Nikon Nikkor AF-S DX 18-300 mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR review - Distortion

Have you rated your lenses yet?

Nikon Nikkor AF-S DX 18-300 mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR

20 January 2015

Arkadiusz Olech

6. Distortion

The chart below presents a comparison between the performance of the tested lens and the rival Tamron 16–300 mm f/3.5–6.3 Di II VC PZD MACRO in the distortion category. While consulting it you should keep in mind two things. The Tamron features a wider range of focal lengths so correcting the distortion in its case, especially at its shortest focal length, is more difficult. On the other hand the Tamron was tested on a bit smaller sensor of the Canon 50D (1.6x crop factor) so its results on a 1.5x sensor could be a bit worse.

	16–18 mm	35 mm	50 mm	100 mm	200 mm	300 mm
Nikkor 18–300 f/3.5–5.6 VR	−5.32%	+1.60%	+2.03%	+2.64%	+2.20%	+1.94%
Tamron 16–300 f/3.5–6.3 VC	−4.68%	+2.17%	+2.50%	+1.97%	+1.45%	+1.36%

Even taking into account all the factors mentioned above our assessment cannot be changed. The expensive Nikkor loses noticeably the duel with the cheaper Tamron. Despite the smaller maximum angle of view its distortion is more bothersome both at the wide angle and at the longer end. A slight advantage of the Nikkor can be only noticed at 35-50 mm focal lengths. To sum up another category in which the Nikon didn’t exactly distinguish itself…

Please Support Us

If you enjoy our reviews and articles, and you want us to continue our work please, support our website by donating through PayPal. The funds are going to be used for paying our editorial team, renting servers, and equipping our testing studio; only that way we will be able to continue providing you interesting content for free.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - advertisement - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -