From my first outing with my new Nikon D80.
Zoom at 135mm.
I'm a bit concerned about the darkening towards the corners?
I'm posting the full image, no cropping.
Is this to be expected?
A beautiful in-flight photo Jakob. Razor sharp and lovely colouration from the yellow in the eye, through to the blue rim of the beak and the pink flesh of the bill with the yellow hook at the tip.
Did you have a lens hood on that was perhaps too small, so it cut into the light cone? Some of the lens hoods are wider than they are tall, due to the rectangular aspect of the image and you have to fit them in the correct orientation, or you will get vignetting which shows up as dark corners.
A beautiful in-flight photo Jakob. Razor sharp and lovely colouration from the yellow in the eye, through to the blue rim of the beak and the pink flesh of the bill with the yellow hook at the tip.
Did you have a lens hood on that was perhaps too small, so it cut into the light cone? Some of the lens hoods are wider than they are tall, due to the rectangular aspect of the image and you have to fit them in the correct orientation, or you will get vignetting which shows up as dark corners.
Cheers
Dennis
Dennis, Thanks for your comments.
Yes, I used the Lenshood, but it clears the frame at 18mm so at 135 it should also be ok. If it is not lined up at 18mm I see it in the viewfinder too.
Dennis, Thanks for your comments.
Yes, I used the Lenshood, but it clears the frame at 18mm so at 135 it should also be ok. If it is not lined up at 18mm I see it in the viewfinder too.
Hmm, you are right to be concerned then. 135mm is a medium telephoto setting and you would have to fit a lens hood several inches long to cause vignetting. I usually associate vignetting more with 35mm/28mm settings or wider.
Have a talk with the retailer and see what they have to say. Did you notice the dark corners in the viewfinder/LCD screen?
G'day Jakob, no you should not have any significant vignetting. I think you should trot that lens back to the vendor.
here is my humble effort at reducing the vignetting, more could be done, but I am just wanting to encourage you...if I can
cheers,
Doug
Nice study of flight by the way.
From my first outing with my new Nikon D80.
Zoom at 135mm.
I'm a bit concerned about the darkening towards the corners?
I'm posting the full image, no cropping.
Is this to be expected?
Hi Jakob,
I'd be almost certain that you've got some vignetting there, and I bet that you had the lens wide open when you took that shot. It's quite common in many lenses to get vignetting when the lens is wide open, but what you've got there is pretty bad. The only solution is to stop the lens down (maybe only 1/2 or 1 stop), or send the lens back. If your not happy with it send it back and get a Nikon 18-200 VR. It costs a bit more but I'm yet to hear a bad thing about them. Another option is the 18-55 and 70-300 which together cost less than the 18-135.
Apart from the lens, what do you think of the D80? Nice shot too btw!
Just in case Jakob has forgotten,
Fl=135mm ISO=140, Shutter speed 1/1000" @f5.6
Or that is what the exif info has reported.
What is wide open for Jakob's lens?
There ought not be any vignetting at those settings.
I took a test shot at 135mm f5.6. 1/1000" with a canon 350d, no vignetting at all.
This is a very new lens and finding a review was pretty difficult, but here's one that seems to describe exactly what's happening here. http://www.slrgear.com/reviews/showp...uct/993/cat/13
Click on the graph on the R/H side of the page. It shows that the lens has 0.73EV of light falloff in the corners at 135mm when it's wide open at f/5.6.
It seems that this lens is incredibly sharp, but it has come at the expense of having high levels of distortion and vignetting.
G'day Jonathan, good find. I guess that clears that up. The pelican is very sharply defined, but ohh well sacrifices have to be made. If the aperture was reduced to f16, the lower shutter speed would compromise the clarity of the image.
Choices, always choices.
Cheers,
Doug
Striker,
I took a trip to Wo Woy, no Pelicans where I live.
Mangroves are next project !
Doug,
I'm waiting on a response from Nkon.
But having seen the test report referred to by Jonathan, its probably a trait of that lens.
I did some test exposures, at 70mm the vignetting dropped to half, at 135 F16 it has gone!
Jonathan,
Thanks for the link, very useful resource.
So far I'm impressed with the D80. The 18-135 lens is a good compromise. The focussing speed and accuracy is fantastic. Battery life is very good too, with review switched off, after 80 shots battery meter only dropped 1 bar.
Have to learn how to remove the vignetting. Paintshop Pro should have the capacity but I have to learn.
Personally, I didn't notice the darker edges as the subject is so well reproduced. By the angle of the wing tip feathers, the wings were on a down beat at the moment of the shot. Interesting to note how these feathers make a series of slots for the air to flow thru. The efficiency of a pelican's flight is a sight to behold when you see a group of them circling in a thermal. They can glide for hours without a single flap of their wings.
I watched one take off the other day. It climbed to about a metre off the water, then descended until it's wings were about 100mm off the surface, and flew in ground effect until it needed a flap. It then increased height just enough to let the wingtips clear the water on the down beat, flapped, then dropped back into gound effect to continue on. Human pilots can only dream of having such an affinity with the elements.
That's a lovely, well composed shot - colourful, very sharp and good depth of field considering it's at 135mm and f5.6.
Regarding the light fall-off, that's not an uncommon feature of lenses such as this. That's not a criticism. As it says in the review, zooms such as yours have many design compromises - size, speed, price, versatility, colour rendition, sharpness, etc. And, when you think about it, your zoom is the equivalent of a 28-200mm in 35mm terms (still use film myself) which is quite a wide zoom range and is not too slow. So, apart from spending substantial amounts of $ on large, fast primes/zooms (if only I could!), suspect that you may have to live with the light fall-off. Or as you have found, stop the lens down, manipulate the image or just crop.
Anyway, good luck with your camera and keep taking more fine images!
The dealer has replaced lens & body.
I think the new lens is a bit better but certainly vignetting is present to various degrees as shown on the link referred to by Jonathan.
The vignetting would only be noticeable in certain pics with plain background.
I have tried Nikon Capture NX to reduce vignetting, it works but I feel the contols in PS Elements is better (trial version). I have to decide which software to buy.
Capture NX handles raw files well but all other features are better in Elements. I have not been able to open raw files in Elements even though it is suppoused to accept them from the D80.
