped, and unsharped in PSE5:
Is this typical performance for this lens? I expected it to be sharper -- am I expecting more than the glass can actually deliver?
-- JSW
About three weeks ago, I bought a secondhand 80-200mm f/2.8 lens for my Nikon D80 dSLR. I've used it several times on various occasions under various conditions. I've found that while the low-light performance is as advertised, there are two or three things about it that concern me. I wonder if someone who has the same model lens could offer some thoughts.
1) the focusing motor often engages and disengages with an audible [thunk] that almost always makes the lens and camera flinch a bit. Is this normal, or is there something wrong with the motor?
2) sometimes the lens changes focus as I move it around, as if it's in continuous-autofocus mode when the camera is set to single-focus mode.
3) the photos I've taken with this lens often appear to be a little on the soft side. The descriptions and reviews I read before buying said the lens is tack-sharp, but that doesn't match the results I'm getting. Here's an example. This Short-eared Owl was flying past me about 30-40 feet away, and I was panning with it. Zoom was at maximum, 200mm. ISO was 1600. Shutter speed was 1/500 and aperture f/14 -- fast enough to freeze motion, aperture small enough to get decent DOF.
(Note: this version was cropped and reduced in size from the original, and slightly sharpened using Unsharp Mask in Photoshop Elements 5.)
A second shot taken about two seconds later, also reduced, cropped, and unsharped in PSE5:
Is this typical performance for this lens? I expected it to be sharper -- am I expecting more than the glass can actually deliver?
-- JSW
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Comments
can't comment on your concerns on 1) and 2).