Nikon Nikkor AF-S 300 mm f/4E PF ED VR review - Vignetting

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Nikon Nikkor AF-S 300 mm f/4E PF ED VR

13 March 2015

Arkadiusz Olech

8. Vignetting

First let’s check how the tested Nikkor 4/300 PF fares in this category on a small sensor of the Nikon D7000. Appropriate thumbnails are presented below.

Nikon D7000, f/4.0	Nikon D7000, f/5.6

You see almost no problems here. Even at the maximum relative aperture the vignetting level of the Nikkor can be called moderate at most because the brightness loss in the frame corners amounts to just 18% (−0.56 EV). By employing the f/5.6 aperture you can make this problem disappear completely because the value we registered there was just 6% (−0.18 EV).

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Taking into account small dimensions of the lens and the implementation of a new technology we were very curious about its vignetting performance on full frame. Let’s glance at thumbnails below to assess it properly.

Nikon D3x, f/4.0	Nikon D3x, f/5.6

It seems the results are very similar. At the maximum relative aperture the vignetting might still be a bit bothersome, reaching 29% (−1.01EV), but already by f/5.6 it becomes slight, amounting to 15% (−0.47 EV), and by f/8.0 it disappears completely (9%).

In this category the new technology seems to be working very well; it is very difficult to construct a small lens with a sensible aperture fastness which, additionally, doesn’t have any serious vignetting problems employing just classic optical solutions.