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Lens review

Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED VR

12 March 2010
Arkadiusz Olech

8. Vignetting

According to our expectations the wide front element and the big barrel made themselves felt in a positive way when it comes to vignetting. At 70 mm the problem doesn’t exist because even wide open the light fall-off in the frame corners amounts to only 8% (-0.25 EV). The situation is similar at 135 mm because there the maximum vignetting level which we managed to measure reached 10% (-0.31 EV) – it is considered a borderline of the visibility level.

Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED VR - Vignetting


Results are only a tad worse at 200 mm focal length. There by f/5.3 the brightness loss in the frame corners amounts to 14% (-0.43 EV). It’s enough to stop the lens down to f/5.6 though to see the vignetting decreasing to 10%. By f/8 it is at the negligible level of 3%.

The worst situation, which is not bad at all by the way, we notice at the maximum focal length where, by f/5.6, we saw the vignetting of 20% (-0.64 EV). Fortunately on stopping down by one stop we can make the problem decrease to only 2%.


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The Nikon device fared better than the Tamron and the Sigma in this category but, to our surprise, not better than the Canon 70-300 IS which reached fantastic results here as its highest vignetting level was only 11%. To sum up, we must emphasize that none of the 70-300 mm class instruments, tested here, showed vignetting that would be considered uncomfortable in daily use.

Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED VR - Vignetting

Nikon Nikkor AF-S 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED VR - Vignetting