Nikon Nikkor AF-S DX 18-105 mm f/3.5-5.6 VR ED review - Vignetting

Have you rated your lenses yet?

Nikon Nikkor AF-S DX 18-105 mm f/3.5-5.6 VR ED

6 July 2009

Arkadiusz Olech

8. Vignetting

High vignetting is often a big problem for the universal Nikon zooms. Unfortunately, the Nikkor 18-105 VR is not an exception to the rule. At 18 mm and f/3.5 the illumination loss in the frame corners reaches as much as 43% ( -1.62 EV). By f/4.0 the level of this aberrations decreases to 37% and on stopping down by one stop it falls to 23%. Only by the relative aperture of f/8.0 the vignetting comes near an imperceptible level of 10%.

Nikon Nikkor AF-S DX 18-105 mm f/3.5-5.6 VR ED - Vignetting

The situation is a bit better in the middle of the range. At 35 mm and wide open the vignetting amounts to 35% ( -1.25 EV); by f/5.6 it decreases to the level of 22%. At f/8.0 it’s still noticeable (14%) and only at f/11 it drops below 10%.

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 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

At 70 mm and f/5.3 the frame corner illumination loss reaches as much as 43% ( -1.64 EV). Fortunately, the result is better by f/8.0, where vignetting decreases to 19% and becomes completely unobtrusive by f/11, where it is just 9%.

The worst situation we’ve noticed for the maximum focal length. There, by f/5.6 the vignetting level is very high and reaches 52% ( - 2.1 EV). On stopping down by one stop it decreases to 28% and by f/11 it disappears almost completely (10%).