Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 14-500mm f/2.8-5.6E ED VR Lens

January 13, 2016

Ok, so the headline is a joke, but it would be nice to own such a lens :) I recently got the Nikkor 200-500mm f/5.6 lens and was in Squamish looking for Bald Eagles. With me I also had my Nikkor 14-24 f/2.8 and Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 lenses. The 14-24 and 200-500 represent the two extremes of the focal lengths I’m able to shoot. I thought it may be fun to do a test to see just how much difference there is between 14mm and 500mm. I threw in a few intermediate focal lengths as well. The scene is in Squamish, BC, Canada beside the BC SPCA and looking northwest to Mount Garibaldi. All photos taken with the Nikon D810.

14mm

24mm (I noticed a slight difference at 24mm between the 14-24 and 24-70, discussed below.)

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED Lens Test : 24mm

70mm (Sorry for the typo on the image text, obviously not the 14-24.)

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED Lens Test : 70mm

200mm

300mm

400mm

500mm

Now an overlay between 14mm and 500mm, move mouse left/right to see both images.
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When does 24mm not mean 24mm?
Finally, when reviewing images taken during the testing I saw a difference between the 24mm images shot with the 14-24mm and 24-70mm. Here are the two images side by side.
[before_after border=”true” border_width=”2″ border_color=”#FFFFFF” direction=”vertical” start=”.50″ angle=”5″ slide=”hover” return_on_idle_interval=”5000″ return_on_idle_duration=”1000″ arrow_color=”#FFFFFF” arrow_gap=”5″ arrow_offset=”0″ scrollbar_pos=”top” scrollbar_color=”#FFFFFF” scrollbar_thickness=”8″ scrollbar_button_color=”#FFFFFF” scrollbar_button_thickness=”30″ before_image_id=”5466″ after_image_id=”5465″ arrows=”true”]

I then applied Lightroom’s lens correction to both 24mm images, to see if that would close the difference. A greater change was made to the 24-70, but there is still a substantial difference between the two. Here are the two corrected images.

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If anyone is curious on how the 200-500mm performed when shooting eagles, I have yet to process most photos but here are a couple initial images.