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Lens review

Nikon Nikkor AF-S 18-35 mm f/3.5-4.5G ED

10 December 2013
Arkadiusz Olech

5. Chromatic and spherical aberration

Chromatic aberration

One glance at the crop shown below is enough to know the tested lens doesn’t have any problems whatsoever with the longitudinal chromatic aberration.

Nikon Nikkor AF-S 18-35 mm f/3.5-4.5G ED - Chromatic and spherical aberration


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When it comes to the lateral version of aberration the situation is a bit different. Let’s take a close look at the graphs below. The first one shows how the lens performs on the edge of the APS-C/DX sensor and the second one concerns the edge of full frame.

Nikon Nikkor AF-S 18-35 mm f/3.5-4.5G ED - Chromatic and spherical aberration

Nikon Nikkor AF-S 18-35 mm f/3.5-4.5G ED - Chromatic and spherical aberration


It’s pretty obvious that the lateral aberration will be most bothersome at the most difficult combination of wide angle and the maximum relative aperture, where its level is really high. Fortunately, on stopping down it decreases swiftly and near f/5.6 it is already medium. The performance at the longer end of the focal range is very good. You can have small reservations concerning the combination of the 26 mm focal length and f/4.2 aperture but even there we are speaking about just a medium level. The slight stopping down can already reduce that aberration to a low level.

To sum up: taking into account the angles of view you deal with here, the performance of the tested lens in this category we assess very positively. It fares noticeably better than the Tokina 17-35 mm, tested by us not so long ago. On the other hand, though, if you look at the results on the smaller detector, the elderly Canon EF 17–40 mm f/4.0L USM seems to perform better.

Nikon Nikkor AF-S 18-35 mm f/3.5-4.5G ED - Chromatic and spherical aberration



Spherical aberration

The spherical aberration doesn’t manifest itself by „focus shift” but its influence is visible in the photos of defocused light points. The image in front of the focus has a lighter centre and that behind the focus – a dark centre surrounded by a lighter rim.

Nikon Nikkor AF-S 18-35 mm f/3.5-4.5G ED - Chromatic and spherical aberration