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New 80-400 VR

jduncan

Active member
5 ED elements... so looks like an optical redesign.

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR Lens 2208 B&H Photo

The MTF (tele) actually looks pretty decent for a zoom like this. The wide end isn't that much worse. There are a lot of surfaces in there, so overall contrast will never be close to a prime.

Agree, but the price is insane :

Sigma 120-400mm f4.5~5.6 OS : US$ 949
Canon 100-400mm f4.5~5.6 IS : US$ 1499
Old Nikon 80-400mm f4.5~5.6 VR : US$ 1698 (now in rebate)
Nikon 80-400mm f4.5~5.6 VR : US$ 2697
Nikon 20E-II+70-200 f5.6 VR : US$ 2865

So the price of the very old design Nikon was already brutal, now is insane.
The other disappointing part is that I was hoping that Nikon was about to move to "modern" lens design with the inclusion of fluorite elements. Fluorite leads, as seen on the 800mm f5.6 VR, to extraordinary optical quality, light weight and more compact lenses.

Tamron is producing some excellent optics recently. The 24-70 f2.8 VC is competitive with Nikon's. Clearly it's not a match for the new Canon, but it's good.

Brand lenses still have advantages, more in this word of fine tuning, mixed bag production quality and digital corrections, but this lens, for me it better be an extraordinary performer.

Best regards,

J. Duncan

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* All prices taken from B&H
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
This is a long awaited lens and I think Nikon did it totally right. WRT price, I find it more than reasonable if optical quality is as good as one can expect from MTFs!

Kudos to Nikon to do a really stunning new design.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
I could see myself selling my 80-200 to get that -- a little more versatile for travel.
 

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
Looks like a nice lens, rather compact, not too heavy. The price is what it is. It's a Nikon. I don't think that I'll pay it though. There are several Sigma models that will do the job for half the price and for more or less the same price there's the 120-300mm f/2.8 with the option of a TC.
 

Jan Brittenson

Senior Subscriber Member
Agree, but the price is insane :

Sigma 120-400mm f4.5~5.6 OS : US$ 949
Canon 100-400mm f4.5~5.6 IS : US$ 1499
Old Nikon 80-400mm f4.5~5.6 VR : US$ 1698 (now in rebate)
Nikon 80-400mm f4.5~5.6 VR : US$ 2697
Nikon 20E-II+70-200 f5.6 VR : US$ 2865
Totally depends on what you get for your money. I was never impressed with the Canon 100-400L and gave up on finding one that was useful, sticking with the 400/5.6 (to pair up with the 600/4 IS) instead; the current 80-400 VR I have is better than the Canon 100-400's I went through and would have excelled on the 1Ds and 1Ds2 I used at the time. My 70-200 VRII also is inferior to the existing 80-400 VR when I add a TC to it. Even 1.4. Haven't tried the Sigmas. If the new 80-400 actually performs as the MTF suggests, then the price is a bargain!
 

ptomsu

Workshop Member
The price is more than adequate. Some here do seem to forget that we are in times of 36MP plus cameras today. For this optical quality cannot be good enough.

And it is in the same price range as the newly announced Zeiss 1.4/55, which quite a lot consider in this forum. Come on, this is just a 55 and maybe fast, but same price range as a normal MF prime (or even more expensive).

So I do not get it - for me this price (IF optical quality really is great) is more than justified.
 

cerett

Member
How would you compare this lens (other than price) to the Nikon 200-400 f/4 VR II? Thoughts about the MTF for the 200-400?
 

jduncan

Active member
Fluorite = low dispersion = ED. It's all the same thing.
Are you positive? it's my understanding that this is not the case for nikon. Please notice the consistent color coding:


Extra-low Dispersion Glass from Nikon

Nikon | Imaging Products | AF-S NIKKOR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR

Nikon | Imaging Products | AF-S NIKKOR 800mm f/5.6E FL ED VR

Nikon | Imaging Products | AF-S NIKKOR 200mm f/2G ED VR II

Finaly a very important one: Please notice how Nikon separates the ED elements from the fluorite ones. Also the name of the lens contains both FL and ED, that will be unusual if they were really the same :

Nikon | News | AF-S NIKKOR 800mm f/5.6E FL ED VR AF-S TELECONVERTER TC800-1.25E ED

Best regards,

jduncan
 

D&A

Well-known member
Looks like a nice lens, rather compact, not too heavy. The price is what it is. It's a Nikon. I don't think that I'll pay it though. There are several Sigma models that will do the job for half the price and for more or less the same price there's the 120-300mm f/2.8 with the option of a TC.
Darn, can't type much...loss of power and Internet service due to ongoing snowstorm...so from my cell phone...

Quite agree, the Nikon better be one heck of a lens for that money as I personally feel there are other preferable substitutes....namely some of the Sigma's such as the 120-300 f2.8 as just mentioned, withband without their 1.4x. Another is the recently discontinued Sigma 100-300 f4 (with and without a 1.4x too) which although does have "OS" come quite close to optically matching it's bigger/faster brother the 120-300. Both are outstanding and are superior to the older Nikon 80-400, the Sigma 120-400 and dare I say can often be better than Nikon's current 70-200 f2.8 VRII with their 2x. I've tested and/or used all of the above lenses.

It's the long end of the new 80-400 I'm concerned about as that's where the old version was a significant letdown for me personally.

Dave(D&A)
 

Jan Brittenson

Senior Subscriber Member
Are you positive? it's my understanding that this is not the case for nikon.
Low dispersion glass - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The choice of glass isn't based on which is "best" but on refractive index and dispersion (abbe number). And Fluorite is the oldest commercially used (in optics) low-dispersion glass, so it's rather incorrect to think of it as more modern than other LD/ULD/ED/etc glass. It has a high abbe number, but very low RI.
 

AreBee

Member
Nikon has incorporated fluorite elements in their recently released 800mm prime. The prime contains low dispersion ED elements and fluorite FL elements in its official designation: Nikon 800mm f5.6E FL ED VR Lens. If ED and FL were one and the same material then there would be no reason to list them seperately.

The following description of the lens confirms that ED and FL are not synonymous by distinguishing between the two material types: "The two fluorite elements achieve higher transmission rates and lower dispersion than regular ED glass elements."

To my knowledge only very expensive optics, namely the 60mm Coastal Optics and Leica S primes, currently incorporate fluorite elements. I consider it incongruous for a zoom in this class to contain fluorite elements.
 

AreBee

Member
It is irrelevant how I arrived at my conclusion. The zoom contains fluorite elements as part of its optical formula or it does not. One option alone is true.
 

hsteeves

Member
I think if you look back at when the original 80-400 was introduced, you will find that its price point was over $2k so the new price is not all that much of an increase. Comparing the current price, of a lens very out of date in terms of performance, does not make a lot of sense to me. I think this lens will be an ideal all-round long zoom depending on how it actually performs which may be less a case of its design and more one of Nikon's quality control. But that may just be related to camera bodies.
 
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